Carlisle Driggers, executive director-treasurer of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, was recognized as this year’s recipient of the M.E. Dodd Award during the convention’s annual meeting Nov. 14-15 at Taylors First Baptist Church.
Morris Chapman, president and chief executive officer of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, presents Carlisle Driggers with the M. E. Dodd Cooperative Program Award at the 186th annual meeting of the South Carolina Baptist Convention. Driggers is retiring as executive director-treasurer of the South Carolina Baptist Convention in February 2007.The award – one of only 12 bronze sculptures of “the Sower scattering the seed around the world” cast for the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee – recognizes individuals who have exemplified leadership in the Cooperative Program.
“That’s what the Cooperative Program is: Never forget that the Cooperative Program is missions. It’s not money; it’s missions,” Morris Chapman, president and CEO of the SBC Executive Committee, said in making the presentation. Chapman commended Driggers and South Carolina Baptists for sending “a 13th check” from the overage of their Cooperative Program giving that the state convention received from its churches.
Chapman, quoting Psalm 1:1-3, expressed Southern Baptists’ appreciation to Driggers for “casting a very positive, conviction shadow” for the Cooperative Program during his tenure. “I’ve come to thank God for his heart. He has a heart for God, for Southern Baptists, and the Cooperative Program,” he said of Driggers.
Recounting the birth of the Cooperative Program more than 80 years ago, Chapman emphasized that Southern Baptists “traditionally, by heritage, by conviction have been cooperating conservatives” since 1925. “It is a part of the strength of the fabric of who Southern Baptists are,” he said.
“I believe the Cooperative Program is a gift from God,” Chapman said in explaining how SBC missionaries are now “able to go overseas and know that Southern Baptists are not only praying for them, but also caring for them financially.” He also expressed gratefulness to Southern Baptists for providing for theological training of their ministers through the Cooperative Program.
“Through the Cooperative Program, rather than our (SBC) entities saying, ‘Give me,’ our churches began saying, ‘We’re going to give you,'” he explained. “And consequently, Southern Baptists became a ‘giving people,’ rather than a more independent type of people, who are a ‘getting people,'” Chapman said.
In observing how the Lord has blessed Southern Baptists because of their cooperative spirit, Chapman noted, “In the last 14 years, every year you have been a part of giving more through the Cooperative Program than you ever gave before. Thirteen out of those 14 years, you have given an historic high in Southern Baptist giving.”
Chapman also praised Southern Baptists for exceeding the $200 million mark in CP giving for the first time during this past fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30.
View photo gallery of 2006 SCBC Annual Meeting.
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