NASHVILLE (BP) — Contributions to Southern Baptist Convention national and international missions and ministries received by the SBC Executive Committee in August were 2.05 percent above the projected budget through eleven months of the current fiscal year and 0.51 percent above the amount received during the same period last year, according to a news release from SBC Executive Committee President and CEO Ronnie Floyd.
As of August 31, gifts received by the Executive Committee for distribution through the CP Allocation Budget totaled $181,472,079.52, or $919,611.60 above the $180,552,467.92 received through the first 11 months of the 2017–2018 fiscal year. The fiscal year begins on Oct. 1. The August YTD total is $3,638,746.19 above the $177,833,333.33 YTD allocation budget projection to support Southern Baptist ministries globally and across North America.
“The Cooperative Program supports our missional vision of presenting the Gospel of Jesus Christ to every person in the world and making disciples of all nations,” Floyd said. “The CP is a means to that end, it is not the end itself.
“The only way we can fund a multitude of overseas missionaries, support thousands of North American church planters, help underwrite the costs of seminary education, and promote religious liberty and ethical engagement in the public square is through cooperative giving,” he said. “If we truly believe that men and women are lost without Christ and in desperate need of a Savior, we must prioritize, elevate, and accelerate generosity through our churches in support of our cooperative ministries.
“Reaching the world with the Gospel is the only reason the SBC exists,” he noted. “Our commitment is to reach every town, every city, every state, and every nation in this world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Your church’s financial gifts through the Cooperative Program is the key to helping us advance this Great Commission vision.”
Year-to-date designated giving of $187,322,357.34 was 1.41 percent, or $2,678,091.11, below gifts of $190,000,448.45 received in the first eleven months of last year’s fiscal year. Designated contributions include the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions, the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions, Southern Baptist Global Hunger Relief, Disaster Relief and other special gifts. This total includes only those gifts received and distributed by the Executive Committee and does not reflect designated gifts contributed directly to SBC entities.
Meanwhile, CP allocation receipts for SBC work for the month of August totaled $17,466,894.53. Designated gifts received in August amounted to $6,243,071.50.
The CP is Southern Baptists’ channel of giving, begun in 1925, through which a local church can contribute to the ministries of its state convention and the missions and ministries of the SBC through a unified giving plan to support both sets of ministries. Monies include receipts from individuals, churches and state conventions for distribution according to the 2018-2019 Cooperative Program Allocation Budget.
State and regional conventions retain a portion of church contributions to Southern Baptists’ Cooperative Program to support work in their respective areas and forward a percentage to SBC national and international causes. The percentage of distribution is at the discretion of each state or regional convention.
The convention-adopted budget for 2018-2019 is $194 million and is disbursed as follows: 50.41 percent to international missions through the International Mission Board, 22.79 percent to North American missions through the North American Mission Board, 22.16 percent to theological education through the six SBC seminaries and the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives, 2.99 percent to the SBC operating budget and 1.65 percent to the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. If national CP gifts exceed the $194 million budget projection by the end of the fiscal year, the Executive Committee’s portion of any overage falls to 0.0 percent while IMB’s portion increases to 53.4 percent of any overage. The other entities’ percentage distributions of any overage remain the same. The SBC Executive Committee distributes all CP and designated gifts it receives on a weekly basis to the SBC ministry entities.
Month-to-month swings reflect a number of factors, including the timing of when the cooperating state Baptist conventions forward the national portion of Cooperative Program contributions to the Executive Committee, the day of the month churches forward their CP contributions to their state conventions, the number of Sundays in a given month, and the percentage of CP contributions forwarded to the SBC by the state conventions after shared ministry expenses are deducted.
CP allocation budget gifts received by the Executive Committee are reported monthly to the executives of the entities of the convention, to the state convention offices, to the state Baptist papers and are posted online at www.cpmissions.net/CPReports.