Unified in Giving: Southern Baptist Churches of All Sizes Come Together Through the Cooperative Program

Screen capture from a Cooperative Program promotional video | sbc.net/cp

BY TOBIN PERRY

David Dykes had always taught his church that ten percent was a good starting point for its giving to the work of missions throughout the world.

But in 1998, as Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler, Texas, headed into a $28 million building campaign, Dykes led the church to take an additional step of faith. While raising a faith-stirring amount for the building, he challenged the church to raise their Cooperative Program giving by a half a percent a year until they reached fifteen percent.

“This sounds counterintuitive, but the more generous our church became, the more generous our members became,” said Dykes, who retired at the end of August after thirty years as pastor

of Green Acres. “We were able to raise all the $28 million in cash the day we moved into the worship center; at the same time, we were increasing our CP giving.”

Among the highest-giving churches in the Southern Baptist Convention, Green Acres gave more than $40 million to missions through the Cooperative Program in the three decades Dykes served as the church’s pastor. During the same thirty-year stretch, the church raised more than $100 million for construction and new property and is now completely debt-free.

Dykes says that giving through the Cooperative Program allowed his church to take part in work they could never do on their own.

“As we all know, the SBC is made up of thousands of autonomous churches,” Dykes said. “The only time the SBC actually exists is when we are called into session at the Annual Meeting. So the CP becomes the network that links these thousands of churches together 24/7, 365. I envision it like a fishing net. Jesus told us to be fishers of men. Each [Southern Baptist church] that gives through the CP is like a knot in the fishing net. That’s the only way the ‘net works’—no pun intended. All alone, no single church can support missions and theological education—but together, we can accomplish what would be impossible for a single church to do.”

It’s a common refrain in churches that consistently sacrifice to give more through the Cooperative Program: churches can do more ministry when they work together.

For Green Acres, deep involvement in the Cooperative Program doesn’t replace mission work in its community; it complements the work. Dykes notes that part of the church’s mission heart is for local missions, helping hurting people nearby. Earlier in this year, the church served free groceries to more than four thousand families in their community. A few years ago, they worked with RIP Medical Debt to pay off $4 million of medical debt for people in the community.

The church also has fourteen strategic missions initiatives in locations around the world including Cuba, Columbia, Costa Rica, Brazil, Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, and the Philippines. The church sponsors several church plants throughout North America, has taken a special interest in church planting in the Pacific Northwest, particularly Seattle, and partners with the North American Mission Board in that area.

“Our church not only prays for missions, but we also give—and we go,” Dykes said.

The Cooperative Program allows large churches like Green Acres to partner with smaller ones, such as First Baptist Church of Kinston, Alabama, to communicate the Gospel in North America and around the world.

FBC Kinston had a history of both giving to and receiving from the Cooperative Program when Pastor Jonathan Jenkins arrived at the church in 2019. The century-old church, which currently runs about one hundred in attendance, had once given a healthy ten percent of its budget through the Cooperative Program. The church also had a long line of pastors who were educated at SBC seminaries.

By 2019, the church was still active in Southern Baptist life and took part in missions, but its Cooperative Program giving had dropped to about two percent of the church budget.

About a year after Jenkins, a graduate of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, arrived at the church, the church began looking at some strategic initiatives that would extend its ministry. For example, the church planned to develop an Acts 1:8 missions strategy to increase missions involvement locally, state-wide, nationally, and internationally.

In addition, Jenkins and other church leaders made a goal of raising the church’s Cooperative Program giving from two to five percent and made a plan to increase giving one percent a year until they hit the ten percent mark.

“The Cooperative Program started in 1925, so we’re just under one hundred years,” Jenkins said.

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As we all know, the SBC is made up of thousands of autonomous churches. The only time the SBC actually exists is when we are called into session at the Annual Meeting. So the CP becomes the network that links these thousands of churches together 24/7, 365.

David Dykes, retired pastor

Green Acres Baptist Church Tyler, Texas

“I have not come across any studies that show anything that has been as effective, for as long a period, especially when it comes to voluntary participation. With our voluntary participation in the free church tradition, we’re out-stripping churches that have a more hierarchical structure as far as number of missionaries on the ground and impact of those missionaries and missions.”

Plus, Jenkins notes, as a graduate of Leavell College and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, his training—and the training of many of his predecessors at the church—was supported by the Cooperative Program. He also explains that the church has benefited from the work of the Alabama State Board of Missions, whether it’s partnering in statewide missions or through their help thinking through some physical space issues they were running into as a church.

But Jenkins strongly notes, the Cooperative Program is much bigger than their church. Their participation helps to get their eyes off themselves and on the bigger picture of what God is doing globally. Participating in the Cooperative Program, Jenkins adds, helps to unify churches across the SBC regardless of size.

“I think it reminds us that there’s something bigger than us that we’re a part of,” Jenkins said. “Of course, we know that we’re part of the universal Church, and that’s a given. But through the Cooperative Program churches like mine, which could never afford to pay a missionary’s salary or even buy a vehicle for a missionary on a foreign field, we can be a part of other churches our size—along with bigger churches and smaller churches—all coming together to be part of something that’s bigger than ourselves.”

TOBIN PERRY is a freelance writer living in Evansville, Indiana.

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