The Cooperative Program: 100 Years of Being On Mission Together

SBC leaders gather for a Declaration of Cooperation to mark the Cooperative Program’s 100th anniversary • Biblical Recorder

MEMPHIS (BP) — The Ellis Auditorium was brand new May 13, 1925, when Southern Baptists met on a spring afternoon and voted to begin the Cooperative Program (CP). Today (May 13), though the auditorium is gone, Southern Baptists gathered just a few yards away from the original location to recommit to cooperative partnership. “The Cooperative [...]Read More...

The Cooperative Program: 100 Years of Being On Mission Together

Prior to 1919, funding for missions in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) was done through something known as a “societal” method. Missionaries, either on their own or through mission societies, raised their own support. This meant they would have to leave the mission field to return home to raise support among churches. Because of the time and expense involved in fundraising, missionaries began to hire professional fundraisers to do the work…