News Articles by John Sullivan

It begins with you Southern Baptists’ Cooperative Program begins with the offerings by church members, a portion of which is sent by the churches to their state or regional Baptist convention, which in turn allocate a percentage of the receipts to Southern Baptist national and international missions and ministries. Photo courtesy of the Florida Baptist Convention

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (BP)--The Cooperative Program was adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention in 1925. However, I believe the concept was in the mind of W.B. Johnson and Southern Baptists’ founding fathers in 1845 when they wrote that the SBC was designed to organize “a plan for eliciting, combining and directing the energies of the denomination.” The words still appear in the SBC Constitution.
    The word “elicit” means “to call forth,” such as in emotions, feelings and responses. I think the founding fathers used the word “combining” because they believed we could accomplish more together than individually because of the common cause of the Great Commission.