$250/messenger

[Blake]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Sandy]

There's also a provision involving membership, which means that churches can send little money and still get 10 messengers based on their total membership. Don't remember the year, but when Charles Stanley was elected prez, his church gave one dollar undesignated to the Cooperative Program. That qualifies you as a "cooperating church financially supporting the work of the convention" and allows you up to 10 messengers based on your total membership.

[Tim Dahl]

[Blake]

[TimR2]

[Sandy]

[William Thornton]

[TimR2]

[William Thornton]

Tim is right, Sandy, not that a rehash of the CR means a whole lot anymore.

You can check story from the BP archive. Being quizzed after his election as SBC president in 1984, Stanley puts the figure 2.1% on his church's CP giving. (While you are at it, note the author, Stan Hastey, hardly a friend of SBC cons, reminding us again of some of the things we conservatives had to deal with way back then.)

On your point that $1 qualifies a church for the ten members. I suppose that would be accurate if you're referring to a large enough church. The dollar puts the church in friendly cooperation and gets you one messenger and another 2,750 in membership gets you nine more. I wouldn't object to tweaking the formula to raise the threshold of "friendly cooperation" a bit but I don't see any movement to do that. As long as SBC officers and trustees show strong support of the SBC and her work, I doubt any move to change the constitution will have the necessary impetus.

[Sandy]

[William Thornton]

Come on, Sandy. I gave you evidence, sourced it, that the year Stanley was elected his church was showing a modest amount to the CP. If you want to make the point that in some other year his church gave $1 then get a source other than unspecified Cothen or another book about that same time.

But what's the point? SBC conservatives considered moving the convention in a more conservative direction was more important that people who gave large percentages to the CP. No doubt that contributed to the decades long slide of CP percentages.

[TimR2]

[David Montoya]

William,

Your shameless self promotion for votes for your blog has moved me to go to the site and vote (there wasn't a place for me to write in SpiritualSamurai 2011).

That said, I understand that the $250/messenger has not be increased, but what about the percentage of raises in salaries for those who live off the CP? How much as it gone up in the last $30 years?