Did you see the news today?
If you did, you may have seen reports of data breaches, information hacks, cyber threats and holiday scams targeting the elderly. Sign up for a discount or deal, and suddenly your personal information is for sale to the highest bidder. The same factors that make it easier to gather information, to communicate quickly, or to even shop from home also come with inherent risks.
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This week, I met with a group of Southern Baptist overseas missionaries whose job is to help protect their fellow 3,500+ missionaries. This skilled group of personnel assess risks to missionary families who serve in difficult assignments around the world. They often labor around the clock to solve issues that might impact your Southern Baptist missionaries’ presence in those hardest-to-reach places where people are desperate to hear the good news.
This group represents the kind of sacrifice every one of your Southern Baptist missionaries make because they love the Lord and they love the lost. In our meeting, these missionaries asked for more resources — more people and more funds — to support their fellow personnel in strategic, secure, measurable gospel advance. They asked humbly and from the perspective of men and women who observe frugal stewardship of every dollar in their care.
Asking for it — once again
My discussion with this group brought to mind a conversation I shared with you eight years ago when I first became president of the International Mission Board. While speaking at an event in Mississippi, a pastor heard me say that, with growing lostness around the world, we need to increase the number of missionaries on the field, and we need to financially support those missionaries for gospel advance. Following my address, the pastor approached me, boldly poked me in the chest, and said, “Mr. President, everything the International Mission Board needs — more missionaries and more money — is in our Southern Baptist churches. But you’re going to have to ask for it.”
The needs that Mississippi leader referenced still exist today.
So, once again, I’m asking you to help us meet the needs. In this special season of the year when we’re celebrating the miracles of Christmas, every Southern Baptist should feel the heartbreak of 166,338 people dying daily eternally separated from God. Your missionaries need your help in the form of human resources (more people!) and financial resources (more money!).
Your missionaries have asked me if Southern Baptists know of these needs. They also asked if Southern Baptists have the means to meet these needs and if Southern Baptists have the heart to fill these needs.
I assured them that Southern Baptists are not broke. Indeed, leaders from two large non-denominational mission organizations have stated in recent years that in the billion-dollar plus budgets they manage, at least half, if not a majority, of their funds come from Southern Baptists. In the most conservative accounting, that’s at least $2 billion dollars from Southern Baptists going to those non-denominational mission enterprises.
They are good organizations doing the Lord’s work which merits Christians’ support. But brothers and sisters, I am convinced that we should want to give more to support our own Southern Baptist missionaries who are on the frontlines today to get the gospel to those who have never heard it. Eternity can be impacted.
Why do I choose now, in early December, to plead for your help? In 1873, a feisty young female named Charlotte (“Lottie”) Moon was appointed as a missionary to China. She spent nearly 40 years sharing the gospel with love, courage, and unwavering faith. Lottie’s letters home inspired churches to pray and give, leading to the Woman’s Missionary Union establishing the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions in 1888. In one letter home dated Sept. 15, 1887, she said:
“Need it be said, why the week before Christmas is chosen? Is not the festive season when families and friends exchange gifts in memory of The Gift laid on the altar of the world for the redemption of the human race, the most appropriate time to consecrate a portion from abounding riches and scant poverty to send forth the good tidings of great joy into all the earth?”
The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering was built on sacrificial giving, often by people who had little to give, but who gave all they could, in obedience to fulfilling the Great Commission. Today, every dollar given to this offering supports missionaries overseas and helps take the life-transforming message of Jesus to the nations.
Your Southern Baptist missionaries need your support today, and you can meet those needs at LottieMoon.com. I’m asking: Will you give now?
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Paul Chitwood and originally published by the International Mission Board.
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