by Ronnie Floyd
EDITOR’S NOTE: Ronnie Floyd, senior pastor of the multi-site Cross Church in northwest Arkansas, is president of the Southern Baptist Convention. This column is part of the call to prayer issued by Frank S. Page, president of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, to pray for revival and spiritual awakening for our churches, our nation and our world.
SPRINGDALE, Ark. (BP) — As a local church pastor, I am thrilled when I get to share the vision of how Southern Baptists are praying and working to reach the world for Jesus Christ. When I share with our people this grand vision and how our Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions is significant to what we are doing around the world, they immediately join in helping fund this vision.
With world crises occurring daily and the severity of lostness ever increasing, we have no other choice as Southern Baptists than to do all we can to take the Gospel to every person in the world.
I want to challenge every pastor: Stand up with great conviction before your people, asking them to join you on this journey by making a sacrificial financial gift this Christmas season to our Lottie Moon offering. May we embrace this opportunity prayerfully, by seeing that when we give through this offering, we are helping reach the world for Christ.
Now is the time we cooperate together in this one sacred effort. We must reclaim our historic roots of 1845 that brought us together for “eliciting, combining and directing for the energies of the whole denomination in one sacred effort, for the propagation of the Gospel.” May what bound us together 169 years ago still bind us together today.
Our gifts through the Cooperative Program each week in our churches and through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions is one way each Southern Baptist can come together to advance the message of the Gospel to every person in the world. Let’s do it this year together for God’s glory!
This month’s international missions emphasis in the Southern Baptist Convention is themed “One Sacred Effort — Find your place in God’s story” from Matthew 28:19-20. The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions in tandem with Cooperative Program gifts from Southern Baptist churches support approximately 4,800 international missionaries in seeking to fulfill the Great Commission. Gifts to the Lottie Moon offering are received through local Southern Baptist churches or online at imb.org/offering, where there are resources to promote the offering. This year’s goal is $175 million.
Dr. Ronnie Floyd is serving as the President of the Southern Baptist Convention.
