Our church is one small church in New Orleans’ 9th Ward, but our commission (Matthew 28:18-20) is every bit as great as any suburban mega church in the world. One way that we express our faithfulness to this commission is by giving 10% of the offerings that we receive to a wide-reaching missions and relief effort called the Cooperative Program. The Cooperative Program is the reason that we are a member church of the Southern Baptist Convention.

A word of clarification about being a part of the Southern Baptist Convention is probably useful. Our church is an autonomous organization governed by its own members. We don’t ask our denomination’s permission to buy or sell property, hire or fire staff, or run the church in one way or another. Even though our convention has seen fit to clarify typical Baptist teachings in a document called the Baptist Faith and Message, no member church is under obligation to adhere to every thing in it. In fact, even the amount that we give to the Cooperative Prgram is entirely up to us, but we feel it’s right for our church to tithe to outside ministries even as we ask local members to tithe to Grace Church.

It comes down to this. We are our own local church (and may we always submit to the Headship of Jesus Christ), but we choose to cooperate with the missions and ministries of the Southern Baptist Convention because we believe that working for the Kingdom is more effective when done in partnership with other churches who have similar convictions as our own. By ourselves we wouldn’t be able to accomplish much, but we don’t have to do it by ourselves. We add our mission dollars to that of other faithful churches, and we do this work together.

This Wednesday night, our 6:30 adult Bible study will return to its coed format (as opposed to being for men only). In our first night back together, we’ll learn about these ministries that we support through the Southern Baptist Convention.

Here’s some links to some of the ministries we support through the Cooperative Program of the Southern Baptist Convention:

International Mission Board

North American Mission Board

New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary

Louisiana Baptist Children’s Home

Here’s a link to Southern Baptist Convention.