Under the leadership of H. Boyce Taylor, First Baptist Church in Murray began in 1900 a new approach to church finance through a unified budget plan. Taylor, pastor from 1897 to 1931, avidly promoted the plan and in 1913 was appointed chairman of a State Baptist committee to consider unifying the work under one budget. During 1914-15, Taylor and layman F. D. Perkins toured the state promoting the unified plan. In 1915, the General Association of Baptists in Kentucky, now the Kentucky Baptist Convention, adopted the first budget plan for the collection of funds, and Taylor served as chairman of the first budget committee. This was Kentucky's part in the development of the world mission budget plan adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention in Memphis in 1925, known as the Cooperative Program.