Sitting in a Delaware Baptist Association meeting this week, a pastor expressed his frustration about the Cooperative Program (CP). His particular church is a giving church, sending 11% of their undesignated offerings to the Cooperative Program. The pastor was frustrated because he wanted the church to have personal involvement in how that money was used but couldn't, while his church was giving small amounts to local ministries in which his people were involved. He wanted that money his church gave through the CP to come back to Delaware to be used in local ministries. Not just some of it. He wanted all they gave to come back to them.
One of the frustrations he had was that when he thought about the implications of that, in his mind a missionary in Zimbabwe went without dinner and a denominational employee lost his or her job. That was the guilt trip he felt he would get. He did not feel like he could use his church's money to support ministries that his people could be directly involved with because it was needed to prop up a bureaucracy.
My suggestion to him was to cut his CP giving by half and use that money for local ministries in which his people could have direct involvement. His struggle, however, was getting those images of a missionary missing dinner and a denominational person losing their job out of his head.
In truth, what would happen if more people invoked this scenario is that it would create a more streamlined and efficient set organizations. The bloated bureaucracy would no longer exist. It could not exist. In addition, more people would be involved in mission efforts because their resources would be more visible and personally meaningful. More people mobilized for ministry locally would reduce the need for the bureaucracy.
This is not a bad thing. In fact, it is truly biblical. The era of missions as giving money is over. The era of churches as missionaries is on the move. And it is growing in Delaware.
Comments
Hi David,
I appreciate the Great Commission discussion but am not quite sure I understand where your perception of the state convention there is coming from. I work for the Kentucky Baptist Mission Board and our churches have recently been in partnership with churches of the Maryland-Delaware convention. My impression in working with that partnership was that your convention staff is pretty lean with each staff member wearing several different hats to be able to help strengthen churches and support Great Commision efforts there. I know here in Kentucky that our state convention staff is leaner than ever as we have reduced the number of positions in recent years and as the impact of the recession has prevented us from being able to fill some vacant positions.
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