Unsexy Church

Season 3 Episode 17: The Cooperative Program

• First Baptist Tampa • Season 1 • Episode 17

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The Unsexy Church Podcast

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ABOUT THE PODCAST

The Unsexy Church is a weekly podcast exploring the real, everyday life within our church family. Each week, join Pastor Bob (Senior Pastor) and Darren (Worship & Discipleship Pastor) as they sit down to discuss a wide variety of subjects—from deep theological questions to the practical, often "unsexy" work of following Jesus and building a healthy local church.

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Our Mission: To Connect People to a Thriving Life in Christ. What is a thriving life in Christ? Scripture says that Jesus Christ came “that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” Our mission in the city of Tampa is to make disciples who follow the pattern of the believer in Psalm 1 and desire God’s glory above all things.

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Welcome And Swamp Rabbit Tale

SPEAKER_00

Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Unsexy Church Podcast. It's a podcast ministry of First Baptist Church, Tampa, Florida, where our mission is to help you connect to a thriving life in Christ. Good to see you guys. Hello. Long time, no see. Hey, Darren. Yeah. It's been a really long time. Yeah, yeah. Actually, we are uh back to back recording. Back to back recording. But this normally would be recorded on Monday, April 20th. So we're leaping forward in history a little bit here. Fun fact on this date in history, um 1979. So I was a decade old. You were 10 years old. Decade and a week old, pretty much, right? Or two weeks maybe. Um 1979. Who was president? We're looking at Jordan. No idea. Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter was president, right? 1979. Um on this day, April 20th, 1979, Jimmy Carter fights off a teeth-bearing swamp rabbit while he is in a Georgia pond fishing. A teeth bearing swamp rabbit rabbit. Do you even know what a swamp rabbit is? It doesn't sound like fun if it's teeth bearing. I had never heard of a swamp rabbit, and uh apparently this was a major news story uh back in 1979 because the uh the the press uh gave the rabbit a couple nicknames bonsai bunny, killer rabbit. The Secret Service didn't pull out a you know take care of this? He had to fight them off, man. Apparently they're part of the cotton tail rabbit. It's like a normal rabbit. Yeah, it does. But wait till he bears his teeth at you. But they're very they are territorial. These swamp rabbits are territorial, uh, unlike other rabbits, and they will um they'll fight to protect their territory. We were we were talking about Monty Python off air a minute ago. Oh they uh yeah, they'll they'll fight and uh they'll uh they'll actually voluntarily go into the water. Like they'll they'll go for a swim. Most rabbits won't do that, but but they'll they'll they don't mind doing it. And they'll they'll they'll do that when they're threatened. You know, they'll they'll swim out. And so apparently Jimmy Carter was invading their territory. He started one off. Startled a Nessa, didn't like his politics. Rabbit swamp rabbits. He was probably Republican. Oh gosh. Yeah. So little side note, little side note here. The uh the semi-pro, I think they're actually minor league, I don't know, but they're a professional hockey ice hockey team in Greenville, South Carolina. Their mascot is none other than the swamp rabbit.

SPEAKER_02

The swamp rabbit. Nice. Yeah. Beware the swamp rabbit. The swamp rabbit.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. On this on April 20th, 1979, Jimmy Carter fights off a swamp rabbit.

SPEAKER_01

Toothbearing swamp rabbit.

SPEAKER_00

A teeth bearing swamp rabbit. Yeah. Oh my nice plan. Yeah. It's April.

SPEAKER_01

He would only be president for a few more months. So, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Didn't last very much longer than that, right? And I'll just withhold comments. Any political comments. Did not last long. Let's go, Ronnie. Uh here we go, buddy. I'm all about Ronnie. Anyway, all

Seasonal Offerings And Why They Matter

SPEAKER_00

right. Uh the uh the this is the month of April, and um in April usually comes Easter. Typically, not always, but always sometimes March. But during this time of year, we uh as the SBC Southern Baptist Convention rolls around, we uh we have a couple of two or three different uh special emphasis offerings. Um during Christmas time, you'll know it's usually it's it's Lottie Moon, and that's a person. Like that that's a that's a lady that was a missionary to China. Um during this time of year, uh and the Lottie Moon uh offering goes to support international missionaries. Right. Uh during the spring, um, we have another emphasis offering, which is the Annie Armstrong offering, which we've talked about every every week uh uh in our services, reminding people of that offering. Um and Annie Armstrong was um she was not a missionary per se, but she was like a mission champion, right? They're just and we'll talk a little bit more uh about her here in maybe a few minutes, but uh she championed the the cause of Christ and the cause of mentions of missions in the Southern Baptist Convention early or early on. And so uh the spring offering goes to the North American Mission Board, so missionaries all over North America, United States, Canada are supported uh by this this uh this one in in particular. Um Annie Armstrong kind of was uh coming around uh before the cooperative program. It was you know, it was it was she was born before the cooperative program and was very active way before the cooperative program. Um so when I say the cooperative program, yeah, we need to define that for most people, yeah. Yeah, what is I mean because let me just back my background, like like cooperative program, Annie Armstrong, Lottie Moon was beat into my brain. I mean, like the we those were a big deal in my church when when I was coming up, right? And so what is the cooperative program, Bob?

What The Cooperative Program Means

SPEAKER_01

Pastor Bob? It's an amazing program used through the Southern Baptist Convention, but in order to explain the program, we kind of got to back up and explain the Southern Baptist Convention a little bit. Um so we're we are a church that is a part of a Southern Baptist convention part of the Southern Baptist Convention. You and I both were raised in Southern Baptist Convention churches. Um but SBC uh is made up of 47,000 churches, uh, about 13 million members, um, about 4.3 million people worship in Southern Baptist churches weekly. Yeah. Um last year.

SPEAKER_00

Wait, wait, back, back, back, back, back up. What how many members do we have? 13 million. They claim how they claim how many worship on Sundays? 4.3.

SPEAKER_01

I know just quoting what I got. I gotcha. I member is very loosely used. Anyway, um that's another podcast. It is another podcast. It it really is. Uh so there last year we baptized about 251,000 people through the Southern Baptist Convention, which is really cool. Um, so each local church in the Southern Baptist Convention is completely autonomous.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_01

So there the the structure of the Southern Baptist Convention works from the ground up, not from the top down. So there is not a structure above the local church that tells the local church what they have to believe. There's not a group that owns the property, there's not a group that says this is who your pastor is going to be.

SPEAKER_00

You and I weren't sent here by a higher escalon of SBC executives.

SPEAKER_01

By a presbytery or any of those things. So each local church is completely autonomous, but we choose to cooperate together because we have the mindset that we can do more together than we can do separately. So we cooperate together to do different ministries. And within the Southern Baptist Convention, we have ministries and we have entities. Yeah. Right. What we call entities. So that includes the executive committee, which is kind of the governing body that keeps the things going for the Southern Baptist Convention. We have the IMB, which you mentioned, International Mission Board. We have the North American Mission Board, um, which sends out missionaries in North America. We have Lifeway, which is our publishing arm. If you're a longtime Southern Baptist, that's the that's the um Sunday school board. Sunday school board. Yeah. Uh we have Guidestone, which is the financial and retirement planning for for ministers. We have the ERLC, which is the Ethics and Riggs Religious Liberty Commission, who has just been the new president for that. Yeah. Uh then we have six seminaries. Uh and then we have an auxiliary called the WMU, Women's Missionary Union, which is where Annie Armstrong is connected through all that. So we have all of those things, and then we support those things financially through what's known as the cooperative program. Um and a cooperative program is just uh the churches voluntarily coming together financially to support all of these ministries. It's almost like a united funding tool or something. That's a good way to look at it. Yeah, yeah. That's a good way.

SPEAKER_00

That we all put money into.

SPEAKER_01

Correct. And each church chooses. There's not a like a set amount. Each church chooses what they're gonna put in. So some put in a dollar amount, some put in a percentage amount.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_01

Uh our church puts in a percentage of our undesignated gifts towards cooperative program. Uh and so those cooperative program funds funnel from the individual member of the church into the local church. Right. The local church then determines how much of that they're going to send on to the cooperative program for missions and those kinds of things. That goes to our state convention here in the state, and then the state takes part of it and keeps it for ministries here in the state and sends part off to the national convention for the ministries that I've just mentioned. Here in the state of Florida, we keep 49% in the state for church planting and those kind of things, and we send 51% off to the Southern Baptist Convention. So CP giving, cooperative program giving is for the ongoing ministries and entities of the convention. But we also need to raise money to keep our missionaries on the mission fields so that they don't have to come back and raise their own support, which is where CP where which is where these special offerings come in.

Annie Armstrong’s Mission Champion Story

SPEAKER_00

So like Annie Armstrong, like why would we you know just kind of some of her bio, I guess, if you will, like why why do we name a mission offering after her? What what's the deal? I mean, she was born in 1850 in Baltimore, um, which is very very soon after the SBC was formed. 1845 or 19. 1845, right? Yeah. So she kind of comes up along with you know her with the Southern Baptist. She comes to Christ at 19 or 20. There's a couple different stories there, but man, she she um just has done so many. I'm just gonna give you some of her contributions, right? This is interesting, I think. Became a Christian at 19 years old. She started uh the Bayview Mission for Baltimore's poor and addicted. Uh, she served as a first executive of the Women's Miss Missionary Union, which our our WMU ladies are meeting as we're speaking. Oh, that's right there meeting right now right now, yeah. Uh she served as their first executive. Um, and she never ever took a salary for that. Um, she raised support for missionaries uh for yeah, for missionaries to the Italian and Jewish immigrants here in America. Uh she initiated fundraising uh brick cards to build churches in Cuba. Um, she gained support for the first black female missionaries. Uh, she secured funds to relieve Christian missionary Lottie Moon, which we mentioned earlier, who had served for 11 years without a furlough, 11 years on the field without a furlough. So she raised money to help give her a much needed rest. Um she advocated for the Native Americans and impoverished mountain people. She traveled across America encouraging missionaries and inspiring churches to pray, give, and act. Uh I wrote this down, I found this somewhere. Let me find it.

SPEAKER_01

In the late 1800s?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that was actually early 1900s. Well, early 1900s. But still, yeah. That's that's crazy. Yes. Yeah. And so 1934, they named this this offering after after her. Uh, she was just, I think, instrumental in raising um raising funds for for mission efforts here in North America and even abroad, but may mainly here in in North America. Um

How SBC Cooperation Grew Over Time

SPEAKER_00

I thinking about the the CP, you know, we talked about the SBC 1845 is formed, and and from the very get-go, like it is formed as a as a denomination for the propagation of the gospel. And the very, very first meeting, they formed the home, what we you know, we call it NAM today, North American Mission Board, which they called the home mission board, and the foreign mission board or the IMB, the international. I mean, they they they formed those boards, elected presidents from the very, very first meeting. Um, and and man, it was that's a challenging time. Uh not much later than that. You know, we're going through Civil War, right, we're going through World War I, and be and and there were many, like you said, entities uh that were associated with SBC. And the way that they funded themselves was what was called the societal method, which basically I I call it the every man for himself method. Right. Yeah. You know, you thought it was. And there are mission organizations that still do this today where they have to come off mission or come off the field, go to churches and make their plea uh for so for support. And they just and it's up to them individually. So they're funded, you know, they're making personal pleas, they're they're funded at different levels, all these kind of things, right? And so that's happening um still that in the Southern Baptist Convention up until 1925. Um and night uh a little bit before that, I think in 1919, they had the $75 million campaign because of the societal method, entities were in trouble. Uh, you know, it's like saying it was challenging times, World War I, Civil War, all those things had come about. It was hard to raise money. And some of the some of our entities were in debt and needed to needed a capital campaign to help them. So they had the $75 million campaign. Was like, we're gonna raise $75 million to to help get get us back on our feet. They got pledges for $92.6 million. Yay! That's great, man. Right.

SPEAKER_01

How much did they actually take in?

SPEAKER_00

They only took in $58.5 million. And because uh there were some other things that went like some of the entities based on those pledges expanded, made plans, built those kind of things based on those numbers that churches had pledged, but then they didn't get it. So they they ended up almost in worse shape. But what they what they did see, this was kind of like the first glimpse of what it could look like if we did all pool our money together, right? And that was like the first inkling, I guess, of the of the cooperative program. So in 1925, uh two things happened. Uh, the Baptist, the first Baptist faith and message. So we as a denomination unite around our doctrine and around missions, right? And so we we come up with the Baptist faith and message, and we come up with the cooperative program to to fund missions. And so uh the cool thing, um it kind of is crazy. It always almost doomed at the beginning because it night what comes what comes pretty soon after 1925, the Great Depression, and man, I mean, like in one year, Americans' household income was cut in half. And so, I mean, it it's a rocky start. And they only funded like three missionaries to send out uh into the world. But man, uh decades after that, by just by the the genius of what the cooperative program is, us pooling our money together, we've sent you know thousands of missionaries out across the globe and here at at home, and it has just grown and grown and grown. And man, just just uh we've we've known people who are missionaries uh with independent Baptist churches who just have struggled to stay on the mission field, and SBC missionaries just don't have to worry about that because of faithful giving uh of Southern Baptist churches. That's kind of a I don't know, brief history. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So this the CP um the money goes into the budget for the Southern Baptist Convention and then it gets doled out by a percentage based to the different entities. Uh and that gets looked at every year and those kind of things. Uh and so IMB and NAM get some CP money, but the bulk of the money that provides for those missionaries comes from these special offerings.

SPEAKER_00

That's why I love these offerings. Like literally every cent that they take in on Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong, all that goes directly to the mission field. Directly to the mission field. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And we currently have international missionaries, Southern Baptists have right at 3,500, and North American missionaries right at about 3,300. So that's 3,300. I get asked frequently why do we participate with the Southern Baptist Convention? Why are we doing this? And the answer is always because we are a mission-minded church and a kingdom-minded church, and the the Great Commission tells us to go into all the world and preach the gospel. We're not going to be able to go into all the world as a local church. No, but corporately we can, and we can accomplish taking the gospel to every tribe, people, group, nation who's never heard the gospel together as a as a as a convention of people, we can accomplish that. And we can accomplish that in a fairly short period of time. But we have to be intentional about it. So the answer to why we cooperate with Southern Baptist Convention is to take the gospel around the world. And one of the best ways we do that is by sending missionaries. Yeah. Uh we go ourselves, but we need to send others. And so sending what is that, 6,800 missionaries, 7,000 missionaries around the world, and keeping them on the field full time through these special offerings like the Andrew Armstrong is well worth the sacrifice it takes.

SPEAKER_00

Oh gosh, I'm there's a quote. Is it oh trying to remember the guy's name? It just escaped me. I just had it. I will gladly go down into the the pit if someone will hold the rope. Uh what's the Hudson? No, and uh Oh, I can't remember. Why can't I not think of his name? I've got it at the tip of my tongue. I'll think of it probably as soon as we shut this podcast off. But but I think you know the badly what? Uh go down into the pit or into the hole if someone will hold the rope. Right. Oh gosh. And an Iram Judson? I think that's I think that's sounds about like that. I think that's who said that. I think that's who said that. Jordan's fact-checking me right now. But I think who no matter who said it, I think it's a good analogy. Um, in the sense that I think the CP is like one of the most secure ropes we can extend to our to our missionaries. Absolutely. You know, and just the way that it that it strengthens them, holds them up, and allows people to give their life for the cause of Christ.

SPEAKER_01

Just

The Money And Missionary Numbers

SPEAKER_01

to give people a just a concept of the numbers we're talking about here. So cooperative program giving last year through all Southern Baptist churches to the Southern Baptist Convention was just under $190 million.

SPEAKER_00

Wow.

SPEAKER_01

Last year's um 2025's uh Annie Armstrong offering, I think, was right at $74.5, $75 million. Yeah so you can do a lot of good work with $75 million sending people around the world. Oh. Were you wrong? I was wrong. Fact checker.

SPEAKER_00

It was uh William Carey. Well, that works too. I mean William Carey. I will go down into the pit if you will hold the ropes. Sounds that was a famous speech.

SPEAKER_01

What was that? I can't remember. Yeah. But anyway, we bring all this up because as a church, uh, we're committed to missions. We're committed to giving, going, praying for missions. Uh, we give multiple ways for missions. We we give through the cooperative program, we give a percentage to our local association for church planting, we keep a percentage for our own missions uh development program, our mission partnerships sending missionaries, and then we give through these special offerings. And so, all told, um, we are unashamedly missional minded. Yeah. And and we send people, we pray for people, we go. And we can give.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, exactly.

How State Conventions Fit Together

SPEAKER_00

Um so when this podcast drops, we will have just had uh the executive director, director, treasurer, uh Dr. Stephen Rummage here. He will have just just preached from the Florida Baptist Convention. From the Florida Baptist Convention, right? Um So what's the difference and what does CPE cooperative program have to do with Southern Baptist Church or Southern Baptist Convention, Florida Baptist Convention, local Tampa Bay Baptist Convention? How does all that how's all that work?

SPEAKER_01

Sure. So so again, the flow goes from individual church member discerning what they're gonna give to the church. That money comes into the local church. The local church then determines how much we're gonna keep for our missions, our ministries, our responsibilities, and how much we're gonna send off for cooperate cooperative program. When you send your money off from the church, it goes to your state convention. There's 41 state conventions, I think, right now. And then each one of those state conventions determines we're gonna keep this amount of money to do these ministries within our state, and then we'll send this percentage on to do the the entity work of the Southern Baptist Convention. Uh, I think I mentioned earlier in this in the podcast, here in the state of Florida, 49% stays here in the state of Florida, 51. We were the first state convention to move to sending more to the to the state or to the national convention than keeping in our own state. So we've kind of set a trend in that. And um Steven is coming along and he's doing an amazing job leading our churches. He's got a vision uh for the future that I'm sure he's probably gonna share some of that, or if he he will when he's here and did while he was here. Right. Um about how we can uh how we can reach more with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that takes resources. And so that's that's kind of how it flows.

SPEAKER_00

Some of the ways that the Florida Baptist Convention, you know, um helps uh or the we had the ways we cooperate with

Florida Baptists Disaster Relief And More

SPEAKER_00

them. Like I like their uh their their tagline or their their mission statement. I don't know if it's their mission statement, but it's right beside you. Right beside you. Right beside you. Like they come along beside the local church, some of the things that they do, um disaster relief. Yeah, right. Big, big ministry. I mean, look, what are we as Southern Baptists? We're now disaster relief is like the third largest.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it it's it's up there beside or right behind Salvation Army and Red Cross when in responding to to natural disasters. Yeah. So sending teams out to meet needs, physical needs for people, right, emotional needs for people, but ultimately spiritual needs for people. Right. So yeah, that's it's a big part of what we do.

SPEAKER_00

There's a lot of guys that I've known that were on like chainsaw crews, right? Yeah, with the with the disaster relief, and they'll uh usually that's run through the state. You know, it it's a it is you know, it's it's almost like you know, they say all politics is local. Not that these are political entities or anything, but I'm just saying it it it's close. It it's close and and anytime there's a hurricane or flood, you'll almost see these yellow shirts, yellow hats of Southern Baptists setting up showers for for first responders, setting up uh meal feeding stations, feeding stations for survivors and for first responders, and just and and on and chainsaw crews and they they mud out build- I mean, they just uh they just do great. Dry in buildings, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

They and Florida's Florida Baptists have one of the largest and most active uh disaster release groups in our in our convention. And if you're interested in that kind of thing, I encourage you to strongly get involved in it. That's a it's a great ministry.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, some of the other ways Florida Baptists help us, they they they help out with next gen ministries. We've got um guys in in on college campuses all across the state. Um we have a a uh Baptist University here in Florida. We do, it's called Buff. Buff. Baptist University of Florida, right? Yeah. Um so just we have a matter of fact, a special catalyst that that helps come, he'll come along beside churches and help them in their next gen ministry ministries, all kinds of mission ministries. Um we've planned it. We've done like 85 plus church revitalization efforts through the Florida Baptist Convention here. Um, 58 college students last year surrendered their lives to ministry just through the ministry of the of the of the BCMs. There's evangelism help, there's church planning help, there's community missions, all just all kinds of ways that the Florida Baptist Convention comes along beside us and helps us in our mission to reach our city for Christ. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

It's a great blessing to be a part of not only the local church, but to see the local church cooperating with other churches in our state and in our country to take the gospel. And it's it's it's encouraging, it's exciting.

SPEAKER_00

And I think just again, uh as Southern Baptists, as believers, I mean, we we Christ's last words should be our first priority. That's right, right? He said to go into all the world, make disciples, teaching the baptizing them, teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you, and remembering that he's with us always. He empowers us, he goes before us, he goes with us. But this is just such the cooperative program is just such a good way. It's a good reminder when you think, you know, I think sometimes people think SBC, CP, uh, it just seems so political, it just seems so blah, you know, just it's very unsexy. Very unsexy, but also it almost can have a dampening effect on our thinking. But I think the better way to think about it is man, this is kingdom stuff. It is. This this is we're a kingdom-minded denomination doing kingdom things, and this is the way that we as individuals take part in the kingdom of God. We can be a part of it in an active way.

SPEAKER_01

And it is, it should be exciting. We should look at it and go look at look at all the people we're reaching. Look at what's happening. Look at what's happening.

SPEAKER_00

And we get to be a small part of that. Yeah, and I just I I mean, I don't I don't think the cooperative program is inspired like scripture's inspired, but man, what a great gift that God has given uh an idea to to to fund missions and and to keep the gospel going to the ends of the earth. Yeah, absolutely. It's a blessing. Anything else you would want to add, a last word about the cooperative program or Florida Baptist?

Sacrificial Giving And Final Challenge

SPEAKER_01

As I would with anything. It's it's a personal decision between you and God to be faithful and recognizing everything we have comes from him and we should give back to what he's given us. Uh we shouldn't decide on um, you know, how much we should give him. We should decide on how much can we survive on. Right, right, man. And be sacrificial in our giving both towards the church and through the cooperative program because we get to do that.

SPEAKER_00

And God has blessed us to be a blessing. One of our measures, right, is leveraging everything that we are, everything that we have for the glory of God and his and his kingdom. That's right. And just what that looks like for different people, you know, that's something we just always need to be in prayer about and just always having God just examine our hearts about. Yeah. So hey, we're glad you joined us today. If you have any other questions about the cooperative program or questions about anything, you can always DM us on Instagram. Make sure you give us one of those five-star reviews. Write a review, we'll read it. Even if it's bad, we'll read it. Maybe. No, we we will, but we want to hear from you. So hopefully this has been encouraging to you. Uh, and as always, stay unsexy.

Head Shot

Bob Block

Host
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Darren Selvidge

Host