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Editorial: Surging missions commitment?
Nov 25, 2004
By JAMES A. SMITH SR.
Florida Baptist Witness

What a difference a year makes!

Last year when we published our annual focus on international missions in conjunction with the Week of Prayer for International Missions, I questioned whether Southern Baptists were suffering from a “depression in missions commitment.”

The query was prompted by the alarming news that the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention was forced to cap missionary appointments earlier that year for the first time since the Great Depression. The problem wasn’t that there was a lack of qualified candidates willing to go – there were more missionaries than there were dollars to send them.

For a denomination founded, built and driven by missions, the fact that the IMB had to limit the number of missionaries in a world with people groups who had still not heard the Gospel was a jolting, troubling development. The news that 200 missionaries would not be able to go sent shockwaves across our denomination.

I urged Florida Baptists to rise to the challenge and increase their giving to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering so that the cap could be lifted. One reader wrote me to say that it was unreasonable to expect significantly greater offerings from Southern Baptists, and that the IMB (and other denominational agencies) would simply have to learn to live within its means.

Fortunately, most Florida Baptists and other Southern Baptists rejected this kind of skepticism. Throughout the winter stories abounded of churches and individuals doing more than they had ever done before to support the LMCO. Churches of all sizes broke all-time records for total giving – some by doubling, tripling and even greater margins.

The result was astounding: for the first time since 1981, the LMCO goal was met in 2003, with a final offering of more than $136 million – an 18.42 percent increase over the previous year. Florida Baptists increased their giving by nearly $700,000, a 13.83 percent increase.

In June, the IMB sent those 200 missionaries who had been told they couldn’t go, and there are now more than 5,400 Southern Baptist missionaries spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ across the globe.

While we can rejoice in the surge in missions commitment illustrated in the support for the 2003 LMCO, this is no time to relax. Millions still have not heard the Gospel; missionaries still want – and need – to go. Our Lord’s Great Commission remains (Matt. 28:18-20). And the missionaries on the field need our support.

Consider this “thank you” letter from a Southern Baptist missionary who recently returned from Iraq – whose identity cannot be revealed due to security concerns:

Dear Southern Baptist Family,

I see faces, hands folded in prayer, people willing to give and others anxious to serve. Now I see hope for the lost, hope for the needy and sick. Regretfully, our news media have made situations in Iraq nothing more than supermarket tabloids. Such a shame. There are so many other stories to be told. The food boxes for the hungry, the medicines for the needy, the water systems for the thirsty and the Bibles for those seeking that said, “We want to know the whole truth.”

Through your Lottie Moon gifts and your prayers we will continue sharing “The Truth.” We are home now after completing our International Service Corps assignment.

The Iraqi faces are branded in our heart along with the realization that without your Lottie Moon contributions food would not have been given, nor water quenched a thirsty soul in the 140 degree heat, nor would Bibles have had the opportunity to be placed in seeking hands. Our prayer is of thanksgiving for our Southern Baptist family members like you.

In our home church at the close of our evening service we all hold hands and sing “Blessed Be the Tie that Binds.” How sweet! With the tie that binds all of us in Christian love for the lost, we give our thanks to our Southern Baptist family and pray that “We want to know the whole truth” will have touched your heart as it has ours.

IMB leaders report that record numbers of Southern Baptists are ready to be sent “That All Peoples May Know Him.” Meeting the 2004 LMCO goal of $150 million will mean that some 900 new missionaries will be able to go.

Though Southern Baptists have reversed the missions depression last year, a surging missions commitment will be demonstrated by continued support of the LMCO (and the Cooperative Program). The great gains of 2003, must be sustained and advanced in 2004.

This Christmas, make your first — and best — gift the one that you give to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. The missionaries are still willing and ready to go. Will you send them?

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