September 7, 2024
COLUMBUS, Ga. – Billy Duncan vividly recalls the parade of international missionaries who spoke at his home church every year as he was growing up.
Most of their words have long since been forgotten, but not their passion for reaching the world with the gospel.
That passion proved contagious for Duncan, pastor of Beallwood Baptist Church in Columbus, and it has spread like wildfire among members of his congregation, who have given an average of more than $800 each this year to the Lottie Moon Christmas offering to support the work of the International Mission Board.
“Our church is made up of precious people who love the Lord, who love each other, and who are excited about serving Him,” said Duncan, now in his 20th year as pastor at Beallwood. “They give and they go and they pray. That’s just the DNA of Georgia Baptists, and it’s the passion of our church.”
Beallwood has a post-COVID Sunday attendance of about 110 people, yet they’ve already collected more than $90,000 for the annual Christmas offering named for Lottie Moon, an American missionary from Virginia who spent her adult life ministering in China in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The church still is accepting contributions for the offering, 100 percent of which goes to support the work of more than 3,600 Southern Baptist missionaries serving abroad.
Duncan’s church is also hands-on with missions, having taken short-term trips to Africa, China, Thailand, Taiwan, Mexico, Venezuela, Guatemala and the Dominican Republican. The church also helped start a school in Mexico to train pastors to serve congregations there.
International Mission Board President Paul Chitwood said the sacrificial giving of Beallwood is inspiring for missionaries, fueling them to push all the harder to point the lost to Christ.
“Getting the gospel to the remaining unreached people groups of the world will require a sacrifice from every church of every size,” Chitwood said. “Pastor Billy Duncan and Beallwood are a model church when it comes to sacrifice. Few churches of any size invest in the Great Commission the way this average size SBC church does. They inspire us all.”
For Duncan, it was his childhood pastor – Robert Dismukes of Providence Baptist Church in Opelika, Alabama – who impressed upon him the importance of missions. Duncan was one of many young preachers and missionaries who came out of Dismukes’ ministry, some 15 of them who were called during a three-year period beginning in 1970.
“He poured his life into a bunch of teenagers who needed the Lord,” Duncan said. “He taught us, discipled us, laughed with us, cried with us, and taught us the importance of missions.”
Beallwood’s dedication to missions extends beyond the Lottie Moon offering. The church also is a major giver to the Mission Georgia state offering and the Annie Armstrong offering for North American missions.
In addition, the congregation gives 11 percent of its budget through the Cooperative Program, which fuels the work of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board and the Southern Baptist Convention.
Duncan invites IMB missionaries to speak in his church every year, and that, he said, has kept Beallwood’s members enthused.
“People have got to see and hear the missionaries,” he said. “They need to hear their hearts and their passion for reaching the world.”
Duncan is a year-round cheerleader for the missionary work of the Southern Baptist Convention.
“If I were not a pastor, I know what I’d be; I’d be a missionary,” he said. “That’s why I’m a Southern Baptist. I am totally, 110 percent sold out to the work we’re doing around the world.”
Beallwood has increased its support of missions every year, and has set a record with this year’s Lottie Moon offering, which stood at $91,590.84 as of Monday.
“I feel sure there’s no other church in the state and maybe in the nation that gives more to Lottie Moon per resident member or attender,” said Jimmy Blanton, associational missionary in the Columbus Baptist Association.
“It’s been overwhelming to be honest with you,” Duncan said. “God has been so good, and people have been so faithful to give. The Lord has just burdened our people’s hearts, and they have given graciously and generously and unselfishly.”
