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In Response to Ms. Bonnie Lee
In Response to Ms. Bonnie Lee
September 19, 2006 -
In Response to Ms. Bonnie Lee
by Dr. David Tolliver
September 2006
Every month, I ask CP Connection readers to submit their questions, comments, concerns, CP missions stories and testimonies. And guess what? One of you finally did! I was thrilled when Ms. Bonnie Lee of Open Heart Baptist Church in Columbia wrote to tell me about her commitment and the commitment of her church to CP missions. I want to share Ms. Bonnie’s comments with you–but as I do, I hope you will allow me to analyze and illustrate. Bonnie Lee’s insightful comments will be in bold type. The other stuff is my interpretation and illustration of Miss Bonnie’s thoughts. I hope you will read it all–but I especially want you to read the bold print.
“In response to DOM Bill Smather’s letter to the Editor, ‘I fully agree!’ The Cooperative Program and Missions are the heart and soul of Southern Baptists, and lowering goals for our churches does not meet with common sense!” I just put that in there because Bill Smathers needs to know that there were many who appreciated his comments in the last edition of the CP Connection and who share his enthusiasm for Cooperative Program missions. Also, Miss Bonnie really hit the nail right on the head when she said that the “...Cooperative Program and Missions are the heart of Southern Baptists”––Amen! Cooperative Program and Missions is who we are and what we do as Missouri/Southern Baptists!
“My small church (about 20 regular adult attendance) does not have much to give,...” I am sorry, Bonnie, but I am going to have to disagree at this point. Open Heart Baptist Church (I just LOVE that name---EVERY Missouri Baptist Church ought to be known for it’s “open heart”) is giving missionaries like yourself to Missouri Baptists as partners in the Gospel. And YOU are a wonderful gift to Missouri Baptists. Miss Bonnie goes on to say that her small church “...does not have much to give, but we have faith that our small offerings combined with the cooperative giving of other small and large Southern Baptists churches will be a mighty force used by God in the missions fields. Isn’t that the whole Purpose?” YES, that is precisely the purpose! “To do together what we cannot do alone!” AMEN! Bonnie Lee, you have an incredible grasp of the purpose and mission of the Cooperative Program.
Listen to the rest of the Open Heart Baptist Church story: “Because we were so small, our church was once advised to ‘disband and join with another church’. By stepping out in faith and depending on God’s leading, rather than the wisdom of man, we have opened the doors of our new church in the middle of a ‘subdivision explosion’ in our growing city. Our goal is not to become a big church, but to share the Gospel and meet the needs of as many people as we can in this growing neighborhood; then to start new churches as we start to overflow.” But, Bonnie, you already are a BIG church---BIG in heart! A deacon in a church I pastored in St. Louis used to tell me, “We’re a great church---not a great big church---but a great church”. May I suggest that describes all Cooperative Program giving churches. Go back and read again what Miss Bonnie wrote. Open Heart Baptist Church is a church that is reaching “Jerusalem”---the neighborhood where they live; “and all Judea”---the extended area that surrounds them; “Samaria and the end of the earth”---through their Cooperative Program giving; Open Heart Baptist Church is a church that is expecting to overflow; and Open Heart Baptist Church is a church planting church.
Why? Because they recognize that “God certainly used other giving churches and believers to answer our prayers to build our church home. What if they had all decided to encourage their believers to decrease their goal in giving? I encourage the Executive Board (and all Missouri Baptists) to refresh themselves in chapter 8 of the Apostle Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian Church."
Enough said. THANK YOU, Bonnie Lee, for your passion for the Lord; for His church; for lost souls; and for Cooperative Program missions! May your tribe increase!!
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