By Larry Robertson
President, TBC, & Clarksville Pastor
I didn’t grow up in a strong Cooperative Program giving church. When I got to Blue Mountain (Miss.) College as a ministerial student, however, my eyes were opened to the unparalleled strategy Southern Baptists have to fund missions and ministry.
Dr. James Travis, longtime biblical studies professor at Blue Mountain, taught us that being Southern Baptist is more than geography or theology. Our distinctive bond is our commitment to cooperation, namely through the Cooperative Program.
In the first church I pastored as a 19-year-old boy, we ran 22 on a good day. Yet we were connected to missions and ministries far beyond our abilities and limitations as a congregation. I was able to remind those precious people that ten cents out of every undesignated dollar they gave supported 8,000 missionaries (at that time) at home and abroad, six SBC seminaries, and a whole host of other denominational causes. [Read more…]