While in college, I served a nearby Baptist church as its youth minister. One night during a church business meeting, someone asked what this line was in the church budget called “Cooperative Program,” and whether it could be cut back to free up money for some other things.
A respected deacon and businessman in the church named Don stood up and patiently explained that the Cooperative Program was perhaps the most important part of our budget.
He said that, when combined with the gifts from other churches like ours, the Cooperative Program sends and supports thousands of missionaries around the world. Each year it helps plant hundreds of new Baptist churches across America. It helps prepare thousands of future pastors and leaders through six world-class seminaries. And part of what we give through the CP, he reminded us, stays in our own home state to help churches like ours train our leaders, find resources, solve problems, go to camp, search for pastors and staff, and start new Illinois churches.
“On any given day,” he said, “no matter what is happening in our own spiritual lives or in the ministry of our church, we know that our gifts through the Cooperative Program are helping carry the gospel throughout the world, 24/7.”
As you might expect that church chose to keep its commitment to the Cooperative Program strong. And I then came to understand on a more personal level that not only had CP made seminary affordable for my dad to become a pastor, but it also made my dad’s role as an Associational Missionary possible. It was because of him that I started serving that church, for a summer that ended up lasting six years.
A few years later, I worked through our Association to help start a new church on the other side of our town, and the Cooperative Program helped make that possible. From its first public worship service, that church plant was larger than our sponsoring church. And from the very beginning, our new church tithed 10% through the Cooperative Program.
Once we had called a full-time pastor, I had the opportunity to join the staff of the North American Mission Board, helping start thousands of new churches in the years I was there. My specific role was mission mobilization and media. Our staff also helped thousands of lay people like me engage in all kinds of volunteer missions, from Disaster Relief to World Changers, and from Campers on Mission to the Mission Service Corps. CP made all that possible.
Now I serve churches through the Illinois Baptist State Association, where we help plant 10-20 new churches each year, and where we assist more than 900 churches to be healthy, to develop their leaders, and to be on mission in their communities and beyond.
Whether we’re talking about that church where I first served as youth minister or the church I serve today, by itself any one of our churches could maybe pay part of one person’s salary to do ministry or missions beyond its community. But by partnering with other churches, each church that gives through the Cooperative Program today is still making possible all the things Deacon Don said it did over 40 years ago. And it hasn’t missed a day.
I guess I have now become that guy who stands up when needed and says the Cooperative Program is the most important line in our church budget. I hope Deacon Don would be pleased. I believe the Lord is. And that is my CP Story. What’s yours?
Nate Adams is executive director of the Illinois Baptist State Association. Respond at IllinoisBaptist@IBSA.org.