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Happy New Year! I am excited about God’s presence and His work in 2013. The SBTC staff is hitting the ground running. It is our privilege to assist the churches in the awesome assignment of the Great Commission.
I’m not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet. My role is to be a “forth” teller, not a foreteller. However, there are some exciting projections I have for the coming 12 months.
El Paso is about to experience a mighty move of God. Scores of churches and hundreds of volunteers will make their way to Texas’ most western city. We are praying for thousands to come to Christ. Chuy and Maria Avila, your SBTC/NAMB missionaries, are relocating from Laredo where God has showered his blessings over them the last few years. Churches were started, existing churches were strengthened and the entire city was covered with the gospel. The same will happen in El Paso.
Student Ministry is already promising to be a year for reaching a record number of young people. The first summer camp is full. The second week of camp is over half reserved. There will be a Student Evangelism Conference on the campus of Southwestern Seminary and one in McAllen. I believe there will be huge numbers of kids coming to Christ and answering the call to ministry at these events.
The SENT Conference, the Equip Conference, and other training/encouraging activities will continue to assist the local church in carrying out the Great Commission. While there are many challenges facing us in 2013, this could be the best year ever. It could also be the year that the Lord Jesus comes!
Some things will stay the same. Over the previous 14 years of the existence of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, we have made much of our first two core values and rightfully so. We are a confessional fellowship of churches. Churches are willing to work within the parameters of the Baptist Faith & Message (2000). Unapologetically churches identify with the SBTC as an “inerrantist” convention. The Executive Board has defined a “high view of Scripture” so there would be no question where we stand on the nature of Scripture. We are a Bible-believing group of Baptists. We are Biblically Based.
The second core value is the Kingdom Focus. Keeping the funding and staffing majored on missions and evangelism puts the emphasis where the churches want it. A small-numbered staff still provides over 100 ministries to 2,400 churches stretching across the expanse of Texas. Our first core value is about who we are. This core value is about what we do.
The third core value has not had the emphasis of the other two through the years. We have called it by different names through the years. The third core value was originally called the “Methodological Approach.” It is about how we do what we do. Now it is Missionally Driven. While the nomenclature has been modified, the meaning has not. The SBTC is made up of missionally driven churches. A funding method that works better than anything used in the evangelical world makes us missionally driven. It is the Cooperative Program.
The Cooperative Program is the funding vehicle that makes missions and ministry possible in Texas and beyond. Churches choose to participate by sending funds to the SBTC. Messengers at the SBTC annual meeting vote on a budget that allocates the disbursement of monies. Fifty-five percent of the adopted budget goes to the Southern Baptist Convention. A little over half of the Southern Baptist Convention budget goes to the International Mission Board with 22.16 percent going to the North American Mission Board. The six SBC seminaries who train Christian workers receive about 22 percent, too. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission gets 1.65 percent. The SBC Executive Committee has 3.2 percent for operational purposes. By giving through the CP a church, large or small, invests in reaching the unengaged peoples of India, China and other challenging places. A church helps train Christian workers for existing churches and a wide range of ministries.
In Texas the 45 percent that remains is invested in similar ways. Church planting is over $1 million in the operating budget. Evangelism and missions make up almost 40 percent of the in-state allocations. Colleges, children’s homes, ministers’ retirement homes and other beneficial ministries receive a portion (less than 10 percent of the in-state budget). The personnel costs of salary and housing total less than 14 percent of the total budget.
Every church should do as much as it can locally, nationally and internationally. Mission trips and hands-on efforts are vital to the spiritual life of the church. However, no church can do it all. By joining with other churches of like faith every church can have an uninterrupted ministry locally and globally. When a church gives through the CP your dollar never sleeps. Around the world or in the middle of the night, there are CP missions and ministry taking place.
All the projections of ministry for 2013 that I made in the opening paragraphs of this article are only possible by the good pleasure of the churches. Your church determines what kind of missions and ministry you want to happen in Texas. By praying, going and giving you have a part. The Cooperative Program is the common tool we use to make it happen. In 2013 I want to challenge you to pray about increasing your church’s participation through the Cooperative Program by 1 percent. If your church is not giving, give 1 percent. If your church is giving, consider giving 1 percent more. What this will do is enable us together to reach more, teach more and love on more people. Let’s make 2013 the greatest year for Jesus ever!
