How do Southern Baptists spend their missions dollars?

Comparing our missions investment in the U.S. & Canada with our investment in the rest of the world

Aug 10, 2009
DANIEL PALMER

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Why Me? Why Now?

I am about as Southern Baptist as one can be. I was born in Fort Worth while my father attended Southwestern. My father was partially supported by the Home Mission Board during his first pastorate.

I was saved and immersed in an SBC church. I was called to preach through the ministry of an SBC church. I recently graduated from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary where I am proud to serve as the Director of Financial Development. When I join a church, I make sure a minimum of 10 percent of the budget goes to the Cooperative Program.

I remember well the posters my father displayed in the halls of my home church announcing that 95 percent of CP receipts go to support missions and theological education. I was proud of that.

Along the way, I earned a Master’s of Public Administration and Policy where I studied administration, policy design and evaluation, finance and budgeting, statistics, and survey design and assessment among other things. While in graduate school, I became more involved at my local church in ministries which inspired me to examine denominational life more closely.

I discovered the SBC was built more like a government bureaucracy than a conduit for the gospel. I discovered much of a church’s CP giving actually remains in the church’s home state. I learned that many churches also support a local association – sometimes with as much money as they give to the CP.

It appeared Southern Baptists spent far more to reach their Jerusalem than to reach the nations. We had inverted our mandate. Southern Baptists came together to get the gospel to the nations, but we spent a disproportionate amount of our missions dollars at home.

These thoughts had been circulating in my mind and heart for a number of years, but I wanted to be a good Southern Baptist. I kept parroting the line about how wonderful the CP is even as I doubted the veracity of my words.

Then, the Great Commission Resurgence declaration was issued. Article IX was discussed as though it were a non-spiritual article – out of place in an otherwise spiritual document. Some Southern Baptists preferred defending the status quo and hiding behind a false dichotomy (reorganization v. revival) to the hard and sometimes self-sacrificing work of confronting inefficiencies and becoming even better partners for the gospel.

This narcissistic reaction was upsetting. If we are not as efficient and effective as possible with the dollars God provides through Southern Baptists, we are in sin. If the sin is exposed, and we just hunker down and defend the status quo, we are in known sin – in rebellion.

But, how can I demonstrate with credibility that the Cooperative Program is not doing all that many in the pew presume it does?

Every year, the Executive Committee releases a bulletin insert with a pie chart illustrating the proportional distribution of the Cooperative Program Allocation Budget for the purposes of theological education, North American missions, and international missions. Last month, I received the insert while visiting my home church in Virginia.

The chart revealed that the SBC spends 50 percent of the CP Allocation Budget on the IMB and 22.79 percent on NAMB. If one merely examines the chart, it appears that we spend more on international missions than we do on domestic missions. Yet, such a conclusion would be in error both in terms of gross dollars and, more importantly, when we consider the number of people we are trying to reach in each location (i.e. when we consider our spending on a per capita basis).

While the pie chart reflecting the division of the CP Allocation Budget is factually accurate, it is also misleading if not reviewed in its proper context. The CP Allocation Budget only reflects those funds passed along from the states. It does not include all the funds retained by state conventions.

Viewed by itself, the chart suggests Southern Baptists spend more to reach the nations than to reach those who live nearby. Unfortunately, the opposite is true, as the following study demonstrates conclusively.

The Study: Comparing the Missions Investments of Southern Baptists in the U.S. & Canada with the Rest of the World

Recalling why we cooperate: a little theology and some background information

Theologically speaking, it is important to ask and answer the question, “Why do Baptists participate in conventions?”

Conventions exist because thriving local churches do not.

Baptists view the establishment of thriving local churches as God’s plan for making disciples. Both the baptizing and teaching of disciples is the work of autonomous local churches. Southern Baptists share resources to train and send those who will go and plant thriving churches where few presently exist.

Planting thriving churches is the raison d'être for Baptist cooperation. Our spending should reflect our common priority. If a state convention is successful, it will plant thriving local churches which in turn plant thriving local churches. Theoretically, the need for funds at the state level will diminish over time as new churches take hold across the state and take care of their own Jerusalem and Judea.

Understandably, states with few healthy congregations retain more CP funding because their Jerusalem and Judea are still virgin territory. However, keeping millions and millions of dollars in our states does not make sense in the south.

Why should a state convention with thousands of churches keep millions of dollars while the nations sit in darkness without access to a church, a Bible, or a Christian? Is God glorified when the world’s highest concentration of self-proclaimed, missional Christians spends 62 percent of their missions giving in their own state?

The Cooperative Program Allocation Budget for Fiscal Year 2009 is $205,716,834. These funds represent the monies which are passed along from individual state conventions to be used for theological education, domestic missions, and international missions.

In Fiscal Year 2008, the states kept $342,257,623 for their own ministries. States retain, on average, more than 62 percent of their CP receipts.

Methodology

This study assumes that the Cooperative Program dollars given by local churches in addition to the receipts from the Annie Armstrong and Lottie Moon offerings reflects the bulk of the missions giving by Southern Baptists. To be sure, SBC churches support missions through other channels. Indeed, every dollar a local church spends should be, in some way, a Great Commission dollar. However, for the sake of simplicity, this study examines how we spend the dollars that Southern Baptists designate for “missions” through the aforementioned avenues.

The first goal of the study is to determine how much “missions” giving stays in the U.S. and Canada and to compare it with the amount of “missions” giving that goes for making disciples among people groups who do not live in the US or Canada. Determining these figures is a matter of simple arithmetic.

The second goal of the study is to provide a way to standardize the assessment of our missions investment.

It is not sufficient to merely compare our missions expenditures in the U.S. and Canada with those in the rest of the world. That is only part of the story. The other part of the story is the 6.4 billion people who live in the rest of the world compared with the 341 million who live in the U.S. and Canada.

A true analysis of our missions investments should be evaluated on a per-capita basis. Baptists affirm that every soul is equal before God.

Does the allocation of our missions giving reflect this truth, or do we spend more of our missions dollars to reach Bob than we do to get the gospel to Zimbabwe?

Results

The missions dollars that stay in the U.S. and Canada include: 1) the CP funds retained by state conventions, 2) the NAMB funds included in the Cooperative Program allocation budget, and 3) the NAMB funds provided through the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering. These funding categories total $447,240,489.

A total of 340,648,000 people live in the U.S. and Canada. We spend $1.31/person to reach every man, woman, and child in the U.S. and Canada. Many of these people currently live near a thriving local church, own a Bible, or have a Christian in their place of work.

The missions dollars that go to reach the rest of the world through local SBC churches include: 1) IMB funds from the CP Allocation Budget and 2) IMB funds received through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. These funding categories total $243,858,417.

We spend $0.04/person to reach every man, woman, and child in the rest of the world. Many of these people could walk for weeks and not see a church, a Christian, or a Bible.

Conclusions

Many local churches support international missionaries in ways beyond their CP giving. However, these expenditures, while important, are dwarfed by what churches spend on programs, buildings, and associational missions. So, on balance, considering the aforementioned expenditures (CP giving, Annie Armstrong, Lottie Moon) is more than fair in assessing whether or not we are spending our money commensurate with the thrust of the Great Commission.

Churches cooperating through the Southern Baptist Convention spend, on average, $1.31 annually to reach every person living in the U.S. and Canada while they spend $0.04 to reach the nations.

The counter argument that it takes more money to do ministry in America is a non-starter. The cost of living has peaks and valleys around the globe, just as it does in the U.S. In some domestic contexts, we have many things working in our favor. Often, a church building is built, and the language barrier is non-existent or not nearly as great. If anything, it costs more to do missions well internationally than it does domestically (with some notable exceptions).

Churches who are profoundly moved by the gospel cannot see the discrepancy in our missions investments and be unmoved. When gospel-centered churches understand that the CP is not presently a maximally effective conduit for the gospel, churches will look elsewhere if there is no resolve to address the challenges.

For the Great Commission Resurgence to succeed, it must boldly confront the fact that we spend 33 times more money to reach an American than we do to reach an African.

For a convention that was launched for the cause of reaching the nations, the status quo cannot be seen as a worthy effort. Now that we know, Article IX can no longer be credibly viewed as ancillary to a Great Commission Resurgence; it is essential.

Of course, the structural balance in the distribution of CP receipts is only one of two important parts of the problem. Morris Chapman was right to declare, “ If our churches still gave the same percentage of CP funds from the churches through the states as they did a decade ago (8.24% then; 6.08% now), the International Mission Board would have an additional $35 million dollars this year alone, not counting the money it would have received pro rata over the past decade.” (http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=30585).

Whether 8 percent or 6, either mark is an embarrassment – particularly for congregations who are not pursuing international missions in other ways and who are more focused on brick-and-mortar and and hot-dog suppers. However, there is an error in Chapman’s logic. He is right to note the decline in church giving, but he is mistaken if he thinks churches will give more to a Cooperative Program which gets so little to the nations. The idea of the CP is a brilliant one; the present division of dollars is not even close to honorable – largely because we keep so much in our states.

To be sure, some congregations are not supporting the Cooperative Program because they are either greedy or they have not found ways to be effective stewards in order to get more funds to the mission fields. However, some congregations bypass the CP to give directly to SBC agencies or pursue other missions avenues because they wish to avoid the scenario where states skim nearly 2/3 of every Cooperative Program dollar.

The state conventions in the south keeping 55, 60, and 65+ percent of the CP gifts must recall why conventions were begun in the first place – to plant thriving local churches and turn them loose to reproduce. When state conventions grapple with this truth, they will find ways to get more to the nations, and churches will give to the CP with confidence – knowing their dollars are truly used to get the gospel to the nations.

As it stands currently, the nations receive approximately 1/2 of 1/3 of 3/50 of the tithes and offerings given by Southern Baptists. As my toddler might put it, that is half of a piece of a sliver of the pie. Southern Baptists must give more than 3/50 of their tithes and offerings to the CP, but they first need to know that the money they send is actually getting to the ends of the earth.

A Way Forward

The discrepancy in our spending in the U.S. and Canada versus the rest of the world is alarming, but it can be successfully addressed if Southern Baptists act. To correct the current imbalance in the allocation of our missions giving, we could consider the following actions.

First, we must vote at our state conventions. In many states, we should encourage them to send 65, 70, or even 75 of the CP funds received on to the SBC national. A 50/50 split is a great start, but it is not enough. As states succeed in their territory, the need is greater outside the state than in it. The transition should not be draconian, but the process must begin now, and we must begin with more than a trickle of new funds going to the national CP. States should establish a percentage funding goal and a timetable and get to work right away. For example, a convention that is giving 35 percent of its CP receipts to the CP national might pledge to give 40 percent by 2014, 50 percent by 2020, and 65 percent by 2025. This is the sort of action that will inspire confidence in our churches to give generously.

Second, we could combine NAMB and IMB. Currently, NAMB receives more than 30 cents/person to reach people in its territory while the IMB receives less than 4. If we make the territory covered by NAMB a division of the IMB, there will be some cost savings by consolidating the upper management of these two organizations. This does not, however, mean less money to the territories served by NAMB. If the states send the funds they should, this paradigm would result in more funding for all territories currently served by NAMB and IMB.

Third, we could allocate 75 percent of the funds received by the SBC national to the new IMB. This is more than the 72.79 percent at present. And, again, if the states send more, it will be 75 percent of a much larger pie.

Fourth, we should continue collecting Annie and Lottie offerings. We would send those offering receipts to the new IMB.

Finally, churches should strive to give much more generously to the Cooperative Program as the states demonstrate a willingness (evidenced by a real plan) to send more funding along to the national Cooperative Program. The action on the part of the state is critical however. Until states send more to the national level, giving more to the CP does not really make much sense because the system would be unchanged and the vast discrepancy in our spending domestically by comparison with the world would remain.

Final Thoughts

I hope this study serves to generate an honest conversation about the role of conventions and the way we currently spend mission monies within the SBC. With that said however, I do not wish to malign the men and women currently serving in state conventions or to impugn their motives. That is my one fear in publishing this study. My critique is aimed at some challenges with the current system – not at those who are serving the Lord faithfully within a system which needs some fine tuning.

This study is a call for us to assess the status quo and make changes in response to what the study reveals. We did not get to this place overnight, but we can invest much more heavily in getting the gospel to the nations in the years ahead.

I suspect we arrived at a place where we spend a disproportionate amount of our missions dollars on reaching our own by misappropriating Christ’s words in Acts 1:8.

The sequencing of Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth has become a sequencing of spending priority rather than a logical ordering. The text in Acts 1:8 is not a directive to spend more at home than abroad. It is a directive to begin where you are and move outward. If the Bible prioritizes any region, it prioritizes the ends of the earth. As your home turf is reached, the need is proportionally greater among the nations than it is in your backyard, across town, or across the state.

Southern Baptists affirm that every soul is equal before God, but we spend missions dollars like we value the American soul above all others – the southern, American soul in particular.

Our state conventions, particularly those in the south, must begin to ask, can we do with fewer annual programs, conferences, literature, and newsletters for the sake of the nations? Can we get more of the funds we’ve been keeping to the unreached people in our nation and around the globe?

I believe we can. Fulfilling the Great Commission demands nothing less.

P.S. As the Director of Financial Development for Southeastern, this whole study and proposal probably seems a bit self serving. However, if Southern Baptists follow the proposals herein, Southeastern, indeed all seminaries, would stand to benefit and be in a much better position to equip the students who will serve the church and fulfill the Great Commission. Indeed, if we pursue this path, Southeastern will likely come to the place where she no longer needs a Director of Development. At last, the gifts from the CP would be sufficient to actually run the seminary, and I would be looking for another job – may God do it all for His glory and in His timing.

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