On Stones and Glass Houses

FBC Farmersville gives to missions according to the traditional Southern Baptist pattern. Each month we tabulate our undesignated receipts for the month. We calculate 10% of that figure and write a monthly check to the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention to be distributed through the Cooperative Program. Every year at Christmas time, we set a goal for our Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. We place a collection of unlit Christmas lights at the front of the auditorium, lighting a portion of them each week to show our progress toward our goal. This year the generosity of the people at FBC Farmersville has yielded (as always) an amount greater than our goal and over $16,000 (I do not yet know the final amount). We also collect an amount toward the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering.

These days, many churches no longer give through the Cooperative Program in that manner. Also, many churches these days collect neither a Lottie Moon Christmas Offering nor an Annie Armstrong Easter Offering. Rather, they have pursued any number of alternative approaches to funding world evangelization. Some churches put flat amounts into their budgets for CP, LMCO, and AAEO. Other churches collect a consolidated missions offering, distributing their missions money according to a predetermined missions budget. Some churches adopt hybrids of these three methods (the traditional approach, the budget approach, and the combined offering approach).

Consider, for example, Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, OK. From 2001 through 2006, EBC gave a flat budgeted amount through the CP ($100,000 in 2001 and 2002, $105,000 in 2003 - 2006). For 2007, EBC gave a larger amount ($115,250). The 2007 CP gift represented just over 5% of undesignated receipts, an increase from the 2006 percentage (4.87%) but a decrease from the 2001-2006 average (6.80% with an anomalous outlying year in 2004 in which the budgeted figure amounted to 14%...one wonders whether the ACP data is accurate for that year).

EBC's stats also suggest that the church has experimented with flat budget amounts for LMCO and AAEO. In 2001 and 2002, the respective amounts for LMCO and AAEO were $40,000 and $30,000. In 2003 and 2004, they were $42,000 and $31,500. In 2005 the church gave a commendable increase of $60,291 to the LMCO (looks to me like the kind of uneven figure that would represent either the collection of a traditional offering or a percentage assignment from the budget receipts). AAEO results for that year declined to $3,383, so that the total amount given to the missions offerings had actually declined by around $10,000. The years 2006 and 2007 witnessed a precipitous decline in LMCO giving, from $60,291 to $8,400 (2006) and $9,000 (2007). These round figures suggest a return to a budgeted amount (or perhaps a donor committed to raising the gifts to a particular figure). The AAEO offerings for 2006 and 2007 were $5,600 and $6,300.

Like many churches these days, EBC has pursued a significant level of missions giving outside the Cooperative Program and the missions offerings. Lately, these traditional vehicles have accounted for around a fifth of EBC's self-reported missions involvement. Below is the data table for Emmanuel Baptist Church, Enid.

Emmanuel Baptist Church, Enid, OK
	Undes. Rcpts.	CP	%	LMCO	%	AAEO	%	Tot. Msns.	%
2007	2,212,115.00	111,250.00	5.03%	9,000.00	0.41%	6,300.00	0.28%	580,301.00	26.23%
2006	2,156,442.00	105,000.00	4.87%	8,400.00	0.39%	5,600.00	0.26%	573,614.00	26.60%
2005	1,912,782.00	105,000.00	5.49%	60,291.00	3.15%	3,383.00	0.18%	313,495.00	16.39%
2004	750,000.00	105,000.00	14.00%	42,000.00	5.60%	31,500.00	4.20%	316,700.00	42.23%
2003	2,013,524.00	100,000.00	5.21%	42,000.00	2.09%	31,500.00	1.56%	319,200.00	15.85%
2002	1,907,221.00	100,000.00	5.24%	40,000.00	2.10%	30,000.00	1.57%	294,200.00	15.43%
2001	1,672,420.00	100,000.00	5.98%	40,000.00	2.39%	30,000.00	1.79%	288,300.00	17.24%

Highview Baptist Church's statistics show the pattern of a church that collects a unified missions offering, distributing it to the various Southern Baptist missions causes according to a predetermined formula. For example, you might note in the table below that the ratio between the LMCO and the AAEO figures in 2001 and 2002 are the same. It looks like they were distributing the missions offering according to the same percentages those years.

Lottie Moon's idea was that each Southern Baptist church should emphasize and collect a special offering just for Foreign Missions around the time of Christmas, forwarding all of the proceeds to the Foreign Missions Board (now IMB). A century later, many of our churches no longer follow Lottie Moon's plan, apparently including both of these churches. Yet, the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering is one of those changeable methods, not one of those timeless principles. I believe that the LMCO is a method that still works; therefore, FBC Farmersville still collects a Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. The principle is to provide the needed funding for our global missionary efforts. If someone could demonstrate to me that some other method would result in greater IMB funding from FBC Farmersville, then I would gladly do the something else. Indeed, we tried the combined missions offering one year, but we quickly decided that we preferred the traditional method. Nevertheless, I do not fault either of these churches for departing from the traditional model. They are both supporting world missions, as Highview's table of data reveals.

Highview Baptist Church, Louisville, KY
	Undes. Rcpts.	CP	%	LMCO	%	AAEO	%	Tot. Msns.	%
2007	---Not Yet Reported---
2006	5,082,133.00	167,917.00	3.30%	0.00	0.00%	0.00	0.00%	726,185.00	14.29%
2005	4,185,873.00	175,183.00	4.19%	32,470.00	0.78%	6,958.00	0.17%	579,781.00	13.85%
2004	3,843,663.00	153,500.00	3.99%	4,096.00	0.11%	1,050.00	0.03%	384,030.00	9.99%
2003	3,475,634.00	152,664.00	4.39%	7,222.00	0.21%	1,896.00	0.05%	327,374.00	9.42%
2002	3,105,191.00	151,333.00	4.87%	57,163.00	1.84%	15,243.00	0.49%	638,373.00	20.56%
2001	2,920,309.00	146,000.00	5.00%	67,733.00	2.32%	18,062.00	0.62%	352,328.00	12.06%

Highview's data for 2007 has not yet appeared on the ACP data site. After very little effort on my part, however, I was able to obtain a copy of Highview's 2008 missions plan. They have entitled their plan "Millions for Missions." I like it already, just from the title. A close-up look at their plan reveals what their ACP data suggested—they collect a unified missions offering. Their goals for 2008 are impressive. The data is in PDF format, and I don't know of a quick and easy way to move that over into an HTML table, so I'll just give you the highlights manually.

Millions to Missions
Local Missions		409,800.00
National Missions		200,000.00
International Missions		670,000.00
	Cooperative Program	400,000.00
	Lottie Moon	100,000.00

Under the International Missions area, I broke out their Cooperative Program and Lottie Moon line items to show you the kind of commitment this church has made to SBC missions—half a million dollars! Another $150,000 goes to Southern Baptist church plants in places like Philadelphia and New York City.

Personally, I favor the traditional method. I recommend it to Emmanuel Enid, Highview Louisville, and everyone else. Our 10% to CP has served FBC Farmersville well for years. Collecting a Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and an Annie Armstrong Easter Offering works well for us. Other churches do it another way. I think that we would all get more money to the mission field if we all followed the traditional approach, but I am thankful for the money that both of these churches send to missions. Although my much smaller church reported more money to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering in 2006 than either of these churches, I have no desire to sling stones in either of their directions. I think that all three of our churches want to see every knee bow and hear every tongue confess, and all three of our churches are hard at work about it in our own way. In most categories of the ACP, both of these churches leave FBC Farmersville way back in the dust. Look at our numbers long enough, and you'll see that we have plenty of weaknesses. That's why I'm not going to hurl any stones in these ACP number wars. I certainly recommend the same course of action to Wade Burleson.

As a final comment, allow me to take a stab at suggesting how we should employ CP statistics in evaluating candidates for service to the SBC at any level.

We ought to ask the question, "How much credit/blame should candidate X get for church Y's CP giving?" My church has a great CP-giving record. I'll tell you right off the bat, I don't deserve much credit for it. FBC Farmersville has been faithfully supporting the Cooperative Program for a long time—long before I showed up here nine years ago. I'll take some credit for having no desire to lead the church away from strong CP support, but that's as far as it goes. Current SBC President Frank Page also pastors a church with stellar CP giving. He deserves less credit than I do—under his watch Taylors has reduced its CP giving. Nevertheless, I'm betting that he might have enough clout there to have reduced it even more, and he deserves credit for his restraint in lowering CP giving while at Taylors. I once led a church that gave zero through the CP. I fought it for the two years that I served there, and then I left. I deserved absolutely none of the blame whatsoever for that church's lack of CP support. Current SBC Vice President Jim Richards is the architect of the Southern Baptist of Texas Convention's phenomenal and sacrificial CP budget, so he deserves an enormous amount of credit for what SBTC does. Show me a pastor who went to a church that was giving very little to CP when he came, but is giving 10% now, and I'll show you someone who is likely a CP champion.

The only way that Southern Baptist Theological Seminary gets money from Highview Baptist Church is through the Cooperative Program, as far as I can tell. From that fact alone, I can promise you that the Southern's president is a voice in favor of strong CP support within the membership of Highview. Let no one imply otherwise, especially unless one has done the basic research to support such an accusation.