CP support ‘a moral obligation,’ SBC president tells Texans

By Jerry Pierce
February 11, 2007
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EULESS?Addressing the crowd at the annual SBTC Cooperative Program Luncheon on Feb. 6 at First Baptist Church of Euless, Southern Baptist Convention President Frank Page said the priority of the SBC’s Cooperative Program missions-funding channel propelled his election last June.

“I know that when June 13 occurred, what happened had nothing to do with me because you didn’t know me,” Page said. “The people of the convention did not know me. There were some issues people thought were important. And one of the issues people thought was important was the Cooperative Program. Lots of people rose up to say, ‘It does matter.’ It still matters.

Page, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Taylors, S.C., which last year sent more than 12 percent of its undesignated offerings for SBC causes through the CP, said he has spoken with friends who lead large churches with elaborate in-house missions programs, and he said those programs are valued.

“Hear me well,” Page said. “We thank God for what you are doing. I never cast aspersions on anyone doing work for the Lord.”

In fact, he said his church will directly send missions teams this year to nearly every continent and is partnering with Baptists in Maine, where he has traveled recently to work with pastors, and Calgary, Alberta, where they are helping plant churches.

Nevertheless, “I believe there is a moral obligation to support the Cooperative Program. If I am a Southern Baptist, I have a moral obligation. Some of them have said, ‘We don’t need the Cooperative Program?we can do it on our own.’ No, but we need to be needed,” Page said.

“And I believe we have a moral obligation to support the 10,000-plus missionaries across our continent, across our world.”

Even so, Page reminded the audience that his generation of Baby Boomers and those younger are not loyal to long-standing institutions.

“It is not genetic to us to support institutions out of hand. And I have tried to share with all the entities and agencies [that] we must do a far better job of showing the worth and opportunity of the Cooperative Program. Because people my age and younger, we want to see where it is going, what it is doing. And then we will support it.”

“I believe that we can show that it is the great test mechanism ever devised to do the greattest work God has ever called us to do,” Page said.

Texas is a great state, and this convention is leading this state to show how to do a great work for God. So thank you, Southern Baptists of Texas. Thank you for the support you are giving, for the leading ? so that others might follow that example.”

Turning to Numbers 13 and the account of Caleb, Joshua and the other spies Israel sent into the Promised Land, Page explained that those who opposed Caleb and Joshua’s notion of possessing the land took up stones to kill them. “The majority report said ‘no way,'”

Like the ancient Hebrews, “Let me tell you, we live in a land worth taking.” Page said, even though “there are some difficult times ahead of us.”

“We know we live in a difficult day. There are many obstacles to us reaching this land for Christ. There are factions that break my heart in this Southern Baptist Convention,” Pag