WHEREAS, in 2025 Southern Baptists will celebrate the centennial anniversary of our Cooperative Program; and
WHEREAS. First Baptist Church of Murray, KY, under the leadership of Pastor Harvey Boyce Taylor in 1914, proposed a new unified approach to the church budget and visited various churches throughout Kentucky to promote what would become the beginning of the Cooperative Program; and
WHEREAS, upon the establishment of the Cooperative Program, M.E. Dodd, Chairman of the Commission on the Future Program, exhorted Southern Baptists toward “a unity of purpose and consecration never known before;” and
WHEREAS, since 1925 the Cooperative Program has provided a comprehensive funding mechanism for like-minded Baptist churches to support missions in all the world, all the time, at the same time (Matthew 28:18-20, Acts 1:8); and
WHEREAS, the biblical doctrine of cooperation compels us to work together and thereby effect a greater reward for our efforts (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12); and
WHEREAS, during these past 100 years, Kentucky Baptists have contributed nearly $1 billion through the Cooperative Program to fund missionaries such as disaster relief efforts, church planting, church revitalization, chaplaincies, evangelistic initiatives, discipleship strategies, pastor care, Christian education, Baptist communications, human needs ministries, and more; and
WHEREAS, Kentucky Baptists have made a great commitment to our missionaries, both at home and abroad, and to our larger family of Baptist workers whose Great Commission efforts are supported and sustained through Cooperative Program giving; therefore, be it
RESOLVED, that the messengers to the Kentucky Baptist Convention meeting in Paducah, KY, November 12, 2024, affirm the Cooperative Program as our primary method of funding our Great Commission cooperation at home and abroad; and be it further
RESOLVED, that we ascribe thanksgiving and glory to God for blessing the partnership in the gospel we have known through Cooperative Program giving for 100 years (Philippians 1:3-5); and be it further
RESOLVED, that we are grateful for the churches that give faithfully and sacrificially through the Cooperative Program and for all who openly promote, support, and commit to the Cooperative Program among our family of churches, associations, and ministry partners; and be it finally
RESOLVED, that we commit ourselves to the celebration and promotion of the Cooperative Program within our churches, associations, and entities in its one-hundredth year.