January 25, 2025
Lottie Moon served Southern Baptists as a missionary in P’ingtu and Tengchow, China. She established a new church, saw thousands come to faith in Christ, and persevered through much deprivation and suffering to advance the cause of Christ.
She is also known for the passionate and plaintive letters she wrote to Southern Baptist Churches urging the members to support the work of Christ around the world by giving to missions. In one such letter, she wrote, “Let us not be silent (or selfish) while souls are dying and going to hell.”
Southern Baptists across the nation are responding financially to support the cause of Christ around the world through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.
Missionaries Chris and Katie Nalls described the impact of the support they received. “The financial support we've received from the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and the Cooperative Program allowed us to work together with national partners to plant churches and develop leaders in Mozambique for more than 15 years,” they said. “Now, in our new role of onboarding new missionaries to Sub-Saharan Africa, we have a greater appreciation for how this offering is helping to send and support missionaries across our affinity and around the world."
Catherine Miranda and her husband Danilo have also benefited from the LMCO. Catherine explained, “Having grown up as a missionary kid in Brazil, I learned from a young age the importance of the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. Today I am even more grateful as this yearly offering provides for our salary, housing, transportation, medical care and children’s schooling in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,” where she and her husband serve as global catalysts.
“As a component of the globalization effort,” Catherine added, “we help Brazilian partners embrace their role in the Great Commission and encourage them to expand their capacity to send and receive cross-cultural workers. I also have the privilege, as part of the Culture and Language Strategies Team for the Americas, of coordinating the program to help IMB missionaries learning a new language and culture for the faithful, cross-cultural communication of God’s Word.”
Churches of all sizes have faithfully and sacrificially contributed to the LMCO for more than 100 years. An offering for international missions started in 1888 but was not named in honor of the sacrificial life of Lottie Moon until 1918, six years after her death.
McDonald Baptist Church in Sylvania, Ga., though small, gave $10,000 to the LMCO in 2023. That amounts to $833.33 for each worship attendee.
The church that was second on that list was Beallwood Baptist Church in Columbus. In 2023, Beallwood gave $84,169.97, or $751.52 per attendee. Pastor Dr. David Mills reported, “Former Pastor Billy Duncan’s leadership in this matter was phenomenal. He cast vision, preached, and conducted mission trips consistently over 21 years, and this resulted in the generous giving to the Lottie Moon Christmas offering.”
Mills says that members make giving to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering a priority at Beallwood, because they “believe that the world's problem is sin, and Jesus is the answer to it. They are theologically and biblically driven to give. They do not want anyone in our community or world to go without the good news of Christ. God has blessed them, and they are determined to bless others.”
Ephesus Baptist Church in Villa Rica, a larger church, gave $100,529.76 to the LMCO in 2023, which amounts to $256.45 per attendee. Ephesus Pastor Billy Godwin commented, “At Ephesus, we are committed to being ‘rivers, not reservoirs’ of God’s love to our local community as well as the entire world. Through our prayers and through our giving to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, we get to partner with our missionaries, and thousands of other churches, in reaching the uttermost parts of the earth. What a blessing!”
Beallwood and Ephesus not only give significantly per attendee but rank high in terms of the total amount given. Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta ranked number one in gifts to the LMCO in 2023, but other churches that gave generously were First Baptist Church in Jonesboro, First Baptist Church in Villa Rica, and First Baptist Church of Thomasville.
Lanny Loe, missions pastor of First Baptist Church in Jonesboro, stated, “Our mission statement is: ‘FBCJ lives to glorify God by making disciples who invest in others and impact the nations.’ We have, by experience, discovered the best church members at home are those who see the world as their responsibility.”
FBC Jonesboro has a diverse membership, and offers worship in seven languages each week, which Loe says leads to cross-cultural ministry being common to the regular life of the church.
“We use a unified approach to our missions giving, the World Mission Offering,” he explained. “Approximately 60% of that offering is given directly to the LMCO. It is included as part of our overall support for missions and, although emphasized three weeks per year, people contribute to it year-round.”
Kristen Long, director of missions, for First Baptist Church in Thomasville, said, “The weekly updates from our pulpit on our giving to the LMCO and the use of social media have enhanced our missions giving this year. Our kids are also getting much more involved now, and they have a separate goal that gets them, and their adult volunteers engaged in an exciting way.”
That engagement starts at the top. The church’s senior pastor, Paul Ballard, has had a strong vision for a missionary mindset among the members from the beginning of his tenure
Kevin Williams, pastor of FBC Villa Rica and a trustee at the International Mission Board, has also challenged his church to give generously to the LMCO. “We have worked hard to make sure our people understand that being ‘on mission’ is our call from God according to Acts 1:8,” he explained.
He encourages the church by incorporating current stories about missionaries and their work into his messages. “I love to share about how our missionaries are making a difference for the cause of Christ,” he said. “I tell our people if we don’t give, they may have to come home. There is no greater cause we share than to send missionaries to a lost and dying world.”
Lottie Moon declared, “Why should we not … instead of the paltry offerings we make, do something that will prove that we are really in earnest in claiming to be followers of Him who, though He was rich, for our sake became poor?”
