This is an excerpt from A Unity of Purpose: 100 Years of the SBC Cooperative Program.
“Go, therefore and make disciples of all nations.” This was Jesus’s final call to his disciples in the Gospel of Matthew. This is the Great Commission. It is the call given to believers by our Lord since the birth of Christianity over 2000 years ago. It is the call to engage the lost with the truth of the good news that Jesus Christ has conquered sin and death and that salvation is available. This call, however, was never given to just one person. It was not an individual message that we individually accomplish on our own—that would be too enormous a task. Jesus has given us this call, his community. The people of God, known as the Church, is how God has determined that this commission would be fulfilled.
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.
Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles. Now all the believers were together and held all things in common. They sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all, as any had need. Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.Acts 2:42-47 CSB
From the book of Acts throughout the rest of the New Testament, we can see that the Church and the churches are integral to the mission of Christianity. At the Church’s birth, individual communities gathered together to worship, learn, grow, and pray together (Acts 2). As they did so, the gospel message went outward from Jerusalem, to all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1). The way it went out, however, was not solely by means of individuals like Paul and Barnabas. The outward working mission of these local churches occurred in concert with other churches. As Christianity moved to the uttermost, a fellowship existed and developed between believers and churches. From the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 onward we see churches cooperating with one another for gospel advance for the glory of God. This is why in the short statement on orthodox Christian belief the Nicene Creed makes sure to include the Church. In the midst of important credos on the Trinity and Jesus Christ, it also confesses its belief in the one, holy, apostolic, and catholic church.
The universality of this body is integral to its mission. What the church is determines what the church does—though in modern times we seem to get this backward. Too often we become pragmatic and inwardly focused on what our local churches are doing instead of seeing how we exist alongside other gospel-minded churches. If we are going to be Great Commission Churches, we need to accomplish that work as churches working together. Cooperation is essential to the task. Our doctrine of the church depends on it. Cooperation is a necessary part of ecclesiology, and it cannot be ignored.
"Too often we become pragmatic and inwardly focused on what our local churches are doing instead of seeing how we exist alongside other gospel-minded churches."
W. Madison Grace II
This is a strong claim. It means that individual churches need each other—not merely desire, like, tolerate, etc., but need. But is this actually the vision of the church that we find in the Bible? In answering this question, we find a biblical and historic approach to churches seeking each other. We were not created to be alone, nor are churches intended to be purely independent. We were created to live in community and work with one another in cooperation for God’s Kingdom.
For Southern Baptists, we confess a helpful summary of our position on cooperation in the Baptist Faith and Message 2000.
Christ’s people should, as occasion requires, organize such associations and conventions as may best secure cooperation for the great objects of the Kingdom of God. Such organizations have no authority over one another or over the churches. They are voluntary and advisory bodies designed to elicit, combine, and direct the energies of our people in the most effective manner. Members of New Testament churches should cooperate with one another in carrying forward the missionary, educational, and benevolent ministries for the extension of Christ’s Kingdom. Christian unity in the New Testament sense is spiritual harmony and voluntary cooperation for common ends by various groups of Christ’s people. Cooperation is desirable between the various Christian denominations, when the end to be attained is itself justified, and when such cooperation involves no violation of conscience or compromise of loyalty to Christ and His Word as revealed in the New Testament.
In short, what we confess as churches is that we not only need others but that we should seek cooperation with others often and to the best of our abilities as long as we do not compromise our loyalty to Christ and His Word.
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 and future opportunities.