By Editor Bob Terry
Decisions by the International Mission Board (IMB) and the North American Mission Board (NAMB) have become catalysts for Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU) in determining how the national missionary organization will fund itself in the years ahead.
WMU is best known among Southern Baptists for its promotion of the two national missions offerings — the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions and the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions.
Historically WMU has also been the heart of missions education among Southern Baptists. For decades, the majority of missionaries serving overseas testified that God used their years in GAs and RAs (Girls in Action and Royal Ambassadors) to guide them into missions service.
Yet WMU has never received any Cooperative Program (CP) allocation in the budget of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Like LifeWay Christian Resources, WMU has been expected to fund itself through the sale of literature and other products.
So successful have the two national missions offerings become that the Lottie Moon offering now makes up more than half the IMB annual budget. For NAMB, Annie Armstrong receipts outdistance CP support by about 20 percent annually.
Yet true to the sacrificial spirit of its beginnings, none of the funds from the offerings have ever gone to the primary sponsor — WMU. However, IMB and NAMB do reimburse WMU for direct expenses incurred in promoting their respective offerings.
A NAMB spokesman acknowledged that the national missions offerings would flounder without the work of WMU. He observed that no other organization in Baptist life could do the promotion as effectively and efficiently as WMU.
Both mission boards also have made annual gifts to WMU in appreciation for its contributions to missions education, missions support and missions involvement.
The amounts have never been overly large in light of the funds WMU raised for the mission boards. Since the beginning of the Lottie Moon offering in 1888, WMU has raised more than $2.5 billion for international missions. IMB’s gifts to WMU during that time total about $9.5 million. That is .004 percent of the total. Offerings for North American missions total more than $1 billion. NAMB’s gifts to WMU are about $8.5 million, or .008 percent, according to figures made available by WMU.
IMB’s largest gift, made in 2003, was $325,000. In 2006, the mission board gave $250,000. Also in 2006, IMB announced plans to completely phase out its annual gift to WMU by 2009.
NAMB’s largest gift, made in 1991, was $461,552. However, some of that amount went to specific partnership projects and was not all a gift to WMU. Since that time, the gift has been pared back to $50,000 for each of the last three years. NAMB has not indicated that it will eliminate its annual gift.
In the Oct. 18, 2006, letter announcing its decision, IMB cited “budget constraints” as the reason for eliminating its annual gift.
The reasoning might have been more palatable had the decision been made in 2003, when IMB cutback on missionary appointments because of budget shortages. But, as mentioned above, that was the year IMB gave WMU the largest gift. It is also interesting that the announcement to eliminate the annual gift was made right at the beginning of the 2006 Lottie Moon offering season when IMB was counting on WMU to help produce a record Lottie Moon offering of $150 million.
The gifts from the two mission boards combined total $300,000, only 2.6 percent of WMU’s annual budget of $11.4 million for the 2006 fiscal year. The problem is that even with the gifts, WMU has been operating at a deficit for the past decade. This year, the annual audit to be presented to the national WMU executive board in its Jan. 13–16 meeting is expected to show about $130,000 more in expenses than in income. In nine of the past 10 years, actual receipts have trailed actual expenses.
Like LifeWay, WMU has experienced a decline in the sale of dated literature. That translates into less money to run the organization. Down years in investments meant the organization had to dip into its reserves to operate just as SBC entities did.
WMU has tried to control spending. About six years ago, the organization experienced a sizable downsizing. More internal controls have been put in place. Now each function is expected to pay for itself. Literature prices are being adjusted. Still the organization faces a major decision. How will it fund itself in the future in a climate where sales of Christian literature are declining?
The answer to that question is important to all Southern Baptists.
A study in 2003 illustrated that churches with WMUs gave more than three times the amount of CP dollars than did churches without WMUs. Churches with WMUs gave about four times the amount to the Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong offerings than did churches without WMU organizations.
This is due, in part, to the fact that WMU, from its beginning, taught that everything one has belongs to God and that each individual is responsible for using whatever he or she has to honor God.
It is no coincidence that WMU officers from every state served on the committee that launched the CP.
The same is true for missions education. WMU has been the heart of missions among Southern Baptists everywhere. Just as an occasional tithing sermon will not transform a church into a hotbed of biblical stewardship, neither will an occasional missionary speaker cause a congregation to be committed to missions at home and around the world.
What is needed, as WMU Executive Director Wanda Lee observed, “is an ongoing infusion of these principles through the teaching of the church.” That is what WMU provides.
Without WMU, missions will take on a completely different look than Southern Baptists have ever known.
That is why the question of funding WMU in the future is critical for all Southern Baptists. That is why those who believe in the contributions WMU makes to Baptist life will have to support it in new ways in the days ahead.
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