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TalkCP new online forum for SBC Gospel work


EDITOR’S NOTE: October is Cooperative Program Emphasis Month in the Southern Baptist Convention.

NASHVILLE (BP) — A new online forum to discuss the work and support of Southern Baptist missions and ministries fueled by the Cooperative Program has been launched at TalkCP.com.

Designed to meet the needs of the next generation of Southern Baptists, the site features blogposts from notable SBC entity heads, pastors and other leaders as well as archived interviews conducted on the CP platform and stage at the 2016 SBC annual meeting in St. Louis.

Ashley Clayton, vice president for Cooperative Program and stewardship for the SBC Executive Committee, describes the site as a meeting place for the SBC family that allows an open and public conversation about Southern Baptists advancing the Gospel.

“In the past, it seems we were constantly trying to defend the Cooperative Program, or sell something that people were not certain about. TalkCP allows the Cooperative Program to speak for itself,” Clayton said. “It’s similar in concept to what [Charles] Spurgeon said, ‘…defend the Bible? I would as soon defend a lion! Unchain, and it will defend itself!’ TalkCP does just that.”

The CP is a unified plan of giving that allows Southern Baptist churches to give a percentage of their undesignated receipts to support Southern Baptist missions and ministries.

TalkCP will feature regular and guest bloggers, and is designed to attract especially members of the Southern Baptist Young Leaders Network of young pastors, seminary students, church planters, missionaries and others committed to the SBC’s core values. Downloadable, educational videos are among TalkCP.com’s free resources.

“In the last four or five years under Dr. [Frank S.] Page’s leadership, we have tried to expand the conversation about the Cooperative Program,” Clayton said. “We have highlighted the conversation at the SBC annual meetings each year with panel discussions and interviews in the Exhibit Hall at the Cooperative Program stage and platform. We have sponsored pastor listening sessions across the convention where the intent is to listen to what pastors and church leaders are saying. TalkCP is a digital and online expression of this same type forum, an open and unedited dialogue.”

In addition to Page, commentators featured on the site are entity leaders Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary; Kevin Ezell, president of the North American Mission Board; and David Platt, president of the International Mission Board.

Others who have blogged at TalkCP.com are Jon Akin, pastor of Fairview Baptist Church in Lebanon, Tenn., and co-founder of Baptist21; Whitney Clayton, an SBC church planter and pastor of Living Stone Community Church, Phoenix; Andy Hale, pastor of First Baptist Church in Mt. Juliet, Tenn.; Vance Pitman, pastor of Hope Church in Las Vegas; Paul Chitwood, executive director of the Kentucky Baptist Convention; Randy Davis, executive director of the Tennessee Baptist Convention; Kevin Smith, executive director of the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware; and Chris Martin, executive director of the Hawaii Pacific Baptist Convention.

TalkCP.com was launched June 13 during the SBC annual meeting.