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| CP Giving Part Of Longstanding Heritage Of Henderson Church |
| Release Date: 08/09/2006 |
 HENDERSON – Members at First Baptist Church in Henderson have been committed to strong Cooperative Program giving for at least the past 20 years and have backed up their giving by being involved in mission trips and other projects to spread the Gospel.
“I think it’s just reflective of the heritage of this church with respect to our love for missions. This church has had a number of people who have served on the mission field as career missionaries,” Todd Linn, pastor of First Baptist, said.
First Baptist, with 2,130 members, gave $177,786 or 15 percent of their undesignated receipts through the Cooperative Program in 2005, a total of more than $83 per member.
Linn has led the church for four years, and he tries to keep the Cooperative Program -- Southern Baptists’ unified giving plan for supporting state, national and international missions and ministries -- on the minds of church members.
“The Cooperative Program is the main artery through which flows the support for Southern Baptist entities, and given that, I think the major benefits are the fact that this convention can have the funding necessary for its major mission endeavors such as missionaries receiving funding all over the world from the Cooperative Program,” Linn said.
Six Southern Baptist seminaries receive funds that help lower tuition rates for those training for the ministry, and Linn has experienced those benefits firsthand.
“I’m a recipient of the reduced tuition, having two degrees from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary,” he said. “I’m very grateful to be able to pay the low tuition, and so that always comes to mind.”
Linn said he keeps thinking he needs to do more to educate a new generation of members about the Cooperative Program, but his typical method for mentioning it is through periodic statements from the pulpit while he’s preaching or just prior to receiving the offering.
“When folks return their tithes here, they have an impact on Kingdom work through the Cooperative Program,” he said. “It has been my practice to rise to the pulpit at that time and pray a prayer for our offering, and I will often make statements at that point out the benefits of our tithing.”
Though CP giving is common at First Baptist, Linn said he recognizes that some churches struggle to make ends meet and aren’t as easily able to give to causes outside their church walls.
“I came and boarded a train going in the right direction,” he said. “I’ve been at other churches that did not give near as much, and I know sometimes it’s difficult when you’re pastoring a small church. You’re just barely getting by to give three percent maybe.”
But Linn remembers something that Bobby Welch, immediate past president of the Southern Baptist Convention, said not long ago when someone asked him how much a church should give to the Cooperative Program.
“He said the answer is ‘More!’” Linn recounted. “I think that may be an oversimplification, but at the same time, we should continually be revisiting our budget and asking ‘Can we give more?’ and make it a priority since in fact it is the major artery through which comes the majority of the support for our Southern Baptist causes.”
As First Baptist gives through the Cooperative Program, the church also is involved in various mission tasks throughout the year. For instance, the youth recently returned from a trip to New York and New Jersey, where they helped paint a school, did some mission outreach and took part in street evangelism, Linn said.
Also, some folks are going to Vancouver, British Columbia for a mission trip this summer and a couple of groups will travel to New Orleans to continue helping the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Linn said he is grateful that a group of Southern Baptists back in 1925 launched the Cooperative Program with a goal of uniting individuals, churches, state conventions and SBC entities in cooperating toward a common goal of sharing the Gospel with every person in the world.
More than 80 years later, more than 43,500 SBC churches in all 50 states are working together to accomplish far more together than they could have individually.
“I think it was really a stroke of genius to put together a substantive way of providing funds for the major entities of the convention,” Linn said. “A lot of people say, ‘Well, I don’t like organized religion,’ but the truth is we have to have some organization if we’re going to have any impact and any influence.
“I think the organization of the Cooperative Program is just a great testimony to what God can do through people who are truly committed to building up the Kingdom of God for His glory,” he added.
Release prepared by Erin Roach, KBC communications |
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