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Friends and Family
Friends and Family
January 24, 2007 -
Friends and Family
by Dr. David Tolliver
January 24, 2007
Do you remember the long distance calling plan called Friends & Family? In that plan the customer created a list of people—Friends & Family, people with similar interests, people who would talk together, people who came together to save money. May I suggest another set of Friends & Family who come together to use the Lord’s money wisely—i.e. "save money"...we also have "similar interests"— i.e. worldwide missions. I’m talking now about the Friends & Family of the Missouri and Southern Baptist Conventions. Friends & Family work together for the common good. The Missouri Baptist Family is made up of friends in Christ who are working together cooperatively to reach more friends and family for Christ. "I’m so glad I’m a part of the family of God".
Doug McGlaughlin...one of my friends and a part of the family of God...is the Moderator of the Twin Rivers Baptist Association. He is a "history buff" and something of a historian in his own right...and he is certainly a good friend of Cooperative Program missions. I want you to look quickly at something that Brother McGlaughlin wrote in Link Up, the newsletter of the Twin Rivers Baptist Association:
"I have found no evidence in all of Baptist history of missionaries going out to raise their own support. This appears to be the responsibility of the sending agencies. Robert Samuel Duncan, prior to 1925, raised the money for foreign missions here in Missouri. He lived his entire life in Lincoln and Montgomery counties (Missouri) and is buried near Montgomery City. He traveled all over our state, visiting churches and annual associational meetings taking offerings for foreign missions and Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. There were three other men working in Missouri for other Baptist institutions. These men kept up to half of the money they raised to take care of their own salaries and travel expenses. They rarely ever went to the very small churches because they probably could not get enough there to cover their own expenses. But these small churches can now participate in supporting on a national level: foreign and home missions, six seminaries, and more. On a state level they support: colleges, a children’s home, and many other ministries. They do all this and more by giving to the Cooperative Program."
It’s true, regardless of the size of the church, the family of Missouri Baptist churches participate together in worldwide missions and ministry through the Cooperative Program. Look back at the phrase in Brother McGlaughlin’s paragraph that says "They rarely ever went to the very small churches..." The beauty of the Cooperative Program is that the largest Southern Baptist churches in Missouri participate together with the smallest Southern Baptist churches in Missouri—and together, we put almost 11,000 missionaries around the world sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Together, we support six world-class seminaries (one of them in Kansas City, Missouri) with more than 15,000 future Gospel ministers training to fulfill the calling that God has placed on their lives. Together we participate in over 30 different ministries through the Southern Baptist Convention and the Missouri Baptist Convention; including Disaster relief, Men’s Ministry, Women’s Ministry and WMU, Children’s Ministries, Family Ministries, Small Group Discipleship Ministries, Pastoral and Church/Minister Relations, Partnership Missions, Evangelism and Spiritual Awakening, Technology and Biblical Stewardship. And I’m sure I’ve left something out...but that’s the beauty of the Cooperative Program...there is more to do and more being done than any one church can do and more than any one person can keep up with. From the smallest to the largest church—we all play our part and do our share to be witnesses of Jesus Christ "...in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the end of the earth".
Friends and family work together for the common good. The Missouri Baptist family is made up of friends in Christ who are working together cooperatively to reach more friends and family for Christ. "I’m so glad I’m a part of the family of God".
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