ROCKWALL, Texas — At a time when average giving through the Cooperative Program (CP) has declined to below 5%, First Baptist Church (FBC) in Rockwall continues to forward 18% of its undesignated receipts for national and international missions and ministries.

“Automatically in our budget, we’ve committed that 20% is going to go out the door,” Senior Pastor Michael Criner said. FBC Rockwall gives the other 2% to its Baptist association.

The church also collects an annual global missions offering which goes to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering and the Reach Texas State Missions Offering. For the past couple years, that one-day offering has averaged $1.5 million, Criner said.

“The reason why we give through the Cooperative Program is because the Cooperative Program is this impressive vehicle that takes any church’s money and helps accomplish the kingdom mission all over Texas and even the world,” he said.

The giving partnership between the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s (SBTC) 2,800-plus churches and more than 47,000 Southern Baptist churches nationwide fuels the Great Commission in ways FBC Rockwall could never accomplish alone.

“Giving through the Cooperative Program reminds us that the mission is beyond just our local church and involves all the local churches within our state and even our nation,” Criner said.

At FBC Rockwall, challenges to CP giving primarily stem from occurrences at the national level that lead people to question the viability of continuing to give.

“As the world becomes more isolated and insulated, giving through the Cooperative Program is a healthy reminder that that’s not how God has wired His church,” Criner said. 

The pastor reminds his congregation how CP gifts unlock theological education to some of the best seminaries in the world, support missionaries who are seeing hundreds of thousands of people come to faith yearly and fund church planting.

“We know that typically new churches reach more lost people than established churches, and I say that as pastor of a church that in a few years will be 175 years old,” Criner said. 

Criner has been pastor of FBC Rockwall for one year, succeeding Steve Swofford, who pastored there for 35 years and now serves as pastor emeritus. The church gave 18% through CP throughout Swofford’s tenure, Criner said, and such generosity may have extended through the pastoral leadership of M.L. Jones, who was there 31 years. 

At the church, CP is a planned topic of discussion in a new members class, and when it’s time to vote on the annual budget, members are reminded what it accomplishes, Criner said. On various Sunday mornings, the church highlights ministries made possible by strong CP giving.

During its annual global missions emphasis, FBC Rockwall hosted Kason Branch, pastor of Creekstone Church in North Richland Hills. Branch told the
congregation that when he planted his church nine years ago, he didn’t know FBC Rockwall and its members didn’t know him.

“But you gave to my church whether you realized it or not because you gave through the Cooperative Program,” Criner recalls Branch saying.

Theological education hits home at FBC Rockwall, as one of its own young men is attending Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS). 

“He’s able to do that because of the Cooperative Program,” Criner said. “The cost of Southwestern is drastically less because of our CP giving. That’s a benefit to him. We’ve got two guys on our staff that are at seminary, so it is impacting our own staff members. Because our church gives so generously, these guys are able to go to school for much less than what theological education would normally cost somewhere else.”

At least two college students from the church will travel internationally this summer with a call to missions supported by CP, he said. 

The church averages 1,600 on Sundays, which might lead many to think giving 18% through CP would be easier than at a smaller church, but Criner said he identifies with the feeling that there won’t be enough left to pay the bills.

“I have those same concerns, and yet I think because so much is going out the door, that’s why we’re in the financial spot we’re in as a church,” he said. “I think God has blessed our people through their sacrificial giving and our church budget through our sacrificial giving in ways we’ll never be able to understand.

“The ways of the kingdom are counter to the ways of the world. The world would say, ‘Keep as much as you can and give away the leftovers.’ We’re giving God our first fruits, and He’s giving us more than if we had kept everything ourselves.”

Criner’s advice to churches that might be hesitant to increase CP giving? “Just begin to do more than you believe you can and see how God answers. Just start there. Take a step.”

(EDITOR’S NOTE — This story first appeared in the Southern Baptist Texan.)