« "They" want to know your church's spending habits | Main | Pastor is shepherd and organizational manager »
January 15, 2009
Ashley Clayton reflects on SBC and overseas missions giving
(Note: Ashley Clayton is leading a stewardship revolution in the Southern Baptist Convention by equipping churches and church members to deal with debt. Read other posts related to Ashley Clayton here.)
The most recent Empty Tomb report presents exhaustive survey results from 100,000 churches, one third of all congregations in America, representing 34 denominations. The report reflects The State of Church Giving through 2006.
Southern Baptist giving ranks first in dollars...but 19th in percentage of church revenue
Southern Baptists were one of 34 denominations reporting. The total overseas missions giving, by the national offices for all denominations, topped $700 million dollars. Interestingly, the SBC overseas missions giving made up more than one third of total dollars given by all denominations reporting. The SBC gave $270 million dollars to overseas missions through Lottie Moon Christmas offerings and Cooperative Program (www.sbc.net) contributions.
No doubt, the dollars given to overseas missions by the SBC clearly are significant, but when you look at the overseas missions dollars as a percentage of total church revenue, the SBC is in the bottom half of all denominations surveyed. The Empty Tomb tables show Southern Baptists gave 2.4% of total church revenue, which topped more than $11 billion dollars, to overseas missions. This ranks the SBC 19th out of 34 denominations reporting in percentage of total church revenue given to overseas missions.
There's more to this story for Southern Baptists
What the Empty Tomb report does not reflect are dollars given directly to overseas missions by individual congregations. Many SBC churches implement missions projects that are participant funded ventures, paid for by church members going "on mission" building churches, providing medical and technical services and etc. The Empty Tomb report does not include the missions dollars which are part of the ongoing church budget, dollars dedicated to missions apart from Lottie Moon and CP giving.
The Good News
Southern Baptist churches uniformly support overseas missions, as well as state and national missions, through Cooperative Program (CP) contributions. Church CP contributions, processed through state conventions, where on average 60% of the CP dollars remain in the state, exceeded $500 million for 2007 -'08. That means upwards of $210 million dollars reached the SBC Executive Committee, where using a funding formula approved by the convention at large, 50% of every dollar was given to the International Mission Board. The remaining CP dollars at the national level, again directed by the approved funding formula, support six SBC seminaries, ERLC, NAMB and the Executive Committee ministry assignments, including It's A New Day For Financial Freedom, CP Development, Baptist Press, Convention Relations and the Executive Committee.
When I step back and consider the good work that we as Southern Baptists are doing (even if there is room to do more), I'm overwhelmed and grateful for the faithful giving of our people and the generosity our churches.
Posted by bstroup at January 15, 2009 8:31 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://blogs.lifeway.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1795
Comments
Ben, thanks for the post. Giving options, alternative revenue streams, sustainability, fundability are your winning combination. I follow you every day. Ashley
Posted by: ashley clayton at January 15, 2009 9:18 PM
Ashley, Thanks for your encouraging words. Keep reading and blogging. We're in this together.
Ben.
Posted by: Ben Stroup 
at January 16, 2009 8:53 AM