By Baptist Press
NASHVILLE (BP) – Year-to-date contributions to Southern Baptist Convention national and international missions and ministries received by the SBC Executive Committee have exceeded $158 million, according to a news release from SBC Executive Committee President Frank S. Page.
July’s Cooperative Program allocation receipts for SBC work totaled $15,808,270.90, bringing the total to $158,859,518.38 received by the Executive Committee through 10 months of the fiscal year (October 1 through July 31). The year-to-date total for distribution through the SBC’s Cooperative Program Allocation Budget is $2,192,851.71, or 1.40 percent, above the $156,666,666.67 year-to-date CP projection for support of Southern Baptist ministries globally and across North America. It is $4,945,028.86, or 3.21 percent, more than the $153,914,489.52 received through the first 10 months of 2014.
Designated year-to-date giving of $185,610,814.48 is 0.62 percent, or $1,145,711.26, above the $184,465,103.22 received at this point last year. This total includes only those gifts received and distributed by the Executive Committee through close of business on July 31 and does not reflect designated gifts contributed directly to SBC entities. Designated contributions include the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions, the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions, Southern Baptist Global Hunger Relief and other special gifts. Designated gifts received during July amounted to $9,303,815.54.
The totals include money received by the Executive Committee from 42 cooperating state Baptist conventions as well as contributions from churches and individuals through the last business day of July.
The Cooperative Program is Southern Baptists’ channel of giving through which a local church is able to contribute to the ministries of its state convention and to the missions and ministries of the SBC with a single contribution to its state convention.
State conventions retain a portion of church contributions to the CP to support work in their respective states and forward a percentage to Southern Baptist national and international causes. The percentage of distribution from the states is at the discretion of the messengers of each state convention through the adoption of the state convention’s annual budget.
Month-to-month receipts often reflect significant swings based on a number of factors, including the percentage of CP contributions forwarded to the SBC by the state conventions after shared ministry expenses are deducted, the timing of when cooperating state conventions forward the national portion of CP contributions to the Executive Committee, the day of the month churches forward their CP contributions to their state conventions, and the number of Sundays in a given month.
The adopted SBC allocation budget projection for 2014-2015 is $188,000,000 and is distributed as follows: 50.41 percent to support nearly 4,800 overseas personnel with the IMB, 22.79 percent to help fuel North American evangelism and church planting through NAMB, 22.16 percent to help underwrite low-cost ministerial preparation and theological education through six SBC seminaries, 2.99 percent to the SBC operating budget and 1.65 percent to promote biblical morality and religious freedom through the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
CP allocation budget receipts received by the Executive Committee are reported monthly to the executives of the entities of the convention, to the state convention offices, to the state Baptist papers and are posted online atwww.cpmissions.net/CPReports.
