southern Baptist churches – and their 5,376 missionaries around the world
– are celebrating a monumental $136.2 million response to the Lottie Moon
Christmas Offering for International Missions.
Southern Baptist churches – and their 5,376 missionaries around the world
– are celebrating a monumental $136.2 million response to the Lottie Moon
Christmas Offering for International Missions.
When the books on the 2003 offering closed May 31, Southern Baptists had given
$136,204,648 an increase of almost $21.2 million (18.4 percent) from
2002.
The increase marks the largest total and dollar increase in the offerings
115-year history.
“Southern Baptists are shouting Glory to God! over this marvelous
response to the needs of a lost world,” Southern International Mission
Board President Jerry Rankin said. “Gods people feel his heartbreak
over 1.6 billion people with little hope of even hearing about Jesus Christ.
They were distressed that qualified missionaries were being held back for lack
of finances.
“And they responded with a vision and passion only Gods Spirit can
inspire.”
Southern Baptist Womans Missionary Union Executive Director Wanda Lee
also cheered the offering total.
“We are grateful for the priority that Southern Baptists have placed on
missions support by giving sacrificially to the Lottie Moon Christmas offering,”
Lee said.
“It is a privilege to partner with state WMU offices, WMU leaders, the
International Mission Board and missions advocates in our churches as we collectively
seek to engage literally everyone in the mission of God.”
Rankin appealed to the churches for sacrificial giving because financial support
had been lagging behind the increasing numbers of church members coming forward
for overseas missionary service. The mission board was forced to limit missionary
appointments and cut stateside staff last June to keep expenses in line with
income.
The board now can loosen restrictions on missionary appointments, Rankin said.
After projections indicated the offering would surpass its $133 million goal,
the agencys trustees voted last month to send 200 more long- and short-term
missionaries than previously had been planned.
“Because Southern Baptists gave so unselfishly to the Lottie Moon Christmas
Offering, we are sending out more missionaries this year,” Rankin said.
“The result will be that more people groups will be engaged and more individuals
will hear the gospel.
“Gods desire is for all the worlds peoples to know him, and
his Spirit is moving in Southern Baptist churches to fulfill the Great Commission
in their Jerusalems, Judeas and Samarias – as well as to the ends of the
earth.”
Such a stirring among Southern Baptists is just one dimension of a powerful
movement of Gods Spirit around the world, said Gordon Fort, International
Mission Board vice president for overseas operations.
“Last year, more than 510,000 believers were baptized by Southern Baptist
missionaries and their national … co-workers,” he said. “Our missionaries
were able to engage 192 new people groups with the gospel.
“All the turmoil and uncertainty in the world is creating a spiritual
hunger, and people are unusually responsive to the good news of salvation in
Jesus Christ,” Fort added. “Traditional barriers are falling, and
God is opening doors that have been closed for centuries. The harvest is accelerating,
and God is calling out more laborers to work in the fields.
“This is the greatest day of opportunity we have ever seen,” the
missions leader emphasized.
That fact calls for churches to make an ever-deepening commitment to the commission
Christ gave them to make disciples of all peoples, said Larry Cox, mission board
vice president for mobilization.
“The task before us is enormous, and Gods Spirit is moving quickly,”
he said. “Southern Baptists will have to move quickly if they are going
to keep up with him.
“We are not sending out these new missionaries for one year only. If they
are going to be able to stay on the mission field – if we are going to
be able to send the others God also is calling – we must sustain and increase
this level of giving.
“Southern Baptist churches love missions,” Cox emphasized. “We
are all about missions. Nothing stirs our hearts more than the thought of people
who never had the opportunity to hear the gospel just because we didnt
provide the resources needed for someone to go and tell them.” (BP)