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Cooperative Program of World Missions (CP) - How it came about

The Cooperative Program—How it came about

Since its inception in 1845, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has always had one mission—the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19-20). To fulfill its assigned part of this divine mandate, each SBC entity made special offering appeals to the churches. This method was referred to as the “societal” approach to missions and resulted in severe financial deficits, competition among entities, overlapping pledge campaigns, and frequent emergency appeals which greatly hampered the expanding ministry opportunities God was giving Southern Baptists. Some entities took out loans to cover operating costs until pledges or special offerings were received.

In 1919, the leaders of the SBC proposed the 75 Million Campaign, a five-year pledge campaign that, for the first time, included everything—the missions and ministries of all the state conventions as well as that of the Southern Baptist Convention. Though falling short of its goals, a God-given partnership of missions support was conceived—The Cooperative Program. Since its launch in 1925, the effectiveness of CP has been dependent upon individuals, churches, state conventions, and SBC entities cooperating, working toward a common goal of sharing the gospel with every person on the planet.

Today, over 44,000 churches in the US and Canada give through the Cooperative Program to support a variety of ministries including church starting, theological education and missions.

For more info, read
Cooperative Program (CP) Missions - How it works
Cooperative Program (CP) Missions - What it does
Cooperative Program (CP) Missions - Its Potential



(Adapted from "What is CP?," www.cpmissions.net. Used by permission of The Executive Committee Southern Baptist Convention)