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This fall, about 70 Texas churches are taking the “Vote CP” challenge?a promotional play on the 2004 election season to boost Southern Baptists’ Cooperative Program.
Utilizing a DVD containing sermons, PowerPoint presentations, Sunday school lessons and video clips, churches are already gearing up to educate their congregations and boost their evangelism efforts.
“Vote CP asks churches to take decisive action to close the widening gap between those who have heard the Good News of Christ and those who have not by enhancing their cooperative efforts to reach the world,” explained David Hankins, executive vice president of the Executive Committee. “A vote for CP is a vote for sending more missionaries, for thoroughly equipping godly leaders and for baptizing more people through increased evangelistic efforts.”
Many churches have made longtime commitments to the CP, but it is becoming common for members to be ignorant of the 79-year-old missions funding mechanism. The Vote CP campaign aims to reach church members with the “who, what, when, where, and why” of the program.
Statt Riddlebarger, pastor of Pearsall Road Baptist Church in San Antonio, said he preached “on missions and the Cooperative Program from Matthew 28 using the video clips from the DVD” the week after receiving the Vote CP resources. “This resource was helpful because it showed a movie that introduced CP and how it started in 1925.”
“We wanted to use this material for people who didn’t understand the Cooperative Program, so they could see and understand what missions is all about,” Riddlebarger said.
Riddlebarger said he assumed his church members knew what the Cooperative Program was. It wasn’t until a younger minister serving in his church came up to him and said, “Why don’t we support people in missions in this church?” that he realized the “Vote CP” campaign was a must.
“We have been longtime supporters of the Cooperative Program, but I realized that the minister was younger and had no concept of CP,” Riddlebarger said. “This has been a helpful tool in helping people understand why we participate in mission projects. A visiting person said this past Sunday, ‘I’m so glad you’re preaching this stuff.'”
CP Missions development director John Kyle said the DVD helps churches see the Cooperative Program as more than just a budget item. “This is how you’re reaching people when your church is not over in Brazil on that mission trip. The other 51 weeks of the year people are being reached because of the Cooperative Program.”
The portion Southern Baptist churches allocate for CP has declined from an average of 10 percent to below seven percent. “It’s been a downward trend for 20 years. One big Lottie Moon offering in one year is not going to be enough to sustain [Southern Baptist ministries] much less increase our mission efforts,” Kyle said, referring to last year’s record-breaking offering of $133 million. “We know what God’s told us to do. We have the best way to do it together if we decide to do it.”
While 95 percent of Southern Baptist churches participate in the CP at some level, Kyle suspects that 80 to 90 percent of the people have no idea what the CP is or what it does. “If budget time is the only time we think of it and just see it as a line item in the budget, that’s no vision. Before presenting anything to the church, we need to look unto the fields and get our eyes off the spreadsheet.”
Pastor James McGinlay of First Baptist Church Lakeside in Fort Worth purchased the Vote CP materials at the annual Southern Baptist convention. “I went looking for some way to promote the Cooperative Program. A lot of people don’t even know what it is,” McGinlay said. “I wanted something we could put on the big screen before the service and in the bulletins.”
McGinlay, like others, has vowed to put on a special program that will pinpoint missions. “People just aren’t sold out to missions like they used to be. If we were to offer a new class on parenting or marriage at our church, people would rush to sign up. But when we say we’re going to offer a class on missions, they aren’t interested.”
First Baptist Church of Garrison’s pastor, John McGuire, stated, “The pastor has to have a passion for missions and for sharing it with his church. The younger generation is disconnected and not interested in the organizational, denominational, or associational work of the SBC. They see only the local situations and it’s difficult to see beyond that. There are some blessed exceptions, though. The youth that are dedicated to missions are the most focused group we have.”
McGinlay is currently rewriting the curriculum to be used in the new members class at his church, where attendance is required for at least five sessions to join the church.
For more information on the Vote CP campaign, visit www.sbc.net/votecp.
