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HOUSTON—A widow in her 80s giving from a fixed income. A church planter in his 40s moving his family to a far-away city for the sake of the gospel. Seminary students with a passionate calling to reach future generations for Christ.
Some give. Others benefit. All impact the kingdom.
They are the ones who come to mind when Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Executive Director Nathan Lorick thinks about the Cooperative Program, the primary giving model that funds mission efforts worldwide through the Southern Baptist Convention.
Addressing messengers Tuesday (Nov. 12) at Sagemont Church during the final day of the SBTC Annual Meeting, Lorick made an impassioned plea for churches to continue to give joyfully and sacrificially as Southern Baptists prepare to mark CP’s 100th anniversary in 2025—a campaign that will be referred to as CP100.
“If you’re looking for an example of God multiplying the impact of your church, I can’t think of a better return on kingdom investment than the Cooperative Program,” Lorick said. “… I am asking the churches of our convention to prayerfully consider how God might lead your church to give in this anniversary year. Anniversaries are usually accompanied by gifts to honor the occasion. CP100 is an opportunity for record giving and record sending—acknowledging God’s favor for our cooperative work.”
Lorick said the SBTC, as well as Southern Baptists worldwide, will celebrate the milestone in a number of ways next year. The SBTC is challenging its churches to do three things:
- Pray for record giving. While thanking churches for giving a record $1,752,383 through the Reach Texas State Missions Offering this past year, Lorick said more than 1,000 of the SBTC’s 2,786 churches had not given through CP this year as of September. “One-thousand churches giving at least $1,000 would invest $1 million more into our cooperative mission to support more international missionaries, Texas church planters, and seminary students,” he said.
- Promote the effort by planning a CP Sunday on Oct. 5, 2025. Churches can use that day to emphasize the importance of CP giving, Lorick said.
- Post brief videos on social media testifying of the impact CP has had on people’s lives. The SBTC is asking those who post those videos to use the hashtag #cp100story.
“Can I challenge you to pray about leaning in with your Cooperative Program giving?” Lorick asked. “We all face challenges, but nothing allows us to impact Texas and the world like the Cooperative Program.”
European initiative announced
Lorick also used his annual report to announce an initiative with the International Mission Board to connect SBTC churches with opportunities to advance the gospel in Europe.
Pastors and church mission leaders were invited to participate in a vision trip to Europe May 1-9, 2025. The trip, Lorick said, is designed to create strategic pathways to mobilize SBTC churches to partner with and support IMB’s 550 missionaries, projects, and global partners across Europe. Nearly 11% of those missionary units are from SBTC churches, Lorick said.
Vision trip attendees will gather in London for training and then be assigned to one of seven strategic locations: Nantes, France; Copenhagen, Denmark; Leeds, England; Bucharest, Romania; Budapest, Hungary; Ljubljana, Slovenia; and Athens, Greece. More information about the vision trip can be found on the SBTC’s website.
Noting the Christian population of Europe is 1.1% of the continent’s 820 million people, Lorick said, “Europe is not only one of the least engaged continents in the world, but it is also the most strategic, as it continues to be the most influential continent in the world—representing nearly every people group and every language.”
The initiative is similar to other efforts developed by the SBTC over the past couple of years in Nevada, Puerto Rico, and India.
