Women on Mission - January 2021
Cooperative Program
Working Together toward a Common Goal: Rescuing Souls
More than 90 years ago, Southern Baptists realized the challenge of reaching a lost world was too great for the approach to missions they were taking. Small congregations couldn’t adequately train leaders and send missionaries on their own. A host of societies competed for funding, and missions efforts were badly fragmented. A few leaders realized the churches needed to link up in a focused partnership. Together they could accomplish what chaotic competition was preventing.
In 1925, Southern Baptists forged the Cooperative Program. Individuals, churches, state conventions, and Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) entities began working together toward a common goal: rescuing souls in danger by showing and sharing the gospel all around the world. The unified budget mitigated competition and provided long-term stability for missions boards.
Even though we number more than 47,000 congregations, our churches working alone could not register the gains we see each year through our Cooperative Program efforts: 16,000 students trained in six seminaries, more than 1,100 congregations started in North America, 886 people groups and 236 urban centers engaged overseas, and almost 1.4 million people in 53 countries helped with basic life essentials like food and clean water.
When we join hands through the Cooperative Program, we are better able to obey Jesus’ command to “go and make disciples of all nations.”
Women on Mission will not meet in January.