This an article I wrote in 2015 for our Tri-County Baptist Association’s newsletter. The percentages have changed a little, but the mission has not.

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There is an important number in our church’s budget.  To me, it’s just as important as the bottom line.  It’s the number 12.  12% of our undesignated gifts go to support the Cooperative Program of the Southern Baptist Convention.  Your number may be different; it could be more or it could be less.  But as Southern Baptists we all should have a number like that in our planned spending.  Why?  The answer is simple.  We can do more together than we can individually.

           Southern Baptists have always been an independent bunch.  We don’t have an overarching authority that tells us what to believe, or who our Pastor will be, or how we will do ministry.  Each church is autonomous.  Each has the right – within certain scriptural boundaries – to decide these things for itself.  We cooperate with one another not because we have to, but because we want to.  Together we form a cooperating association of churches that does ministry together in our county, and across the Tri-County area.  We are not in competition with each other… we are in cooperation with each other; reaching our part of the world for Jesus Christ.

           When you expand that out onto a grander scale, you find that our county associations also cooperate with one another and form the Mississippi Baptist Convention.  Expand that out even more and you see that our state conventions cooperate with one another to form the Southern Baptist Convention.  Our bond is not just one of words.  We back up our association and convention with support.  We pray for one another.  We cooperate with one another.  And we financially support the combined work of ministry. 

When you place your tithe in the offering plate, it supports your church, your Pastor, and your local ministry.  But a portion of it also supports associational ministry, state ministry, national ministry, and ministry all over the world.  How?  Our Cooperative Program does this for us.  All the different agencies of the Southern Baptist Convention, as well as our Mississippi Baptist Convention benefit from the gift you give on Sunday morning. 

           Nearly a third of the International Mission Board’s budget comes to them through the Cooperative Program.  Much of the budget of the North American Mission Board comes through CP giving.  Agencies like The Ethics And Religious Liberty Commission, our Southern Baptist seminaries, and our SBC Executive Committee receive their funding through your church’s Cooperative Program giving.  The world is engaged with the truth of Scripture, ministers are trained for service to God, and the programs of our convention are managed and expanded all because of your gift.           

Thank you, Tri-County churches, for continuing to support the Cooperative Program through your regular giving.  Your dollar goes farther than you ever realize when a portion of it supports missions and Kingdom building through our Cooperative Program.