Unity of Purpose, A

As Southern Baptists gather to celebrate the centennial of the Cooperative Program (the funding mechanism of the SBC) in 2025, B&H Publishing Group is pleased to join the celebration with this edited volume. Authors from a cross section of Southern Baptists recount the first 100 years and anticipate what the future may bring through cooperation among our churches. Harmonizes with Lifeway core values, Treasure Biblical Truth and Better Together.

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.