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ORLANDO, Fla.—Caleb Fleming, senior pastor of Fairview Baptist Church in Sherman, can pinpoint the moment he fully surrendered to the calling God had put on his life.
It happened one Sunday when a man came to speak at his church, Houston’s Sagemont Church, about the Cooperative Program.
Fleming shared a brief testimony about the Cooperative Program during the first day of the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting at the Orange County Convention Center. He spoke from the main stage during a portion of the meeting set aside to highlight the impact of the Cooperative Program.
Prior to that Sunday at Sagemont many years ago, Fleming said he had already surrendered to vocational ministry, but added, “I was willing to serve, but I wanted control. I was willing to preach, but I wasn’t willing to go. I was willing to obey, but only within my boundaries.”
Then the speaker at his church introduced him to the value of the Cooperative Program, Southern Baptists’ primary giving model that supports international missionaries serving in some of the harshest mission fields on the planet, mobilizes church planters, trains students at the SBC’s six seminaries, and more.
What did he learn?
“[That it was] not a budget line, but a mission engine,” Fleming said. “Churches imperfect but scattered coming together for one purpose—the nations. For the first time, I saw it—something bigger than me, bigger than my church, bigger than my preferences, and God began to break my heart and my ‘no’ to the nations became a ‘yes.’”
Fleming now holds two degrees from Southern Baptist institutions and is finishing a Ph.D at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He said he has been blessed to train pastors in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, and the church he pastors has now planted its first church through the North American Mission Board.
“Because of the Cooperative Program, I have been trained, I have been equipped, I have been sent,” Fleming said. “That doesn’t happen alone. It happens because we cooperate.”
Fleming noted that his church has made the decision to increase its Cooperative Program budget to 15% even at a time when the budget is tight.
“Why?” he asked rhetorically. “Because the mission of God matters. Brothers and sisters, we are not perfect. We are not uniform. We have differences, but this remains true: the Cooperative Program is one of the most powerful tools for kingdom advancement the church has ever seen.
“My prayer is simple: that the Lord would bless His church, provide the resources, stir our hearts, and that we would give—not casually or comfortably—but sacrificially so pastors are trained, churches are planted, and missionaries are sent out to the ends of the earth. … We can do more together than we could ever do alone.”
How does God multiply your church’s impact through Cooperative Program giving? Find out more at sbtexas.com/cp.
