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Disaster relief & cooperation
Ken Hemphill
October 15, 2018
3 MIN READ TIME

Disaster relief & cooperation

Disaster relief & cooperation
Ken Hemphill
October 15, 2018

During my years of service to Southern Baptists, I have frequently been asked why I am a Southern Baptist. Early on, I humorously but accurately responded that I was born one. My dad was a Baptist pastor for more than 50 years in North Carolina. Truth is, my Baptist roots go back for several generations.

As time progressed, I answered more seriously that I was Southern Baptist by choice because I believe in our ecclesiology (the way we do church), our missiology (the cooperative way we do missions) and our theology (our commitment to the Bible and the Baptist Faith & Message). These issues are still prime motivators in my passionate commitment to Southern Baptist life.

Recent events in my state have provided a visible example of why I am proud to be a Southern Baptist. Hurricane Florence pummeled North and South Carolina. On Sept. 16, my home church, First Baptist Church in Hendersonville, which gives over 10 percent of its undesignated receipts to the Cooperative Program (CP), commissioned a disaster relief team to assist with the dire needs of those most affected by Florence.

We were certainly not the only church or association to immediately send teams to those in need. In fact, if you have been watching the hurricane coverage, you have noticed the many volunteers in yellow shirts and hats. Southern Baptist disaster relief teams are generally among the first to arrive and the last to leave. These teams come from churches large and small, and from associations and state conventions across the United States.

I am Southern Baptist because of our missional partnerships, which enable us to respond quickly and in large numbers whenever and wherever there is a need. Many churches, like ours, have disaster relief teams they can send at a moment’s notice. In other situations, smaller churches join together through the local association to form teams. This associational partnership enables every church of every size to be integrally involved. The state convention often trains and coordinates these teams for maximum effect.

For example, North Carolina has trained over 14,000 people for disaster relief work. Right now we have disaster relief teams from states across the Southern Baptist Convention on the ground working together to meet physical needs and share Christ. When the situation demands a large and lengthy response, the North American Mission Board works to coordinate the efforts of these many teams.

The local church, whatever its size or location, is at the heart of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). The local association is essential to our missional task as it helps local churches band together for larger missional work. This is particularly true for our smaller rural churches, but the larger church can and should profit from working together with other churches in the association.

The state convention does vital work on a larger scale to help churches cooperate for greater missional impact. The national convention entities take this missional work to the ends of the earth. All of these various levels deserve adequate funding to do their specified role.

I am passionate about seeing our CP giving grow at every level. We are living in a time of desperate need of the gospel, and yet, last year the average church in the SBC gave less than 5 percent of its undesignated funds to causes at the state or national level through the Cooperative Program.

For the sake of the Kingdom, we can and must do better.

(EDITOR’S NOTE – Ken Hemphill is special assistant to North Greenville University’s president.)