Ken Reid posed this question in the Nov. 29 issue of The Baptist Courier concerning the slow advance of CP giving to the SBC. Brother Reid is a fine gentleman of the highest caliber, a wonderful pastor, excellent preacher, and a soul winner. He deserves a response.
Therefore, I will humbly try to answer his questions. First, no state institution is having its funding reduced. I spoke of this concern to some members of the Executive Board before the convention and they assured me that this program would not strip our state institutions of their funds. Dennis Wilkins is quoted in the Nov. 29 issue of The Baptist Courier that “whatever changes we make in the percentage given to the Southern Baptist Convention must not damage the excellent work being done in our state.” This plan fulfills that requirement. As giving from the local churches increases, so do the funds that go to the SBC as well to our SCBC institutions.
As for the second observation, I am thankful that we are Baptists and if anyone at the convention had a problem with the plan then they could have gone to the microphone and spoke. Mike Moody did a wonderful job of insuring that everyone could have a voice in this important decision. As anyone who was present at the convention in Florence can attest, it was a vocal majority of messengers who spoke with their ballots in their approval of this plan.
As for the third observation, I can assure you that in having had three semesters of geography at The Citadel, South Carolina is still part of the world. There are lost people in South Carolina. Maybe it would be a better use of our time to get up from the dinner tables and huddled-around water coolers to take the gospel to the streets where 70 percent of people in our state are unchurched. There are more than 4 million people in South Carolina, with more than 500,000 South Carolina Baptists who should be sharing the gospel with them.
The IMB has established a goal of sending 3,000 additional missionaries into the world. This would give us more than 8,000 missionaries. According to the IMB Web site, there are 638 people groups of 100,000-plus people who are unengaged and unreached. The only way they will be reached is if we send 3,000 missionaries, plus many more.
The urgency is that we must reach all people now with the Good News because we are one day closer to Jesus coming back. It will require cooperation among the local churches in giving to the Cooperative Program and a willingness to share the gospel with the world.
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