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Don Mathis: Presidential Address
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In his message, KBC President Don Mathis, the first two-term president since 1961, said "God had given an awakening" in 19th century Kentucky and that Kentucky Baptists were part of that revival.
"My prayer for 11 years now has been: ‘dear God, do it again. Why not here? Why not now? Why not among Kentucky Baptists?’"
Mathis said believers could learn much from the four, small but wise, creatures mentioned in Proverbs 30:24-28.
"If you and I would do … as these creatures do instinctively, we would quickly learn that life ain’t really that complicated," Mathis said. "Whatever we’re going to be doing for God and good, we’d better be doing it now."
Kentucky Baptists "by the power and blessings of God have not been twiddling our thumbs" over the years, Mathis noted, reminding listeners that Kentucky is the birthplace of the Cooperative Program.
"We’ve always been ahead of the curve."
The "bad news" is that Kentucky Baptists could be doing much more.
Mathis said when he was first elected KBC president in 1985 churches were giving an average of 11.69 percent of their undesignated receipts to the Cooperative Program. Today the percentage is 6.83 percent.
"What if we had maintained that same percentage? We would have given $16 million more. We could already be at that 50/50 split (of CP dollars between Kentucky and Southern Baptist causes). We could have sent 68 more missionary couples to the field."
"In your county last Sunday, 83 percent of the population were not in Sunday school or worship anywhere," Mathis said. "Shame on us if we don’t give it everything we can to tell them about Jesus, like someone told us about Jesus."
