June 18, 2001
Messengers approve $178.3 million
Cooperative Program goal for 2001-02
___By Marv Knox
__Texas Baptist Standard
___NEW ORLEANS--The Southern Baptist Convention's Cooperative Program goal for its 2001-02 fiscal year will be $178.3 million.
___The Cooperative Program, the SBC's unified ministry budget, received approval from messengers to the convention's annual meeting in New Orleans June 12-13.
___Messengers also stood twice to applaud former denominational leader James L. Sullivan, who received the annual M.E. Dodd Award for lifetime support of the Cooperative Program.
___According to convention policy, the 2001-02 Cooperative Program budget, which begins in October, will be the same as CP receipts for the 1999-2000 budget, the latest to be completed. The goal for the current year is $168 million.
___The Cooperative Program is the primary means by which Southern Baptist churches fund state and national conventions. The CP is collected by state conventions, which retain a portion for their ministries and forward the balance to the national SBC.
___The $178.3 million goal is the national segment of the budget. It funds a major portion of the budgets of the SBC's 12 national agencies and institutions.
___For instance, in 1999-2000, the Cooperative Program provided $178.3 million to the 12 national entities. They also received nearly $163.3 million in designated funds that were distributed through the Executive Committee. Most of the organizations also supplement their ministries with other income, such as interest on endowments, fees and funds earned on services.
___The new budget proposes to channel $89.1 million to the International Mission Board; $40.6 million to the North American Mission Board; and almost $38.6 million to theological education, including six national seminaries.
___It also earmarks nearly $2.7 million for the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission; about $1.4 million for the Annuity Board; and $5.9 million for the SBC operating budget, which channels the majority of that amount to the Executive Committee and $425,000 to the Baptist World Alliance.
___Cooperative Program giving has increased for the last seven consecutive years, setting a record each year, noted Morris Chapman, president of the SBC Executive Committee.
___This year, receipts are running less than 1 percent behind last year's pace, Chapman added, calling for Southern Baptists to give more to keep the string of increases going.
___Sullivan, a denominational leader who was president of the SBC Sunday School Board from 1953 to 1975 and president of the convention in 1977, also affirmed the Cooperative Program.
___Sullivan, 91, became a Christian four years before the Cooperative Program was created. He recalled tithing a nickel of his weekly "sludge money" allowance and feeling frustrated as he tried to divide five cents between local and worldwide missions causes.
___The Cooperative Program is "the most economical system through which funds could be elicited," Sullivan said. "It is fair, consistent and constant. When we put a dollar into the offering plate today through the Cooperative Program, it touches all the world."
___In other business recommended by the Executive Committee, messengers approved the $6.8 million SBC operating budget for 2001-02, the 2005-06 SBC calendar and the final report on Bold Mission Thrust, the 25-year missions/evangelism campaign.
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