Current trends at every level of cooperative giving should be a concern for everyone. This includes the support provided by individual church members to their church, the level of support provided by a church to its partner organizations, and the division made by state conventions in conjunction with the national bodies. What standards are we willing to support, condone, or simply ignore in our current system?
The level of a spring-fed pond on the farm rose or fell based on numerous factors. The spring's rate of flow and rainfall were the only sources of water. Ground seepage and evaporation accounted for primary losses. As long as the water entering the pond was equal to or greater than the amount leaving the pond, everyone was happy. When the loss exceeded the input, the pond started going dry. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the application to the funding programs of our churches, associations, and conventions.
Church members who designate their financial gifts away from the unified budget may still get a tax deduction, but in the long run it hurts the ministry capability of the church. Churches that designate their gifts to the state and national conventions instead of supporting the Cooperative Program may feel good about their mission support, but they hurt the ability of the conventions to do their work. When national conventions demand greater slices of the financial pie and state conventions don't have a larger pie from which to draw, then the pond starts to go dry and eventually everyone suffers.
Some future courses of action might include:
1. Individuals find in their local church's unified budget the best way to support the work of the Kingdom of God from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth by contributing 5-10% of their income. This puts more money into the network even if organizational percentages don't change.
2. ALL churches get behind the Cooperative Program and support it at a percentage level that reveals their commitment to the unified budgets of the conventions as the priority mission support channel. This allows for a healthy flow of adequate funds into the state convention and then on to the national level. If the current SBC church average approximates 6%, then 7% would be a healthy initial goal.
3. Sufficient churches continue to demand the right to send their money anywhere and still make decisions about the unified budget system of the state and national conventions. Less money goes into the Cooperative Program pool and supplies less for all channels going out. Additional cuts have to be made to unified budget priorities.
4. Sufficient churches demand that more money go out of the unified budgets of state conventions to national and international causes while giving minimal percentages to the state unified budget themselves. The state resources continue to shrink forcing more cuts to be made, further limiting the state's ability to meet ministry and mission needs within its field. Ultimately the state has to decide what it can and cannot support among former priorities. The two sides of the Great Commission coin, evangelism and discipleship, appear to come into conflict. Because this will result in less impact on the local church, the process will contribute to the increased dollar shortfall felt by national organizations that depend upon the states' providing supportive funding even though percentages sent are increasing.
I wonder:
Will the North American Mission Board decide to depend upon retail sales, designated gifts, and the Annie Armstrong offering for funding and focus on its own church planting program divorcing itself from all state covention involvement?
Will the International Mission Board begin to partner as a priority with missionaries already supported by individual churches jointly commissioning them to maintain a higher missionary force?
Will Southern Baptists decide that six convention seminaries are unnecessary, closing at least one of the "Bible Belt" schools to save money while depending more upon independent seminaries that are quasi-Southern Baptist to provide ministerial training?
Will associations become more creative and effective in providing local church support for missions, ministry, and training through cooperative efforts among churches and with other associations on a regular basis? Will they develop their own mission partnerships focusing on areas where their churches have a specific interest?
Based upon the changes in the last thirty years, the next thirty may well end with nothing that looks like the organizational structure we know today much less with what we were familiar in 1980. Since associations are outside the Cooperative Program channel, their efforts to increase ministry funding may have a significant impact on the efforts by other organizations to increase financial loyalty.
