When Rebekah Taylor was in the ninth grade, her dad got a new job and they moved to a new church.
“It was a big transition for me,” Taylor said. “My old church was much smaller, and when I moved here, I knew maybe three families.”
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But then something happened that made Taylor “more open to making new friends,” she said. Jamie McGlaughn, who serves on the Women on Mission leadership team at MeadowBrook Church in Gadsden — Taylor’s new church — suggested she go to Complete, an annual event for girls in grades 7–12 put on by Alabama Woman’s Missionary Union.
Taylor went, and she said she was forever impacted by hearing from missionaries and others who were living their lives full-out for Christ. In addition to that, she found a community of people from across the state who want to live their lives similarly.
“Going through Complete made me more confident in myself to go out and make new friends and share the gospel with people,” she said. “It’s given me more confidence, and I think it’s done the same thing for my friends as well.”
Identity in Christ
Trish Jackson — who serves as NextGen consultant for Alabama WMU — said the goal of Complete is to give teen girls an opportunity to meet and hear from female role models who have found contentment in Christ and have given their lives to serving him in a variety of ways, from their workplace to overseas missions.
“We try to articulate to them that if God gives you your identity, He may be calling you to something,” Jackson said. “God has wired you for a purpose, and you can use that for giving Him glory.”
Since this year’s event, she’s had a jar in her office filled with sticky notes, each representing a teen girl who wrote something on it anonymously during Complete.
“I bet there are at least 200,” she said. “They were dialed in and connected and wanted to respond. They wrote decisions they had made for Christ, things they wanted to give up and things they wanted to do with their life.”
McGlaughn said she loves coming to Complete and seeing “the light come on in their hearts and minds.” She’s been bringing groups for more than 25 years.
“Complete is an opportunity for young women to gather together, sit under sound biblical teaching, be led in meaningful worship according to God’s Word and just have fun with one another and enjoy being a part of a church family,” she said. “They get to participate in breakout sessions that are centered around missions and ministry, and they get to fall in love with what missions really is and how they can be a part of missions in their community and their local church.”
Complete is supported by the Myers-Mallory State Missions Offering which, in addition to supporting Alabama WMU, also assists disaster relief, church planting, church revitalization and partnership missions. These ministries are also undergirded by prayer support provided during the Week of Prayer for State Missions.
This year’s Week of Prayer is Sept. 7–14, with an offering goal of $1.2 million. Complete is featured on Day 2.
Taylor said she is grateful for Alabama Baptists’ gifts to the offering that “give young people the opportunity to grow in the Lord and become confident in themselves enough to try something new, to go out and share the gospel or sing in front of their church or start a Bible study.”
“It gives those girls an opportunity that they wouldn’t have otherwise if these people weren’t giving,” she said.
Since the offering’s inception in 2016, giving has surpassed $12 million. The two namesakes are spiritual giants from the state — Kathleen Mallory and Dr. Martha Myers.
Mallory — who served as leader of Alabama WMU from 1909 to 1912 and then head of national WMU for 36 years — lived a humble lifestyle so she could give as much money as possible to missions.
Honoring their legacy
Myers, who grew up in an Alabama Baptist church, went on to serve 25 years as a medical missionary in Yemen before being killed by an extremist there in 2002.
The offering honors their legacy by continuing to fund missions and ministry in the state and around the world, and Alabama Baptists have been “so faithful” to give, said Rick Lance, executive director of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions.
“God has blessed the Great Commission ministry efforts supported by this important offering,” he said, noting this year the offering is celebrating a decade of faithfulness. “Through this offering and the continued giving through the Cooperative Program, Alabama Baptists continue to be difference makers for Christ.”
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