What Happens to My Tithes and Offerings After I Give?

I am always inspired by the generosity of our church membership! It amazes me that so many people would give so much because they want to see the kingdom of Christ advanced. We want to see our gifts contribute to the spread of the gospel and the fulfillment of the Great Commission. We want to see people trust Jesus as Savior and Lord as we have! To all of our members who give faithfully, thank you for giving to the Lord. 

For many of us, we are glad to give, but if we're honest, we have little idea what happens to these gifts after we give them. In this post, I want to demystify the process by which our gifts turn into resources for ministry. Today, I just want to talk only about giving which is applied to the annual budget (a.k.a., undesignated giving).

As I've mentioned in other posts, our church is an autonomous and self-governing church. In part, this means church members decide how to apply their gifts toward the ministry of their church. The way that the membership does this is by approving, by a majority vote, a general spending budget each year. This budget answers the question, "How shall the church spend the tithes and offerings it receives throughout the year?" Typically, our members approve this annual budget at a special called business meeting each September. The budget addresses spending from October through September of the following year. 

If you are a member of our church, we not only pledge toward one another to give our tithes and offerings to the church, but we also agree as members to be part of the process of building and approving our ministry spending plan each year. So, please plan to be a part of this special called business meeting this September. Your participation is important to our church family.

I am not going to go through the annual budget line by line, but I will give you a general outline. In the 2020-2021 Annual Budget, for every dollar that is given:

• $.49 goes to pay the salaries of staff members who support, equip, and lead the church membership for ministry.  
• $.30 goes toward administrative costs like maintaining the building for ministry, paying utilities, running the office, and insuring church property. 
• $.21 goes to fund ministry and missions within our church and beyond our church. Out of this $.21, $.02 goes to support the work of our local association of Baptist churches (The Capital Baptist Association) and just under $.09 goes toward the Cooperative Program (CP) of Southern Baptists. If you recall, this is money that autonomous Southern Baptist churches pool in order to advance the gospel. We give this in the belief that we can do more together than on our own.

Now, I've had several questions lately about the Cooperative Program. Personally, I think the CP is one of the most incredible expressions of missions partnership in modern history. I want to spend a little time talking about what happens to the money our church gives to the CP. 

If you are keeping up with the math, you see that our church gives close to 9% of the gifts we receive toward the budget to the CP. If our church makes budget, this turns out to be about $51,304 for 2020-2021. However, for many it's unknown how this money is divided and distributed among Baptist entities and ministries. Let's do the same exercise we did earlier and break down each dollar given to the CP. For every dollar of CP giving:

• $.42 stays in Oklahoma to fund our Great Commission partnership with Oklahoma Baptists. This funds ministries like Falls Creek, Baptist Collegiate Ministries, church revitalization, Oklahoma church planting, and Oklahoma Disaster Relief.
• Another $.15 of every dollar stays in Oklahoma to fund Oklahoma Baptist affiliates like Oklahoma Baptist Homes for Children (including Boys Ranch Town and Hope Pregnancy Centers), Oklahoma Baptist University, Baptist Village Communities, and WatersEdge Financial Services (formerly known as the Baptist Foundation of Oklahoma). 

I think it's important to note that $.57 of every dollar given to the CP stays in Oklahoma! 

Continuing, of every dollar our church gives to the CP:

• $.21 goes to fund the International Mission Board (IMB), which is at the heart of Baptist missions partnership. Alone, few of our churches could send and support a missionary to another country. Not many of our churches could do that well. Yet, through our partnership with the IMB, we participate in fully funding over 3,600 missionaries around the world! This is something incredible to be a part of.  
• $.10 goes to fund the North American Mission Board (NAMB), which supports evangelism in Southern Baptist churches, operates Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, endorses military chaplains for evangelistic work, funds new Southern Baptist church starts throughout the U.S. and Canada, and supports Southern Baptist churches in various compassion ministries which meet needs and share Christ. 
• $.10 supports the six Southern Baptist seminaries which I found out recently provide theological education for nearly 1/3 of all seminary-trained ministers in America (regardless of denomination). I have personally benefitted from seminary degrees from Gateway Baptist Seminary.
• Lastly, $.02 of every dollar given to the CP goes to support Southern Baptist entities like the Executive Committee, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, and  the Baptist Press. 

A few additional amazing facts to consider:

• Our church has contributed $505,539 to the CP over the last decade. 
• Last year, Southern Baptist churches pooled $455 million for the CP and $2.3 billion in the last 5 years  

In summary, the Cooperative Program embodies the Baptist value that our churches can do more together than on our own. It represents our participation in a broad range of ministries that we deeply value as Southern Baptists. In the CP we truly have something special. 

With all these things said, I thank the church family again for faithful giving unto the Lord. It is exciting to understand the far reach of our church's ministry.

In Christ,

Pastor Doug