A Unity of Purpose: 100 Years of the Cooperative Program

The nations were calling. A theology of cooperation was formalizing. Best business practices of the day were refining. A denominational conscience was solidifying. Baptists acknowledged God’s call to a great work that would require a great sacrifice and proposed a new funding model for the new day.

Over the next one-hundred years, Southern Baptists would give over $20 billion through their Cooperative Program to fund local, national, and international missions; educate their pastors and church leaders; present a unified voice in the public square; and more. The Cooperative Program became the largest voluntary Great Commission funding mechanism the world has ever known.

But is the Cooperative Program merely Southern Baptist history? Does that heroic spirit of strategic, sacrificial cooperation still burn within the Baptist body? Will the challenges and opportunities of the coming decades be best met by the same financial program, or is something else on the horizon?

On the centennial anniversary of the Cooperative Program, A Unity of Purpose collects the voices of leading Southern Baptists to offer a theological, historical, and missional celebration of the program’s past successes.