I totally agree with your comments! Somewhere, I’m not quite sure when or where it happened, but we really began to believe the idea that we could either “pay our way” through missions or we could “send others to do missions for us.” Either way, we’ve missed the mark, whether in talking about CP, LMCO, or AAEO.

The Great Commission clearly tells us that it is “as you are going…” That calling is placed upon all believers, Christ followers. That calling should be a compelling, driving force in our life. Oh how we cheapen that commission by thinking that giving and sending relieve us of that duty…

Thanks for being it to the forefront!

Steve

This is why the local church needs to be faithful to the task that God has given us, instead of just sending our money off elsewhere. I think that we can see that the more money that goes into the CP, the more money that a handful of people have to work with. Sometimes that is good, but when you look at past decisions, it seems that it is not a good as it should be. At any rate, we are taking responsibility and are not looking back. And, God is doing great things through it.

Some interesting thoughts you’ve shared here and some good comments as well. I really do believe the CP was a stroke of genius in its day and certainly helped bail the SBC out of a serious financial crisis back in the years immediately following WWI and during the Great Depression. When the bulk of the money was destined for direct missions purposes, it was an easier sell to Baptists sitting in their pews.

Today, that same scenario simply doesn’t exist. As has been pointed out, many entities compete for a slice of the CP pie and the percentage that actually makes it to the mission field is considerably less than it once was. In the last couple of years we’ve all heard and read about (thanks to the advent of SB bloggers) the abuses that exist in some circles regarding the expenditures of those CP funds. That factor, plus an aging constituency, an emerging generation that lacks traditional denominational loyalty, the preference to designate funds for projects where there is some sort of direct connection, and the increasing involvement of short-term volunteers in hands-on missions projects all spell trouble with a capital T for the future of the CP. Can it survive? I’m not a prophet, but I think its days are numbered. I don’t know if that means a decade or two or a couple of generations, but I believe the handwriting is on the wall.

When you consider how much actually makes it to the field without being siphoned off for “administrative” efforts (read: IMB Trustee meetings – 6 x $500,000 per year = $3 million, and that doesn’t include actual administrative stuff) and other Trustee approved expenses of different SBC entities (read: enormous living quarter additions alongside two Cadillac Escalades with drivers, and that is just for starters) you find that about a dime of every CP dollar (in OK where 60% of the CP dollars are kept in the state) makes it to the International Mission Field, this ought to be more of an issue than it is.

Considering that International Missions has always been our heartbeat and the reason we exist as a denomination, that is absolutely tragic – and deserves to be addressed.

Like to know how many times I’ve heard it preached that when we give, we’re witnessing to folks in the jungles, ministering after tornadoes out west, and feeding starving children in India? Many. Many, many.

As long as folks are out here preaching that sort of thing, you’re going to find the attitude the student displayed. In fact, I’ve read that very thing in blogdom in the last 24 hours. Wish I could remember where.

The danger is to assume that because I gave money, I am absolved of my own responsibility to live out Christ’s directives. The perception when we turn the CP into an entity that we give to, rather than a conduit through which we channel our funds, we can easily jump from “plan” to “means”. Giving through the CP is part of the plan, not the means by which we do all things.