BY DR. JOHN SULLIVAN
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR-TREASURER
FLORIDA BAPTIST CONVENTION

The Cooperative Program—at the center of our missions

This is the beginning of a series of articles on missions and more specifically, the Cooperative Program. Education is greatly needed concerning the great mission advance strategy of Southern Baptists called: the Cooperative Program. However, before I launch into those articles, let me share some thoughts about missions.

I am the product of the missions program of the Southern Baptist Convention:

• Saved in a church, Congress Heights Baptist Church in Washington D.C., which was started with mission dollars;
• Called to preach in that same church;
• Educated in college at Grand Canyon (Baptist) College, Phoenix, Ariz., where approximately 50 percent of my tuition came from a ministerial scholarship provided by Cooperative Program funds through the Arizona Baptist Convention; and
• Trained theologically at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas. Only the Lord knows the total dollars and energy invested into my life by that wonderful school.

So by nature, desire and training, my loyalty is to the Cooperative Program, the financial and missions strategy of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Regardless of where we are or will be in our service to God—at the local level or in denominational positions, in missionary service or on the faculty of a school—God’s revelation puts missions at the center of the authority of all we do and not at the edge.

Being a missionary is the normal thing for a Christian to be. Being a missionary assumes any movement of God that has authority is rooted in a revolutionary idea. Cooperation is a revolutionary idea that fuels the mission movement of Southern Baptists.

In September 1981, in a message I delivered on stewardship to the Executive Committee, which was picked up by Baptist Press and appeared in a number of publications, I said, the Cooperative Program of the Southern Baptist Convention is not a “sacred cow but it is a sacred how.”

The statement, not made in reaction to events within the denomination, is a testimony of my own convictions. I believe God gave the concept of the Cooperative Program to the Southern Baptist Convention. It is our way of funding missions. It is not the only way, but it is an exceptional way. It is not a perfect way—no system led by imperfect persons is perfect. However, the Cooperative Program is a revolutionary missions concept. This method puts missions at the center and not at the edge of our work.

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