CP was, and will be, a long time coming

“Mr. President, Mr. President!” Three voices spoke almost as one. “Mr. President, do I have the floor?”
The president’s gavel hammered vigorously. “The Chair recognizes Brother Stealey.”
“Mr. President, we must settle this evolution issue at once,” Clarence Stealey said. “Let the messengers to this annual session of the Southern Baptist Convention vote now. It’s the most pressing matter before us in 1925. Brother Burts’s money report can come later.”
“Mr. President!” shouted Bronson Ray taking advantage of Stealey’s pause, “the editor from Oklahoma may think other matters are more important than money. But that’s because he doesn’t have the foreign missionaries looking to him for their salaries. He doesn’t have debts piling higher every month and precious little money coming in to pay them. I tell you we are in a bad way. This Convention must do something before it leaves Memphis...”
The gavel beat out an insistent interruption.
“Gentleman, Gentleman!” said President McDaniel. “Let’s get on with the order of business. Brother Charles Burts has been standing here for ten minutes now to give his report. We shall hear him now.”
Burts eyes moved over the big room, and then back to the paper in his hand. He read slowly, his voice lifting slightly as he accented certain words and phrases. His was the first annual report of the Future Program Commission, of which he was general director. The report set forth and named the new unified budget of the denomination.
“From the adoption of this report it shall be known as the Cooperative Program,” read Burts.
The report was adopted in routine fashion by messengers anxious to get on with debate on evolution. With that action, the the Cooperative Program was launched May 13, 1925 at the Southern Baptist Convention in Memphis, TN.
The Cooperative Program was almost overlooked in the beginning. State papers were concerned with debts and debate. Few messengers paid attention to it or caught its significance.

Our Cooperative Program By W. E. Grindstaff, Sunday School Training Course material 1965 Published by Convention Press

Such humble beginnings for something that most Baptist’s would be quick to praise now. Something that seems to be an indispensable part of Baptist life is less than 100 years old and got off to a slow start, as Grindstaff later discusses in his book. Grindstaff served as pastor of several churches in Oklahoma after attending OBU, and later served the BGCO and was director of Cooperative Program Promotion with the Stewardship Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, so this is an area he is well familiar with. There were several failed attempts at funding the work of Southern Baptist before this, such as the Judson Memorial Fund, and the many pleas made by agencies to churches every week across the country. Until the Conventions agencies paid off most of their outstanding debts with the “Hundred Thousand Club” from 1933-1943, the CP was slow in getting going.

Once it finally started rolling, it was a great plan that funded untold salvations, missionaries, block parties, and baptisms, among other things. Much has been made of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force Reports, none of which I desire to rehash here. But as I read this book, by a man commissioned by the Southern Baptist Convention to write a training course to educate all Southern Baptists on the Cooperative Program, I was struck at the time it took them to reach the conclusion of the CP, and the time , again and again, it took to fine tune it. I know that we have now reached that time again, but I hope we don’t forget that there will not be monumental changes that take place in a few weeks in Orlando. It could start us down that path, but history tells we are at no guarantee to end up where we think we will. Obstacles arise, new ideas come forth, and we must do the best to continue to push the gospel, to our neighbors and the nations.

This story, and the book, reminds me that this will be a long process. There is no guarantee that the task force will get this right the first time. I want to get it right the first time as much as anyone, but this process of changing the way things are done, restructuring, and reorganizing, and refocusing must be done. We must take a big picture approach and trust that God is in control, and trust the men set in place to make these decisions. Each church ultimately decides what happens with the CP, and each pastor in the SBC gets to make a decision about whether or not to push the changes, or accept the old way, or go for something completely different.

I for one am glad for the CP, the work it has done, and the work it will do. I trust the messengers at the Southern Baptist Convention to make choices to continue to honor God in all areas of finances.