2024 year-end report from Illinois churches
Illinois Baptist State Association
Make a teaching plan As the Cooperative Program turns 100 in 2025, now is a good time to consider our plans for passing the baton. The generations that grew up with unified, systematic missions giving are aging and passing from the scene. The people coming into positions of leadership in many churches may not know as much about CP or the value of the commitment to missions giving that has united Southern Baptists across the decades. In many places, there is evidence of a return to the “societal method” of missions giving that was prevalent from the early 1700s until CP was created in 1925 to end the endless appeals for individual projects. It’s time to teach the next generation the value of cooperative missions—again.
1 Highlight missions stories in worship.
“52 Sundays” is a series of short reports about SBC missionaries and their mission fields. The slides can be projected on screen in an announcement loop, and they can be printed in the bulletin or distributed separately. The impact of CP missions giving becomes real when the congregation meets the missionaries.
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Go digital. Go social. At IBSA.org, look for the Cooperative Program tab at the top of the page. There are videos and downloads of all kinds to share the story online, social media, and at your church’s website. And SBC. net has a CP page too with a digital package with images and logos and elements for your use.
3 Observe CP Sunday during October (or anytime).
Publish the chart. Make your church’s version by taking the annual CP offering amount and multiplying it by each of these percentages or contact IBSA and we’ll send you a custom report. The congregation will see how their giving supports a wide range of missions work. Show how offerings from almost 48,000 SBC churches add up to nearly $200 million in missions and ministry.
43.5%
to SBC missions
5
R
ecently I shared my personal CP story, briefly recounting multiple ways that I now understand how the ministries of the Cooperative Program deeply blessed my life and empowered me for ministry. I believe many Illinois Baptists have a personal CP story. Now is a great time to share them, but also to be certain the next generation has CP stories to tell. With the Cooperative Program’s centennial year underway, I would like to appeal to each pastor, each missions leader, each devoted church member, to consider our rich missions heritage, and our still desperately lost state and world, and to lead our churches to a bold new commitment to Cooperative Program missions, starting afresh in 2025. Whatever your church may be doing directly in missions, I urge you to prioritize the Cooperative Program as the most significant, foundational way that your church reaches the world. It’s arguably the most important line in each church’s annual budget. You see, whatever is happening in your personal spiritual life, and however things are going in the life of your church, you can always be confident that, 24/7, the Cooperative Program is sending missionaries, starting churches, preparing ministers, meeting human needs, speaking biblical truth to society and the culture, and advancing the gospel around the world. So, without apology, I appeal to all of us on behalf of a century of sacrificial missions giving by previous generations. Together, let’s budget to reach the world with a new urgency in 2025. What might that look like?
Budgeting to reach the world
Show church members where their CP giving goes with downloadable cards highlighting ministries they support through the Illinois Baptist State Association. Share testimonies from students who have attended IBSA camps, leaders trained at IBSA events, or people who have engaged with state missions.
4
Percentages add up
Plan a class. Tell our story. New members and young Baptists should know our story. Resources such as Meet Southern Baptists are available at SBC.net and IBSA.org.
Then, pass the plate — and the baton.
Start with a percentage for missions. Some churches give a nominal amount, perhaps more akin to membership dues than sacrificial missions giving. Why not move to a tithe-like spiritual commitment to missions that is proportionate to your church’s undesignated offerings? Perhaps start by giving 1% or 2% to the worldwide mission of God. Increase missions giving by 1%. If your church is already giving a percentage of its undesignated gifts through the CP, why not increase that percentage by one percentage point for the CP centennial year? For some churches, stretching up to 10% would not be out of reach. Moving to percentage giving or increased percentage giving through the CP may be a step of faith and sacrifice for some churches. Pastors and leaders will want to make the case for high impact missions giving as 2025 budgets are prepared. And our IBSA staff and I are prepared to help. We would love to come and speak to your church, whether on a Sunday morning, or perhaps during a committee or business meeting. We will help you cast vision for the foundational, missional impact of cooperative missions giving. Let’s make 2025 not just a centennial celebration, but our generation’s bold new step in reaching the world, together. Let’s not just talk about it. Let’s put our treasure where our hearts are, and budget to do it. Nate Adams is executive director of the Illinois Baptist State Association.