Messengers approved a request by the Executive Committee June 13 to amend its earlier recommendation to the Southern Baptist Convention aimed at strengthening Cooperative Program giving.
The action followed a vote of 35-27 by Executive Committee members June 12 to revise two of its nine recommendations to the convention regarding the final report of the Ad Hoc Cooperative Program Committee issued in February.
One of the recommendations now encourages churches “to give an increasing percentage of undesignated receipts through the Cooperative Program” but no longer specifies a 10 percent goal.
Another now encourages the election of leaders whose churches “systematically and enthusiastically lead by example in giving sacrificially and proportionally through the Cooperative Program,” again without mention of a 10 percent target.
The original wording was part of a report by the Ad Hoc Committee, a 10-member group of state executives, Executive Committee President Morris H. Chapman and Bob Rodgers, the Executive Committee's vice president for Cooperative Program.
Executive Committee officers suggested the amendments after receiving feedback from large and small churches across the convention, including many who perceived the recommendations as a mandate from convention leaders infringing on the autonomy of the local church.
Anthony Jordan, executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma and chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee, told messengers he believes this is one of the finest hours in the history of the convention and church members have a responsibility to step forward and reach the world with the gospel. But, he added, he also believes the convention is “on the brink of defaulting in our responsibility.”
“In 1980 the Southern Baptist Convention gave 10.7 percent per church of undesignated receipts to the Cooperative Program,” Jordan said. “Today that number is 6.6 percent. In the greatest hour of opportunity, we're walking away from our responsibility to fund the greatest missionary force in the evangelical history of Christendom.”
Rob Zinn, chairman of the Executive Committee, told the messengers he did not want the recommendation to be misconstrued.
“We are all pro-Cooperative Program. We believe in the Cooperative Program,” Zinn said. “But we also are getting phone calls, and we are trying to be sensitive to all of our churches and our messengers and our people and our pastors. And we believe by putting a percentage there, it is being misconstrued and perceived that we are mandating what to give. We are simply encouraging all churches to give.”