NATIONWIDE (BP) — It’s an idea probably 50 years old, but some Southern Baptist churches — such as Red Land Baptist Church in Cumberland, Pa. — still provide a “post office” for members’ Christmas card sharing, with the “postage” going to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering (LMCO) for International Missions.

Red Land Baptist, a congregation of about 50, also collects a “Change the World” offering the second Sunday in December, with members bringing change that also goes to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.

“We also have a poster in the front of the church,” Theresa Krieg, state Women’s Missionary Union (WMU) director, told Baptist Press. “As we collect money we add labels that say ‘joy’ to the poster.”

Across the nation, churches large and small develop creative ways of promoting and raising money for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions, where 100% of the money “enables gospel transformation among the unreached,” according to the website.

One Hope Church at Hillside in Greeley, Colo., a four-year-old replant of Hillside Baptist Church with about 35 in Sunday morning worship, on Dec. 1 incorporated several elements into its promotion, which started with a potluck Chinese dinner after Sunday morning services. For dessert: Chinese fortune cookies with Bible verses inside.

For a party favor, organizer Kendra Thomason had found tiny — 2-in. by 3-in. — suitcases on Amazon.com. Inside she put a chocolate golden coin and a small magnet from the International Mission Board (IMB) with Matthew 28:19-20 imprinted on it.

Four of the small church’s college students, who had served in a short-term mission trip this summer in South Asia, spoke first. Then Thomason and six others gave an interactive presentation on the “Great Commission, Great Multitude and Great Pursuit” from the IMB’s theme for this year’s Lottie Moon Week of Prayer and Offering for International Missions.

“After giving the basics of Lottie Moon’s story, I told how many missionaries we have and how the missionaries are supported through our gifts, that because of our gifts they can stay on the field and tell people about Jesus, instead of always having to return to America to raise money for their support,” Thomason told Baptist Press.

At the end, “I gave them the suitcases and asked them, ‘Are your bags packed? Are you ready for the Great Pursuit?’ I encouraged them that the coin is to remember to give, the magnet to remember to pray, and the suitcase to remember to go.”

Memorial Baptist Church in Sterling Heights, Mich., where about 65 people attend Sunday morning worship, gives 10% to missions through the Cooperative Program and nearly as much to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. The church starts promoting the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering in November and continues through January.

“We use the videos from the IMB’s current year campaign,” Karen Villapando told Baptist Press. “Plus we have missionary partners send us personal messages on video or letters and use them every time we gather, and Sunday morning we have Missionary Moments as part of the service all year long.

“Any date we can get a missionary guest we try to have an international dinner on Saturday evening, not recorded so they can speak freely,” continued Villapando, Memorial Baptist’s preschool minister. “They stay with us through Sunday, visiting Bible Study classes, speaking in the morning service. When they can stay through lunch we take them out with our college/young adult group. If they stay till Monday we take them somewhere fun before they go.”

The church provides for the missionaries’ hotel, travel and food. “The budget commitment reaps a Lottie Moon Christmas Offering benefit many times over,” Villapando said.

As the 40-person congregation at Primera Iglesia Bautista del Sur in Burley, Idaho, arrives in December, they’re greeted in the church foyer by a bulletin board focusing on the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.

It has the IMB’s Lottie Moon poster in the center, a row of cutout children along the bottom, plus cutout hands and shoes reaching toward a globe.

“For each $25 given, another cutout child is added to symbolize them having the opportunity to hear about the greatest gift of all,” WMU Director Janet Molina told Baptist Press. “Visuals always help.”

On an adjacent small table is a cookie jar that empties as people entering the church trade a donation for a home-baked cookie.

“I ordered the free resources that IMB provides: bulletin inserts, prayer guides and giving envelopes,” Molina continued in early December. “We are sharing the video resources online on our Facebook page. We started to announce and promote the Lottie Moon offering Nov 10th in the church and some have already given!”

South Reno (Nevada) Baptist Church considers its international mission trips part of the promotion for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.

“We will have nine volunteer international mission trips next year — we had seven this year — and all of them to assist IMB works,” Pastor Joe Taylor told Baptist Press. “We begin our Lottie Moon push the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

“We show videos, produced and provided by the IMB, at all our Sunday morning services,” Taylor continued. “We have special prayer times for the missionaries, both for those we are allowed to mention their names, and for those in security-sensitive areas.”

Dan Jividan is the pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Princeton, W.Va., where about 200 people attend Sunday morning worship.

“We not only promote the offering annually at year’s end,” Jividan told Baptist Press. “Several years ago, the church determined to make the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering a%age of our annual budget, alongside the%age we give to the Cooperative Program. That way, we are actually participating in the LMCO in three ways: through the Cooperative Program giving, through a%age of our budgeted giving, and by receiving the annual offering at year’s end.”

Like many churches across the SBC, Calvary Baptist Church in Idaho Falls, Idaho, promotes the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering with IMB resources available on its website. Calvary promotes the offering in December and January.

“Allowing people to give in January as well as December has greatly increased our offering,” Pastor Matt McGukin told Baptist Press. “There have been several years recently where we have had a budget surplus and the church has voted to give extra money to Lottie Moon from that surplus.

“I truly believe the Lord rewards generosity,” McGukin continued. “Because our church is so generous in giving to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions, Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions and 10% to the Cooperative Program, people see that most of the time we are talking about giving, it is money we are giving away for the purpose of mission, and that makes people want to give.” 

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Karen L. Willoughby is a national correspondent for Baptist Press.)