
The original issue can be found at: http://www.baptistpress.com/issue-12/03/2014

DISCLAIMER: Baptist Press should be credited for any reprinted stories that originate with BP.
Suggested credit line: Reprinted from Baptist Press (www.baptistpress.com), news service of the Southern Baptist Convention. 

Please note that Baptist Press periodically carries stories from other sources by permission. Individuals interested in reprinting non-BP stories should contact the entity where the story originated to seek reprint permission.


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WEEK OF PRAYER: Church planting fire burning in S. Asia 
by Don Graham
Date: December 03, 2014 - Wednesday

<i>EDITOR'S NOTE: This year's Week of Prayer for International Missions in the Southern Baptist Convention is Nov. 30-Dec. 7 with the theme of "One Sacred Effort -- Find your place in God's story" from Matthew 28:19-20 (HCSB). The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions in tandem with Cooperative Program gifts from Southern Baptist churches support approximately 4,800 international missionaries in seeking to fulfill the Great Commission. Gifts to the Lottie Moon offering are received through local Southern Baptist churches or online at imb.org/offering, where there are resources to promote the offering. This year's goal is $175 million. Mitch and Nellie Englehart*, the focus of this story, are among the featured missionaries in this year's Week of Prayer.</i> 

SOUTH ASIA (BP) -- For Mitch Englehart*, it's a beautiful sight that's taking place in some very dirty water. The South Carolina native watches from the bank of a stagnant canal as six new believers are baptized outside a small village in the South Asian countryside. Dhanwan is one of them. 

"I want to follow Jesus!" the young man says, explaining that he became a Christian following a miraculous healing through the prayers of a local pastor. That pastor, Lalbahadur, is a fifth-generation Christian whose faith can be traced back to Englehart's church planting network. It is mid-January, and Dhanwan shivers as he steps into the canal. Lalbahadur starts the baptism chain, first dunking Dhanwan, as each newly baptized believer baptizes the next. This is discipleship in action, Englehart says, and it's what's brought him to South Asia. 

He and his wife Nellie*, from Texas, have spent the past nine years training church leaders like Lalbahadur. For Englehart, 47, that means travel -- and lots of it. On average, he spends 10 to 12 nights a month away from Nellie and their two children, Rachel* and Peyton*, as he disciples national believers. But he says the sacrifice is worthwhile; it's part of the commitment the Texas couple made when God called them as full-time Christian workers.  

"When you look back at Paul and Jesus, you can almost spell 'disciple' T-I-M-E," Englehart says. "If we want to see God move in an area, then we need to invest between 60 and 90 days a year into these guys."

"These guys" are Englehart's two main church planting partners, Rakesh and Manoj. Between them, they've seen more than 1,200 new churches and 3,000-plus baptisms in the past five years. Trouble is, they work more than 500 miles apart. 

Rakesh is six hours away by train; Manoj is much farther (14 hours by train), which is why Englehart opts to fly. The $140 ticket shaves travel time down to an hour. Both the partners' ministries center around rural villages, which means that after Englehart arrives in their respective cities, there's often hours of driving still ahead to get where they're going. 

"One hundred dollars gets us a taxi or jeep to travel around for three days so we can go from village to village," Englehart says. The same amount buys about 35 Bibles, "so we can put the Word in people's hands." 

All of these expenses -- from trains to taxis to Bibles -- represent just a few of the Engleharts' needs provided for by Southern Baptists' giving through the Cooperative Program and Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions.  

"We can do so much more together than we can by ourselves, and that's the genius of Lottie Moon," Englehart says, speaking of the offering that supports him, his family and their ministry, as well as that of more than 4,800 other Southern Baptist workers overseas. "When we go home &#91;to America&#93;, they call us heroes. But all of us are heroes because we couldn't do it without those folks who are praying and giving. They're our heroes." 

The total number of believers in Englehart's church planting network alone tops 10,000, and there are dozens more Christian workers scattered throughout the region. Better still, Englehart says much of the growth is happening among unengaged, unreached people groups (UUPGs) who are hearing the Gospel for the first time. But there's still plenty of work to be done. 

Englehart's team is busy developing a new wave of church planters focused on the area's least-reached districts -- many less than 0.1 percent Christian. Progress can sometimes seem painfully slow, but Englehart notes that's a small price to pay compared with that of the South Asian believers he's training.

He's awed by the sacrifices many are willing to make -- like walking nine miles in sweltering heat to attend a training event. "Who wouldn't want to be around a leader like that? It's from those guys I've learned how to give my life for the Gospel," Englehart says. "I've seen these guys suffer and the joy they have in doing it." 

Englehart remembers when God first began pulling him toward full-time Christian work. A successful businessman chasing the American dream, he was first introduced to South Asians in Texas. Almost immediately, Englehart knew something was different. He was able to connect with them in a way he couldn't with his American friends -- especially when it came to sharing the Gospel. 

With Americans, "it was like I was pushing a boulder up a hill," Englehart explains. "But when I sat with South Asian friends..., it was like chasing that boulder down a hill -- it was that easy." 

And today, after helping train dozens of church planters, there's little doubt Englehart is exactly where God wants him to be. "I wish I could stretch my day into 36 hours, I wish I could have 45 days in a month -- that's how much I love what I do," he says.

"God is using these guys in mighty ways," Englehart adds with a grin. "There's already a fire burning. My role is to pour a little gasoline on that fire."

See some scenes from South Asia and hear Mitch Englehart share about the abundant harvest going on there:


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LGBT ordinance repeal on Fayetteville ballot
by Tom Strode
Date: December 03, 2014 - Wednesday

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (BP) -- Southern Baptist leaders in northwest Arkansas are expressing hope voters will overturn a pro-homosexual/transgender ordinance Dec. 9, turning back a significant threat to religious liberty.

Residents of Fayetteville, home of the University of Arkansas, will go to the polls to vote on rescinding a measure that includes civil rights protections for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender (LGBT) people. Fayetteville's City Council passed the ordinance in a 6-2 vote in August, but its foes collected enough signatures within a month to place its repeal on the ballot in a special election.

A Fayetteville pastor and the local Baptist director of missions conveyed to Baptist Press a measure of optimism as the vote nears. The local Chamber of Commerce, meanwhile, has added its voice for repeal.

Douglas Falknor, pastor of First Baptist Church, said he is "cautiously optimistic" the ordinance will be repealed.

Ron Lomax, director of missions for the Washington Madison Baptist Association, said he is "very hopeful" regarding repeal, "if people from our church congregations and businesses will get out and vote." Lomax cited churches and businesses because the ordinance infringes on religious freedom and institutes a "more difficult business environment," he said in an email interview.

The Fayetteville ordinance includes real or perceived "gender identity, gender expression" and "sexual orientation" among a list of classifications deserving protection from discrimination in employment and housing. It also bars discrimination by establishments that provide "goods, services, accommodations and entertainment to the public," which would include hotels, restaurants and other businesses. 

In addition, the measure creates the new post of civil rights administrator for the investigation of complaints, the mediation of disputes and recommendations of prosecution, according to the Arkansas Baptist News.

The ordinance's weakness on religious liberty is especially objectionable to Southern Baptists. 

Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), described the ordinance as "one of the most broadly written and troubling non-discrimination bills I've ever seen, stipulating religious exemptions only for the most narrow of circumstances, which will endanger untold numbers of men and women seeking to live out their Gospel faith."

He added in a written statement for BP, "Religious freedom doesn't arrive by majority vote and can't be negotiated away by majority vote."

Despite amendments by the city council, religious and conscience rights remain vulnerable under the ordinance, its opponents contend. Among the concerns:

-- Churches could be prosecuted if they refuse to hire gay or transgender people for "secular" staff posts.

-- Christian schools and bookstores could be required to violate their beliefs in their employment practices.

-- Business owners with religious objections could be prosecuted for declining to provide their services for same-sex weddings or commitment ceremonies.

A spokeswoman for Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a leading advocate for religious liberty, said the ordinance fails to fulfill American government's responsibility to safeguard, not threaten, the freedoms of speech and conscience.

"Passing laws that guarantee special protections for some but punish others is a reckless avoidance of this duty," said Kellie Fiedorek, ADF litigation staff counsel, in an email interview with BP. "If this ordinance is enacted, people of all backgrounds and beliefs would be forced to accept, endorse and even promote government-dictated messages, ideas and events, even if they violate their deepest convictions.

"Fayetteville is already a diverse and tolerant place: the government should not use its power to coerce any Arkansan, under threat of punishment, to surrender his or her constitutionally protected freedoms," Fiedorek said. "Coercion is not an American value."

Passage of the Fayetteville ordinance appears to mark the first win in a new southern campaign to extend LGBT rights. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the country's largest political organization that promotes LGBT rights, announced in April such an effort with an $8.5 million budget over three years in Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi. On Nov. 10, HRC unveiled its "All God's Children" religious outreach to persuade Mississippians that homosexuality is compatible with Christianity. 

If the ordinance survives the repeal effort, Fayetteville will be the first Arkansas city with an LGBT civil rights law. Three other southern states -- Tennessee, as well as Alabama and Mississippi -- have no cities with such ordinances, according to HRC. About 200 cities and counties in the United States have non-discrimination laws that include transgender rights.

Moore said of the Fayetteville ordinance, "Some organizations are using this law as a wedge issue to expand similar laws around the country, and I hope the people of Fayetteville will vote to repeal this ordinance."

ADF, Fiedorek said, hopes "elected officials not only in Fayetteville but across America will stand up for freedom."

The Chamber of Commerce in Fayetteville, according to a Nov. 10 memo by its president, Steve Clark, said the city had failed to address the organization's numerous questions about enforcement of the ordinance, including some regarding religious freedom.

The chamber's opposition to the law is based on its advocacy for its members and "absolutely not a pro-LGBT vs. anti-LGBT debate," Clark said. The chamber includes LGBT members and "abhors discrimination of any kind," but the ordinance is "unworkable and unacceptable," he said.

The legal questions chamber representatives asked of the city "leave existing and new businesses without guidance regarding how they should train their employees to comply with the law and/or modify any of their policies to comply," Clark said.

The chamber board's position has encouraged the repeal effort, Falknor and Lomax said. Its support has been "very helpful for offering a different face/perspective for repeal" and for providing a media campaign, Falknor said.

The ordinance's opponents also have expressed concern about the safety of women and children because males who identify as transgender but may be sexual predators could be free to use female restrooms and dressing rooms.

Pastors from as far away as Houston and San Antonio joined local pastors Dec. 2 in Fayetteville for a briefing and news conference to back the repeal effort. Both of those Texas cities have enacted ordinances similar to the one approved in Fayetteville in the last 15 months.


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'Hard to argue with' CP success, pastor says
by Karen L. Willoughby
Date: December 03, 2014 - Wednesday

PLEASANT GROVE, Utah (BP) -- Maxine Warren takes home the coffee left over from fellowships at First Baptist Church in Pleasant Grove, Utah, not wanting to see it thrown out.

She and her husband Louis, in their early 80s, were children during America's Great Depression. Frugality is so ingrained they don't even think about it.

But when the motion was made at the church's November business meeting to increase Cooperative Program giving from 1 percent to 5 percent, with a 1 percent increase each year thereafter, they didn't need to think about that, either. Their immediate "ayes" joined a unanimous affirmative chorus.

"I was appalled," Louis Warren said of the time he learned the congregation had been giving about $50, less than 1 percent of its offerings, to missions through the Cooperative Program.

During many years as church treasurer, Warren hadn't thought about the monthly check he wrote for the Cooperative Program, he said. He had just followed the church's directives.

But over the last year, under the direction of bivocational pastor Mike Bagley, the church has been learning about the Cooperative Program and what it means to the advancement of God's Kingdom.

Videos and photo presentations from the International Mission Board, the North American Mission Board, the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee and SBC state conventions show members that God works through Southern Baptists working together.

"The Cooperative Program is awesome," said Bagley, a building contractor who has pastored the congregation two years. "It allows a small church like ours to be a part of a global Christian witness. It helps us focus outside ourselves, and that in itself helps people grow more like Jesus.

"It's hard to argue with success," Bagley said. "What we do as Southern Baptists to together carry the light of the Gospel message to a dark world honors God. That's why He blesses it."

First Baptist Pleasant Grove, founded in 1954 as a mission of First Baptist Church of Provo, Utah, appreciates the need to take the Gospel to a dark world. Pleasant Grove is in Utah County, arguably more steeped in Mormonism than anywhere else in the nation as home to Mormon-owned Brigham Young University.

Mormon, the common name for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, comes from the founding of that religion in 1830 by Joseph Smith, who "declared that in these latter days of the world, all other churches were participating in apostasy," according to LDS documents cited on the Christian-based www.gotquestions.org. For Mormons, the Book of Mormon "goes hand in hand with the Bible, becoming a second witness for Jesus Christ," according to www.mormon.org.

It's not easy for a Southern Baptist church to grow in a county where about 99 percent of the residents have been taught since childhood that all religions except LDS are an abomination to God, Bagley said.

"It's not my job to grow the church," Bagley said. "That's God's job. My job is to shepherd the people as He leads me."

With its newly-energized missions focus, First Baptist Pleasant Grove is moving forward with the 35 to 40 people who participate in Sunday morning worship.

Local ministries include "Miss Shirley's Closet" to help the needy, and regular street-witnessing. Four members also went on a short-term construction mission trip to Montes Claros, Brazil, this summer as part of a group of about 130 involved in a variety of ministries encompassing sports; drama; a community, school and prison outreach; medical, and church planting. In Montes Claros, at least 4,500 people professed faith in Jesus.

First Baptist Pleasant Grove was among eight Salt Lake Baptist Association churches participating in Camp USA, an outreach to South Korean children and adult chaperones in August. Church members provided host homes and meals, built friendships and immersed the visitors in Bible study, English conversation classes and sports.

In November, church members packed 111 shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child, a Samaritan's Purse ministry, exceeding the church's goal of 100 shoeboxes and surpassing last year's 65 boxes.

"It's awesome what God is doing at Pleasant Grove church," Bagley said. "We just want to be obedient to follow as He leads." 

The church's worshippers include those disenchanted with the Mormon church, and the occasional transplanted Southern Baptist. While laborers are few and finances are stretched, Bagley said, God uses faithful members to move the church forward.

"We do what we can to honor God," Bagley said. "God responds to that by blessing us so we can do more."


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Northwest Baptists mark IMB partnership
by Cameron Crabtree
Date: December 03, 2014 - Wednesday

SALEM, Ore. (BP) -- The Northwest Baptist Convention celebrated paying off the debt to its headquarters and marked a new East Asian partnership with the International Mission Board at the convention's 2014 annual meeting in Salem, Ore.

The mortgage of about $140,000 a year on the Northwest Baptist Center in Vancouver, Wash., was paid in full in September, the NWBC reported. The facility houses the NWBC, the Northwest Baptist Foundation and Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary's Pacific Northwest Campus.

Northwest Baptists also celebrated their partnership with IMB workers serving in East Asia. The partnership formed this summer after a survey trip by NWBC executive director Randy Adams and several pastors, including Dustin Hall, pastor of Kennewick Baptist Church in Kennewick, Wash.

"I was challenged in a number of ways by this trip," Hall said. "I thought &#91;East Asia&#93; had been reached and couldn't have been more wrong."

Northwest Baptist churches will assist IMB workers in reaching unengaged and unreached people groups in East Asia, Adams said, while continuing their outreach at home.

"Simply put, our business is to make it hard to go to hell from the Northwest," Adams said. "It is too hard to hear the Gospel in the Northwest. We must make it easier ... to do the work delivering the Good News of Jesus Christ to every boy and girl, man and woman, in the Northwest and to reach for the world beyond, all the way to East Asia."

Adams urged participants to view their day-to-day ministry as a spiritual battle won through praying and proclaiming the Gospel.

"We are engaged in a fight that matters," Adams said. "Our number one need is prayer for more preachers, more pastors, more seed sowers and Gospel harvesters.

"It's too easy to live and die in the Northwest without hearing the Gospel from someone who loves you."

The 335 messengers and nearly 80 guests gathered Nov. 11 – 12 at the Salem Convention Center in Salem, Ore., represented 149 NWBC-affiliated churches.

"One of the things I love about serving with you in the Northwest is the diversity of our work and the great commitment to reaching people for Christ that I see from so many of our pastors and people," Adams told attendees. "There is no legislative or political pursuit, there is no executive board in the Fortune 500, there is no athletic endeavor on this planet that possesses the potential for eternal impact like that of your church, and churches like yours in the Northwest, and the world over."

Messengers welcomed 22 churches into NWBC affiliation during the convention's opening session.

In other business, messengers cut costs to approve a $5,098,298 budget for 2015, a 1.5 percent reduction from the current budget of $5,177,000.

Messengers anticipate $2,720,000 in Cooperative Program funds from the NWBC's 450-plus affiliated churches, $65,000 less than this year. Messengers voted to increase Cooperative Program gifts to Southern Baptist Convention national and international causes from 27 percent to 27.25 percent in 2015, but the reduction in the total budget may result in an actual reduction in the CP allocation. In 2015, Northwest Baptists anticipate giving $741,200 in CP receipts to national and international causes, down from $751,000 this year.

Northwest Baptists will receive $1,891,010 from the North American Mission Board, however, mainly to supplement the salaries of 10 jointly-employed church planting catalysts across the Northwest. Northwest Baptists contribute 15 percent of the personnel costs, according to the NWBC report submitted to Baptist Press.

Northwest Baptists will cut costs further by decreasing support to the Pacific Northwest Campus of Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. The Vancouver, Wash., campus will receive $100,000 in 2015, down from $178,800 this year. About 40 students are enrolled at the campus, more than a third of them studying online.

Northwest Baptists will not host a retreat for church leaders in 2015, saving nearly $50,000.

The convention will save another $27,600 in church staff insurance through GuideStone Financial Resources, and another $48,000 in insurance costs for convention employees, Northwest Baptists reported.

However, savings will be offset by an additional $203,000 in church planting costs, the convention said, and the cost of increasing publication of the convention's official newsjournal from four times a year to at least six.

Messengers passed a Sylvia Wilson Mission Offering goal of $110,000 for 2015.

Current Northwest Baptist officers were re-elected for another one-year term. They are president Dale Jenkins, Airways Heights Baptist Church in Airways Heights, Wash.; first vice president Bryan Toll, Smith Rock Community Church, Terrebonne, Ore., and second vice president Frank Johnson, Chestnut Street Baptist Church, Ellensburg, Wash.

In 11 resolutions, messengers expressed appreciation for military veterans and those currently serving in the nation's armed forces, commended the leadership of NWBC executive director Adams and the service of NWBC staff, acknowledged the importance of church planting across the Northwest, urged continuing prayer for the Washington communities of Oso and Darrington in the wake of a large-scale natural disaster earlier this year, and affirmed the importance of Golden Gate seminary's Pacific Northwest Campus in the education and leadership development of ministers in the region.

In speaking to broader social concerns, messengers approved resolutions urging prayer for persecuted Christians around the world, supporting aid efforts assisting Africans suffering from the deadly Ebola virus, pressing for churches to continually "bring the grace and truth of God to bear" on various social issues, and exhorting Northwest Baptists "to press on in our calling by faithfully engaging people with the unparalleled message of the only Savior, Jesus the Christ."

Jim Fitzpatrick, pastor of CrossPointe Baptist Church in Vancouver, delivered the convention sermon.

Next year's annual meeting is set for Nov. 10-11 in Portland, Ore.


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WORLDVIEW: Where global outreach begins
by Erich Bridges
Date: December 03, 2014 - Wednesday

<i>EDITOR'S NOTE: Missions columnist Erich Bridges, writing in conjunction with Southern Baptists' Week of Prayer for International Missions, notes that a vibrant spiritual relationship with Christ is foundational to global outreach. "One Sacred Effort -- Find your place in God's story" is the theme for the Nov. 30-Dec. 7 prayer emphasis in support of the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, which in tandem with Cooperative Program gifts from Southern Baptist churches undergird approximately 4,800 international missionaries in seeking to fulfill the Great Commission. Gifts to the Lottie Moon offering are received through local Southern Baptist churches or online at imb.org/offering, where there are resources to promote the offering.</i>

RICHMOND, Va. (BP) -- Light shines brightest in darkness -- even in the murk of a stagnant water canal near a village in southern Asia, where six new believers in Christ are baptized.

"I want to follow Jesus!" says Dhanwan, one of the six, who became a Christian through the church-planting network led by Christian worker Mitch Englehart* and his national partners.

The local pastor baptizes Dhanwan, who in turn baptizes the next new believer, who baptizes the next. Mitch has seen more than 3,000 baptisms in the past five years alone -- and his team is developing a new wave of church planters focused on the least-reached districts where he works.

"God is using these guys in mighty ways," Mitch says. "There's already a fire burning. My role is to pour a little gasoline on that fire." (See featured video.)

The fire began in the heart of God. His divine plan to reconcile creation to Himself was fulfilled when He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to redeem us. After His death and resurrection, Jesus sent His disciples to continue God's mission. Today, we're part of His plan, if we obey His call to take the Gospel to all nations: 

"Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:19-20 HCSB).

Before the resurrected Christ said those words, however, verses 16 and 17 record how His followers encountered Him that day: "The 11 disciples traveled to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had directed them. When they saw Him, they worshiped, but some doubted." 

Even after seeing Him risen from the grave, they needed His presence and power before going forth into the world.

"Jesus had some important instructions for His inner circle, but before He offered the outer commission, He simply invited them to be with Him," writes former missionary Randy Rains, IMB leader for spiritual life and formation. "They needed to understand that their relationship to Him was far more important than anything they would ever do. They worshiped Him, though some doubted, or as some interpretations render it, they hesitated. Within this context of doubt, fear and hesitation, He reassured them of His presence, authority and unconditional love. He knew they would need all of this before embarking upon any fruitful mission endeavor."

Rains notes that the Great Commission "does not begin with our going out to make disciples. It begins first with our meeting Jesus in the place where He has invited us to come. ... It is the location where we listen in prayer as He reminds us we are His beloved, that He has all authority and will be with us wherever we go and in all that we do. Let's make sure we are fulfilling the inner commission as we seek to fulfill the outer commission of making disciples of all peoples, baptizing them and teaching them to observe all things He has commanded us."

This is the one sacred effort to which He calls us -- first to Him, then to His mission. 

This year's Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions gives us a fresh opportunity to join God in His work. When you pray and give, you become part of God's story around the world.

*Name changed. 

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Cooperative Program 2% above budget projection
by Staff
Date: December 03, 2014 - Wednesday

NASHVILLE (BP) -- Year-to-date contributions to Southern Baptist national and international missions and ministries received by the SBC Executive Committee are $31,959,358.96, or 2 percent more than the year-to-date SBC Cooperative Program Allocation Budget projection, and are 6.35 percent above contributions received during the same time frame last year, according to a news release from SBC Executive Committee President and Chief Executive Officer Frank S. Page.

The year-to-date total represents money received by the Executive Committee by the close of the last business day of November and includes receipts from state conventions, churches and individuals for distribution according to the 2014-15 SBC Cooperative Program Allocation Budget. 

The $31,959,358.96 received by the Executive Committee from Oct. 1 through Nov. 30 for distribution through the Cooperative Program Allocation Budget is $1,909,105.56 more than the $30,050,253.40 received through the end of November 2013 and $626,025.63 more than the $31,333,333.33 year-to-date budgeted amount to support Southern Baptist ministries globally and across North America.

Designated giving of $7,315,431.74 for the same year-to-date period is 5.90 percent, or $407,785.80, above the $6,907,645.94 received at this point last year. This total includes only those gifts received and distributed by the Executive Committee 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.

November's CP allocation receipts for SBC work totaled $15,940,178.11. Designated gifts received last month amounted to $3,912,221.59.

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 Southern Baptist Convention with a single contribution to its state convention. 

State conventions retain a portion of church contributions to the Cooperative Program 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.

The SBC allocation budget is distributed as follows: 50.41 percent to international missions through IMB, 22.79 percent to North American missions through NAMB, 22.16 percent to theological education, 2.99 percent to the SBC operating budget and 1.65 percent to the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. 

Month-to-month swings reflect a number of factors, including the number of Sundays in a given month, the day of the month churches forward their CP contributions to their state conventions, the percentage of CP contributions forwarded to the SBC by the state conventions after shared ministry expenses are deducted and the timing of when the state conventions forward the national portion of Cooperative Program contributions to the Executive Committee.

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 at www.cpmissions.net/CPReports.



