By Baptist Message staff
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (LBM) – Louisiana Baptist Executive Director Steve Horn and Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee Trustee and past Louisiana Woman’s Missionary Union President Carolyn Fountain joined Baptist leaders from across the nation, May 13, to sign a Declaration of Cooperation that celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Cooperative Program.
Seventy-three of the more than 175 individuals gathered inside Renasant Convention Center in Memphis, Tennessee, made it on stage to sign the document on the podium once used by M.E. Dodd, pastor with First Baptist Church, Shreveport (1912- 1950), who brought the idea of the CP to Southern Baptist Convention messengers in 1925.
According to The Baptist Paper, the event was held exactly 100 years to the date, time and nearby location (the Ellis Auditorium, which is no longer standing) of the launch of the CP and included representatives from all Southern Baptist national entities and every state convention. Additionally, various ethnic groups, pastors, pastors’ wives and other women serving in ministry positions as well as the current SBC officers also gathered for the celebration.
DECLARATION OF COOPERATION
WHEREAS, Upon the semicentennial anniversary of the Cooperative Program 32 influential Southern Baptist leaders signed a “Declaration of Cooperation”* which expressed their affirmation of Southern Baptist Great Commission cooperation, their appreciation for the Cooperative Program, and their solidarity in continuing the work; and
WHEREAS, Jesus has given us, His followers, the Great Commission and empowered us by His Holy Spirit to accomplish its end (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, Upon the adoption of the Cooperative Program at the 1925 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Memphis, Tennessee, the Executive Committee declared that “the successes of the future depend upon the heroic spirit shown by our people at this time,” then urged the pledging of Southern Baptists “in the fullest support to the Cooperative Program as the best and most practical way of meeting our obligations and providing for the ongoing of all our enterprises”; 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; and
WHEREAS, As a result of Cooperative Program commitment and by the grace of God, our Baptist life has prospered in terms of unity, missions, and ministry throughout Baptist state conventions and Cooperative Program-funded national and international enterprises; and
WHEREAS, During these past 100 years Southern Baptists have deployed more than $20 billion through the Cooperative Program, demonstrating both the vast wealth God has entrusted to their stewardship and their willingness to sacrificially invest that wealth into Great Commission cooperation through Southern Baptist enterprises; and
WHEREAS, We have made a great commitment to our Southern Baptist missionaries, both at home and abroad, and to the ongoing work of our Southern Baptist entities and state conventions, all whose Great Commission efforts are supported and sustained through Cooperative Program giving; therefore be it
RESOLVED, That we, the undersigned, affirm the Cooperative Program as a missions-funding strategy God has blessed to support and strengthen Southern Baptist efforts to share the Gospel throughout the world; and be it further
RESOLVED, That we are grateful for Southern Baptist churches and individuals that give faithfully and sacrificially through the Cooperative Program; and be it finally
RESOLVED, That we commend all who promote, support, and renew their commitment to the Cooperative Program among our family of churches, mission boards, seminaries, entities, local Baptist associations, and state conventions.
*1975 Declaration of Cooperation: “Because we as Southern Baptists recognize That Christ established the church to carry out his divine purpose in the world, and That the genius of our life as autonomous New Testament churches is our freedom to cooperate in order to make evident our unity in Christ and to give substance to our common purpose to proclaim the gospel, and That our life as a denomination emerged historically in 1845 in an effort to elicit, combine, and direct those resources over which God has placed us as stewards, and That in 1925 our forebears committed themselves to a new level of interdependence in a relationship of stewardship called the Cooperative Program, and That as a result of that commitment our denominational life has by the grace of God prospered in terms of unity, missions, and ministry, We Hereby Declare this program of cooperation to be self-evident of our denominational unity and a manifestation of our vision for the future under the Lordship of Christ, and We Therefore recommit ourselves in prayer to that trust, sacrifice, and resolve necessary for the responsible expression of our life together in Christ through our Cooperative Program.”
