Christmas and the end of the calendar year are times when Americans give more money than any other time.
What will you give this year?
Let me suggest Christian ministries where you can give extra money before the end of the year
First, consider giving to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. This offering provides half of all the support for over 5000 missionaries around the world plus their 4000 dependent children. First Baptist Church is in the top 100 Southern Baptist churches for giving to this offering. Your giving will help take the message to the nations.
Second, consider giving to benevolence needs through FBC. We will use your money to help meet the needs of people in our community who are struggling to make it financially.
Third, consider giving for our new church plant in Metairie. We have a tremendous opportunity to reach our area for Christ. Metairiechurch will be beginning ministry after the first of the year. Your gifts of extra funds will help get this ministry up and running.
Fourth, consider giving for the new educational building of FBC. We have a tremendous need for space to teach children and adults. We want to make disciples and teach them to observe all that Christ has commanded. Your gifts will make a real difference for the next 50 years as we seek to reach our community.
If you feel led to use your yearend giving in any or all of these areas, simply use your regular FBC envelope and mark where you wish this to be used.
You may want to give in other areas. I will be happy to give you suggestions of ministries where your blessings can be used in the local community and across the country or around the world.
Wherever you live, Christians are ministering in the name of Christ. I hope you will be generous as you use your resources to bless others.
Thank you for your willingness to give. May God bless you as you do so.
If you would like to be notified each time I write a new article, subscribe at waylonbailey.com at the top of the page. It’s easy to do and completely free.
4 Responses
There has been an expressed need to support our service men in prayer at First Baptist Church of Covington. There also has been numerous examples of veterans in need that has surpassed the establishment/government safety net. I wonder about the lack of coordination as a focused ministry to meet needs with boots on the ground from the platform you lead. You lead so many ministries, perhaps I am just not familiar with this one here. As I sit here looking at the Vets First Certificate of Appreciation before me and the financial breakdown showing 70% of contributions go to programs, I wonder about the challenge. Vets First is a project of the United Spinal Association. The letter is focused on a poem:
“There’s more, much more to the Holidays
Than candle-light and cheer;
It’s the spirit of sweet friendship,
That brightens all the year;
It’s thoughtfulness and kindness,
It’s hope reborn again
For peace, for understanding
And for goodwill toward men.”
You have had a remarkable series on helping those in need. The suggestions you have made for giving are well taken. I look for direction to the application of the education as well as the realization of the Purpose of the Good News in the context of “Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done, on earth as It is in Heaven.” AMEN.
Romans 12
Thanks!
Blessings
http://www.heartcrymissionary.com
This is a missionary society that absolutely is focused on giving men the Gospel of Jesus Christ and planting biblical churches through indigenous missions. Not peace corp type assistance.
Paul Washer is the founder and director.
May His name be made great among the nations!
Thank you for recommending the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering! I am helping promote the offering at our church, and my heart has been touched (as usual) by the DVD messages from our missionaries, and the stories of God’s touching countless lives, rescuing souls across the globe from desperation and hopelessness, and transforming them with the light of Christ’s love.
And, still, there are literally thousands of unreached people groups who have yet to even hear the name of Jesus. “How can they hear without a preacher?”, Paul challenged us. It’s amazing how many Southern Baptists can spend hundreds of dollars on Christmas trappings, and only give Lottie a token gift. This pioneer missionary who gave her life for the Lord and the people of China 100 years ago is always tops on my list.
Today I reflected on my first Mission to Honduras. I was with Leslie “Buster” & Naomi Keys. The were veteran missionaries who had been in the field for more than twenty years. They decided to adopt a child before their forced retirement was upon them. The time was 1987. Soldiers were armed, the neighboring countries were hot. Our plane was delayed due to sniper fire on the runway in LaCeiba. The interstate highway system development had ground to a halt; the ride, some 70 miles inland, was largely rough road. Buster told me how difficult it was to get parts and how he squeezed every mile he could out of the overland vehicle carrying the five of us and him and his helper. John Belcher was on this trip he had Romans 12 memorized. He was a Christian. Had any one of the five of us not shown up at the airport the trip would have been canceled. I learned about austerity and ingenuity in the field from Buster and Naomi. She told me her children thought they were crazy. I wondered if their replacements appreciated this couple who took a burro into the mountains to tell the Good News for many years before Lottie Moon supplied them with a vehicle to cross the rough trails? John and I went up into the mountains with Buster to show a Jesus film one evening.
Buster designed their residence and built it. Three stories with a parapet around the sun roof deck. There was a clear line of sight for many yards all the way around this concrete precast structure equipped to be self sufficient. Buster had set up quite a mill-work. He left some fingers there. Naomi once laid paralyzed from a scorpion sting to her neck for days until Buster returned on his burro from one “mission trip.” I learned denominations melt away on the mission field.
I wrote my wife every day in my journal which I gave to her upon returning with intestinal issues which set in on my second week there. Not sure where it is now. Rex, my helper, had returned home to Slidell leaving me to do the decking and roof. Every afternoon the clouds would roll into the valley and storm turning the streets into rivers. It was a surreal sight from the top of the structure which stays with me still. We had just lost our twins, Sarah & Alex, in the care of Royce Sistrunk. The same year the Whitings had sown some bad seeds, I wasn’t even aware of the damage till I came to FBCC. Funny, how Scripture can become an unscriptural tool. So much about which to wonder…
Interesting.
Romans 12
Blessings