Southern Baptist Convention

Statement of the President and Officers
on proposed changes to CP recommendations

NASHVILLE, Tenn., May 26, 2006—“The president and officers of the SBC Executive Committee, in a conference call Thursday afternoon, May 25, 2006, concluded that the convention’s environment has changed dramatically since the February meeting of the Executive Committee when it received the Ad Hoc CP Committee Report and approved its nine recommendations. Therefore, revisions to two of those recommendations, #3 and #4, will be presented to the Executive Committee prior to the convention in Greensboro.

“These recommendations never were intended to create controversy. Messengers will have a number of decisions to make about a host of issues. We hope the revised recommendations will make it possible for messengers to wholeheartedly embrace our initiative to increase support for the Cooperative Program.

“The report is slated to be commended to the Convention during its annual meeting. The effect of the revisions is to remove any reference to an exact percentage. Both recommendations presently encourage Southern Baptist churches to give at least ten percent of undesignated receipts through the Cooperative Program.

“The recommendation revisions to be presented to the Executive Committee will continue to encourage Southern Baptist churches to increase the percentage of undesignated receipts given through the Cooperative Program. Recommendation #4 will continue to encourage the election of state and national officers whose churches are committed to increasing systematically and enthusiastically the percentage of undesignated receipts given through the Cooperative Program.”

The Southern Baptist Convention is America’s largest evangelical denomination, having more than 16.2 million members in over 43,500 churches nationwide. The Executive Committee is the administrative entity responsible for facilitating the ongoing work of the Convention between annual meetings with offices in Nashville, Tennessee.

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