Editor’s note: A story in our Nov. 8 issue reported that Cooperative Program giving from South Carolina Baptist churches through October was $351,626 ahead of budgeted needs for the year. In fact, giving was $351,626 below budgeted needs. The mistake in reporting was ours, and we regret the error. The corrected version of the story follows.

With two months remaining in the fiscal year, Cooperative Program giving from South Carolina Baptist churches is running $351,626, or 1.48 percent, below budgeted needs for the year, according to information released by Pam Carroll, chief financial officer for the South Carolina Baptist Convention.

Through October, churches had forwarded nearly $23.4 million toward a $28.5 million state Cooperative Program budget. Giving was down $50,197 from the same period a year ago.

At the national level, gifts to Southern Baptist missions and ministries were 6.72 percent below the same month last year, according to SBC Executive Committee president Frank Page.

“This shortfall in the opening month of the fiscal year follows a historical pattern when both August and October are four-Sunday months,” Page said. State conventions typically receive their August church contributions in early September and forward their September gifts to the SBC in early October.?

“This is the fifth time in the past nine years that the opening month of the new fiscal year followed this pattern,” Page said. “When we compare these October-to-October giving patterns from other four-Sunday years, the decline averaged 8.8 percent, so this is a slight improvement. Thankfully, in each instance, we have also seen a significant rebound through the first quarter of the fiscal year. We anticipate we will see the same thing this year.” – With reporting from Baptist Press.