Earlier this month, I was encouraged after attending the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting in Dallas as it served as another reminder of the Lord’s faithfulness to us as a body of believers and the work we have the opportunity to do cooperatively. The meeting’s theme from Hebrews 10:23-24, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,” motivated me to be an encouragement to others. It was also very uplifting to see the emphasis and celebration of both the Cooperative Program and the Baptist Faith & Message (BF&M).
The Foundation’s mission is to serve, advise, and encourage Arkansas Baptists and this mission is only possible because of the Cooperative Program that is “the best and most practical way of meeting our obligations and providing for the ongoing of all our enterprises.” To echo the words of Resolution #2 from this year’s meeting, “we are grateful for Southern Baptist churches and individuals that give faithfully and sacrificially through the Cooperative Program,” as this allows us to continue to serve you and your church.
I am appreciative of the opportunity we have at the Foundation to steward distributions to the Cooperative Program and the impact those dollars have for the Gospel going out to the nations and doing work within our communities. We are just a small part of how funds are sent out but are immensely grateful to serve in this way. It is a joy to celebrate and affirm with our fellow believers that “during these past 100 years Southern Baptists have deployed more than $20 billion through the Cooperative Program, demonstrating both the vast wealth God has entrusted to their stewardship and their willingness to sacrificially invest that wealth into Great Commission cooperation through Southern Baptist enterprises.”
The BF&M has served as a “confessional standard” for Southern Baptists for 100 years and for this we are certainly thankful. In this year’s Resolution #8 it stated, “We steadfastly affirm, promote, and unite around the Baptist Faith and Message (2000), as a sufficient statement of our doctrinal identity and as the grounds of our cooperation for the sake of theological clarity and biblical unity.”
Overall, I was blessed and humbled to hear of the steadfast faithfulness of the Lord to use Southern Baptists through our shared mission and doctrinal beliefs to spread the Gospel to the nations. I returned to Arkansas encouraged and motivated to continue to be an encouragement to Arkansas Baptists.