Are your Lottie Moon Christmas Offering envelopes in your bulletin inserts yet? One Sacred Effort Give so others can go! These are exciting times all around the Greater Orlando Baptist Association and one of the wonderful opportunities we have as Southern Baptist is the chance to give to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions! We challenge our 237 churches and missions to give towards this cause of international missions. This is an opportunity for us to commit together to one amazing effort to fulfill the Great Commission around the world. It is a wonderful reminder that these international missionaries, just like our home missionaries, grew up in our churches. These servants of the Lord were nurtured within our churches; their faith was formed within our churches, and sent into the world from our churches. This annual mission offering is not merely about money; it is about our calling and our commitment. Will you share Jesus with the world this Christmas season? Supporting the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions is about one person telling another person about Jesus.
One sacred effort! Find your place in God s story. The 2014 theme is One sacred effort and the Scripture is Matthew 28:19-20. What is that one sacred effort? Man sinned and forfeited his perfect relationship with God, but He had a plan to reconcile His
creation back to Himself through His Son, the sent One. After Jesus death and resurrection, God sent disciples to continue His faithful mission to make Himself known. Now, it is our call and privilege to join the Author of all history in His magnificent story of redemption as we advance His Gospel among all nations together in one sacred effort! We are part of this effort, this story God s redemptive narrative that began before time. Each of us, as individuals, families and churches, is called to find our place in the story and move forward obediently. Now, it is our privilege to join the Author of all history in His magnificent redemptive movement to advance His Gospel among all nations together in one sacred effort! How do we find our place in God s story? We are here to help you. We want to partner with you and your church on this journey to bring the Gospel to the nations. IMB has resources and teams to help you get started. Your part of God s story is critical, and the ways He can use you and your church now are endless. DID YOU KNOW THAT ONE HUNDRED PERCENT OF THE OFFERING GOES TO OUR MISSIONARIES! Southern Baptists send missionaries from their churches, through IMB, to go into the world making disciples in the name of Jesus. In that partnership, Southern Baptists provide the funding to send and support these missionaries and their ministries. The more resources they provide, the more missionaries can be sent.
Because of your giving, missionaries and their national partners recently reported: Nearly 1,700,000 heard a Gospel witness More than 235,000 became new believers 141 new people groups were engaged Every penny of the Lottie Moon offering supports nearly 4,900 missionaries. Meeting the $175 million goal would send more missionaries to the field. More than half the world s people groups are still unreached and people are dying every day without ever having heard the Gospel. This requires sacrificial giving to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering gifts that truly honor the Lord. More than 3.5 billion has been given to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, whose namesake inspired the first collection of gifts in 1888 so the world might know Christ. Then, as now, every penny you give to Lottie Moon supports missionaries as they share the Gospel overseas. The goal for the 2014 offering is $175 million.
For more than 160 years, Southern Baptists have given themselves wholly to God by leaving their comfort zones to go out into the world with the Gospel. But even today, billions of people remain lost. The church was given the Great Commission, and we must take responsibility for taking the Good News to the unreached people groups of the world. Would your church consider partnering with missionaries and sending members to touch lost people groups with God s love?
Ideas for setting your church's offering goal Pray! Ask for the Lord's guidance to help you set a goal that will challenge your church. That is the most important thing you can do. For practical handles, we've suggested some goal- setting options below: 1. Choose your challenge - Select one of four giving challenge levels highlighting the life of Lottie Moon. Dollar amounts are "per capita," based on your church's average Sunday morning worship attendance. $25 to $49 - Cartersville Challenge Georgia town where Lottie Moon accepted missions call $50 to $74 - Tengchow Challenge Chinese city where Lottie Moon began evangelism $75 to $99 - P'ingtu Challenge Chinese city home to Lottie Moon's most successful ministry $100 or greater - Manchuria Challenge Ship on which Lottie Moon made her ultimate sacrifice, dying of starvation Help your church grow in missions giving, just as Lottie grew in missions experience. Choose your Lottie Moon challenge as you set your goal! 2. Consider an amount based on the average cost of supporting a missionary*: $50,800 a year (average) $4,233 a month $977 a week $139 a day
Your church can use these figures to set goals for giving. Could your church, by faith, commit to supporting one missionary for a week, month or even a year? (*Reported March 2014. Support includes housing, salary, children s education, medical expenses, retirement and more.)
What and When is the Week of Prayer?
The Week of Prayer, November 30- December 7, encourages churches to pray daily for the international missions work and missionaries the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering supports. Who is featured during the Week of Prayer? During November 30 December 7, learn about missionaries who connect churches to people groups and churches serving as God s hands to reach them, workers reflecting His heart in dangerous or lonely places and believers crossing oceans to be His voice. How do churches obtain Week of Prayer resources? Your Woman s Missionary Union state office distributes free Week of Prayer guides and posters. Besides English, the prayer guide and poster also are printed in Spanish, French, Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese. Southern Baptists faithful giving undergirds the thousands of missionaries sent from our churches, through IMB, and all for a single, eternal purpose: making disciples in the name of Jesus. As followers of Christ, we must give our all so people can know the love of Jesus. We are part of the task to fulfill the Great Commission. And although Southern Baptists have been praying, giving and going for more than 160 years, the task is far from finished. Sowing generously Paul exhorts believers in 2 Corinthians 9:6: Remember this: The person who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the person who sows generously will also reap generously (HCSB).
Today the mission field is ripe for the harvest, with more than 6,000 unreached people groups (UPGs) where evangelical Christians make up less than 2 percent of the total population. Join with other Southern Baptists in supporting missionaries to ensure that the harvest workers will not be few. Every follower of Jesus has a personal role in God s mission to make His name known among the nations. Lottie Moon past and present This year marks 126 years of annual giving to support international missions. The 2014 Lottie Moon Christmas Offering goal is $175 million, the same as in 2013, 2012 and 2011. Despite the difficult economy, we can rejoice in how God has blessed Southern Baptists sacrificial giving. However, to make disciples of all peoples in fulfillment of the Great Commission, Southern Baptists must submit to being totally His, individually, as a church and as a convention. Small gifts; big impact! Helping to reach a $175 million goal can be daunting if you re struggling to make ends meet, but God smiles upon every gift given from a joyful heart, no matter the amount. Every penny given to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering is used to help support nearly 5,000 Southern Baptist missionaries and their ministries as they share the Gospel overseas. The offering makes up 54 percent of the IMB s income. Last year, your missionaries reported baptizing 266,451 new believers and starting 24,073 new churches. Thus, your gifts had an eternal impact on the lives of these new believers by helping to bring them to Christ.
Take a Brief Look@ Lottie Moon! Birth Born Charlotte Digges Moon December 12, 1840, in Albemarle County, Va. Salvation Lottie rebelled against Christianity until she was in college. In December 1858, she dedicated her life to Christ and was baptized at First Baptist Church of Charlottesville, Va. Education Lottie attended Albemarle Female Institute, female counterpart to the University of Virginia. In 1861, she was one of the first women in the South to receive a master's degree. Pre- missionary life Lottie stayed close to home during the Civil War but eventually taught school in Kentucky, Georgia and Virginia. Missionary appointment Edmonia Moon, Lottie's sister, was appointed to Tengchow, China, in 1872. The following year, Lottie was appointed and joined her
sister there. Missionary work Lottie served 39 years as a missionary, mostly in China's Shantung province. She taught in a girls' school and often made trips into China's interior to share the good news with women and girls. Letters home Lottie frequently wrote letters to the United States, detailing Chinese culture, missionary life and the great physical and spiritual needs of the Chinese people. Additionally, she challenged Southern Baptists to go to China or give so that others could go. By 1888, Southern Baptist women had organized and helped collect $3,315 to send workers needed in China. Lottie's death Lottie died aboard a ship in the Japanese harbor of Köbe on Dec. 24, 1912. She was 72 years old. Lottie Moon Christmas Offering In 1918, Woman's Missionary Union (WMU) named the annual Christmas offering for international missions after the woman who had urged them to start it. Lottie Moon Dec. 12, 1840 - Dec. 24, 1912 Lottie Moon was a heroine for today - a woman passionate about a lost world, a woman who didn't hesitate to speak her mind. Today's China is a world of rapid change. It's home to 1.3 billion individuals - one- fifth of the world's population. Village dwellers flock to trendy megacities with exploding populations. And China holds its own in the world's economy. It's very different from the vast farmland Lottie Moon entered in the 1800s. But one thing hasn't changed: China's need for a Savior.
Lottie Moon - the namesake of the international missions offering - has become something of a legend to us. But in her time Lottie was anything but an untouchable hero. In fact, she was like today's missionaries. She was a hard- working, deep- loving Southern Baptist who labored tirelessly so her people group could know Jesus. Her mission When she set sail for China, Lottie was 32 years old. She had turned down a marriage proposal and left her job, home and family to follow God's lead. Her path wasn't typical for an educated woman from a wealthy Southern family. But Lottie did not serve a typical God. He had gripped her with the Chinese peoples' need for a Savior. For 39 years Lottie labored, chiefly in Tengchow and P'ingtu. People feared and rejected her, but she refused to leave. The aroma of fresh- baked cookies drew people to her house. She adopted traditional Chinese dress, and she learned China's language and customs. Lottie didn't just serve the people of China; she identified with them. Many eventually accepted her. And some accepted her Savior. Her vision Lottie's vision wasn't just for the people of China. It reached to her fellow Southern Baptists in the United States. Like today's missionaries, she wrote letters home, detailing China's hunger for truth and the struggle of so few missionaries sharing the Gospel with so many people - 472 million Chinese in her day. She shared another timely message, too: the urgent need for more workers and for Southern Baptists passionately supporting them through prayer and giving. She once wrote home to the Foreign Mission Board, Please say to the [new] missionaries they are coming to a life of hardship,
responsibility and constant self- denial. Disease, turmoil and lack of co- workers threatened to undo Lottie s work. But she gave herself completely to God, helping lay the foundation of what would become the modern Chinese church, one of the fastest- growing Christian movements in the world. Lottie Moon died at 72 ill and in declining health after she had made sacrifices for decades for her beloved Chinese. But her legacy lives on. And today, when gifts aren't growing as quickly as the number of workers God is calling to the field, her call for sacrificial giving rings with more urgency than ever. How much does your church plan to give to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering this year?