I find it interesting that we are informed in the latest edition of the Courier that the SCBC missed its 2013 budget by $1.14 million. In another article, the largest church in the state affiliated with our convention is featured. This church contributed .00002 percent of its budget to the Cooperative Program.

I appreciate the fact that this church is autonomous and can use funds for missions and church starts as it sees fit. What I am concerned about is the example the leadership of our convention is promoting with this type of article. On one hand, we are lamenting the decline in our CP giving, and rightly so. On the other hand, it seems as if we are saying to the churches in our convention by featuring this type of example that it is OK to just do our own thing. This was the way it was before the Southern Baptist Convention made the wise decision many years ago that it was much more effective to pool our resources to reach a lost world.

I do recognize that many local churches can do a better job on missions on their own than we have been doing as a convention. This is evidenced by another article stating that SBC churches have increased, but members and baptisms have fallen. Something is wrong, and I pray as a layman that our convention leaders revisit some recent decisions like starting churches next door to existing churches.

— Jim Merritt, Easley

Editor’s response:

The article on NewSpring Church was intended neither to laud nor denigrate the church’s Cooperative Program giving. The story was published under the “informing” portion of this magazine’s mission to “inform and inspire” South Carolina Baptists. In looking at the state of the church, we would be remiss to ignore the presence of the largest Baptist-affiliated church in South Carolina — indeed, one of the largest in the nation — with campuses located in virtually every area of the state. If our story spurs a discussion of the importance of the Cooperative Program and an examination of its precipitous decline in recent years, then we welcome the opportunity to have that discussion in the pages of the Courier as we seek to become more effective as a denomination in reaching a lost world.