Stanley and Kathleen Clark are Louisiana natives and graduates
of Louisiana College, and Stanley Clark is a doctoral graduate of New Orleans
Baptist Theological Seminary as well.
He has been a Louisiana Baptist pastor and has taught at both
Louisiana College and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. For the past
40 years, Stanley and Kathleen Clark have served as representatives of the Southern
Baptist International Mission Board in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Note: The following is the second in a series of articles to
be published in the Baptist Message regarding the Cooperative Program and how
it is at work throughout Louisiana. Subsequent articles will appear during the
year to highlight the Cooperative Program missions and ministry work.
Stanley and Kathleen Clark are Louisiana natives and graduates
of Louisiana College, and Stanley Clark is a doctoral graduate of New Orleans
Baptist Theological Seminary as well.
He has been a Louisiana Baptist pastor and has taught at both
Louisiana College and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. For the past
40 years, Stanley and Kathleen Clark have served as representatives of the Southern
Baptist International Mission Board in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
As Louisiana folks, the Clarks have been assisted in their
education and supported in their ministry by Louisiana Baptists through the
Cooperative Program.
As a Louisiana Baptist, whose church gives through the Cooperative
Program, you give through the Cooperative Program. You work hard for your money.
Are you throwing it away by giving it through the Cooperative Program –
or are you investing it?
The money you give through the Cooperative Program is money
you are investing. You are investing that money in the mission and ministry
not only of Louisiana Baptists but of Southern Baptists also. The money that
you give is invested in the persons, the programs, the institutions, the ministries
and the mission of Louisiana Baptists and Southern Baptists.
By giving your money through the Cooperative Program, you have
a part in
everything that Louisiana Baptists and Southern Baptists do for God and for
good.
When missionaries in foreign countries minister
in the name of Christ, you are involved through your Cooperative Program gifts.
When representatives of the Southern Baptist North
American Mission Board serve in the hard-to-reach places in our nation or in
the areas, like inner cities, where people are hard to reach, you are involved
through the Cooperative Program contributions.
When social ministries are performed in Christian
grace, you are involved by the Cooperative Program gifts.
When new churches are planted in unchurched communities,
you have a part through the Cooperative Program.
When a seminary professor or a college teacher
in Louisiana College stands before a classroom to help stamp out ignorance,
you stand beside him or her by your Cooperative Program money.
When a child is taken into the Louisiana Baptist
Childrens Home to be given a stable, Christian environment in which to
be raised or a young unwed mother is given help and hope, you are a factor in
that ministry through the Cooperative Program.
When ministers need help or churches need strengthening
or church staff needs encouragement or direction in their ministries, you aid
in that by the Cooperative Program.
You have worked hard for your money. By giving a portion of
it through the Cooperative Program, you are investing that money in matters
of eternity. That money accomplishes things in human lives and souls and in
Christian witness and ministry that have eternal consequences.
The Cooperative Program is an inclusive plan for the support
of missions and ministries. Actually, to call it a “program” is somewhat
of a misnomer; it is more of a plan or a method of supporting ministries. By
giving through the Cooperative Program, a believer is able to support all the
Baptist causes with one gift.
In Louisiana, that includes the institutions of the Louisiana
Baptist Convention. These institutions are Louisiana College, the Louisiana
Baptist Childrens Home, and the Baptist Retirement Center. The agencies
are the Baptist Message and the Baptist Foundation.
In addition to the agencies and institutions, the Louisiana
Baptist Convention portion of the Cooperative Program supports the state missions
services through the Executive Board staff, located at the Baptist Building
in Alexandria. The personnel and ministries of the Administrative, Business,
Church Development, Collegiate Ministry, New Work Divisions, as well as the
Cooperative Program/Stewardship and Evangelism Offices, as well as Womens
Missions and Ministry are all a part of the Cooperative Program.
With the Cooperative Program gifts through the Louisiana Baptist
Convention, the convention itself is conducted each year, and the Louisiana
Baptist Convention participates in the retirement and protection plans of Louisiana
Baptist ministers and church staff persons through the Annuity Board of the
Southern Baptist Convention.
In the Southern Baptist Convention, the Cooperative Program
supports the International Mission Board and the North American Mission Board.
The six Southern Baptist seminaries are funded through the Cooperative Program.
The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission receives support through the Cooperative
Program, as does the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Lifeway Christian Resources actually contributes money itself to the Cooperative
Program. Other Southern Baptist entities are the Annuity Board and the Southern
Baptist Foundation.
To say that the Cooperative Program is inclusive is almost
redundant. By the very term, the inclusive nature of the Cooperative Program
in supporting Baptist missions and ministries is implied.
The best accounted-for benevolent dollar that you give is
the money you contribute through the Cooperative Program. Beginning with the
local church, where the church, in adopting its annual budget, determines how
much money it will give each year through the Cooperative Program, either in
a dollar amount or in a percentage of the annual receipts, the church accounts
to you for that money.
In most churches, at the monthly or quarterly business meeting,
a financial report is presented to the church. You know that the Cooperative
Program contribution was made. At the state convention level, the state convention
adopts a budget each year and accounts for the expenditures regularly. The same
is true for the Southern Baptist Convention. A budget is both adopted each year
and accounted for regularly.
You do not give any money to any benevolent cause that is more
carefully accounted for and responsibly reported than the money you give to
the Cooperative Program through your church.
You work hard for your money. What do you do with your hard-earned
money when you give it through your church to the Cooperative Program?
Do you give it? Do you throw it away? No. You invest it. You
invest that money in kingdom of God enterprises that bear eternal results.
When your church sends the money to the Baptist Building in
Alexandria and the Southern Baptist Convention portion is forwarded, that money
is not simply given. The money is invested.
The Cooperative Program is not dues a church pays or the price
for being considered a Southern Baptist Church or an assessment on the church.
That money is an investment in lives, in missions, in ministries and in witness
for Christ.
How better could you invest your money? Your hard-earned money is invested
in the greatest of all endeavors – the spreading of the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ and the extension of the kingdom of God. You have invested wisely
and well through your contribution to the Cooperative Program.