As
November comes to a close, we look forward to the tremendous opportunity we are
presented with next month. In December, like many other Baptist churches across
the country, New Beginnings Church will be raising funds for the International
Mission Board’s Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. Although our congregation
regularly supports IMB missionaries by giving a percentage of our monthly
tithes and offerings to the Cooperative Program, the LMCO directly funds missionaries
on the ground as they strive to bring unreached peoples to Christ. In fact,
every penny given to the LMCO will go toward strengthening this kingdom work by
covering missionary salaries and their housing expenses, education for MK’s
(missionary kids), language training, transportation, security, technological
needs, bibles and culturally relevant teaching materials, and much, much more.
The IMB
is currently strategically engaged with more than 950 different people groups
around the world. Of this significant gospel work, the LMCO makes up nearly 58%
of the annual budget that helps finance these efforts. In light of this, I will
be devoting the next month’s worth of blogs toward informing and reflecting on
the woman for which this special offering is named. My hope is that we might be
encouraged and inspired as we examine Lottie Moon’s life and her ministry in
China.
Charlotte
“Lottie” Digges Moon was appointed to Tengchow, China one year after her
sister, Edmonia. As we will explore in more detail in the weeks to come, Lottie
was not the prototypical missionary. Actually, she may have seemed as unlikely
as anyone living in her era to carry out this honorable calling. Nevertheless,
she would spend the last four decades of her life doing just that. Why? Well, to
put it simply, she came to the reality that her talents would be more worthwhile
and fulfill a greater purpose in China than remaining here at home.
In what
seemed to have served as a final affirmation of her call, Lottie received these
words in a letter from her sister. “I
cannot convince myself that it is the will of God that you shall not come.
True, you are doing a noble work at home, but are there not some who could fill
your place? I don’t know of anyone who could fill the place offered you here.
In the first place, it is not everyone who is willing to come to China. In the
next place, their having the proper qualifications is doubtful.” Lottie was
a very gifted and skilled teacher. She was so good that many of the parents
criticized her leaving. Why would she go and throw her life way? Why should she waste it for heathens on the other side of the globe? Folks found
it especially hard to understand her reason for going. They figured their southern
girls were more deserving of a good
education. How dare she leave them!
Lottie
realized that while she was indeed a gifted teacher, she was not irreplaceable. Additionally, why not spend her life on such a task? Sure
it would require her very life, but it carried an immeasurable eternal value! Lottie
counted the cost and determined that Jesus was worth it. I hope
you can here the error in the objections of her contemporaries – how selfish,
how uninformed, how unfaithful were their inquiries. Lottie helped lay a
foundation for the gospel to go forward in China. The modern Chinese church is one
of the fastest growing Christian movements in the world, which also involves sending
Chinese-born missionaries to minister and plant churches throughout various
parts of East Asia. Its roots trace back to Lottie and those faithful
missionaries of her day.
So then,
is there something more for us? More importantly, is there something more for you? Have you committed yourself to Christ’s commission? Are you willing to
spend yourself for a something so much
bigger than you and your dreams? Are our lives being spent in ways that
magnify the Name that’s above every name? Faith doesn’t seek for safety in the
comfort of familiar; it’s not concerned with stowing away in storehouses for a
future that’s uncertain. Rather, it looks to the cross of Christ and the life of
our Savior and finds hope therein. It is willing to pass on, even forsake, many
a good thing for that which is best. Faith wrestles with and rests in the implications
of the gospel. Though this kind of faith is not easy, it is our only reasonable
response God’s grace, one promised to be worthwhile.
“Who imagines that because “Jesus paid it all,” they
need pay nothing, forgetting that the prime object of their salvation was that
they should follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ in bringing back a lost
world to God, and so aid in bringing the answer to the petition our Lord taught
the disciples. Thy kingdom come.”” – Lottie Moon
 |
| Matt Fowler Associate Pastor of Missions & Students matt@nbchurch.info @fattmowler |
Bibliography:
Benge,
Janet and Geoff. Lottie Moon: Giving Her All for China. Seattle: YWAM Publishing,
2001.
Early, Joseph E. Readings
in Baptist History : Four Centuries of Selected Documents / [Compiled by]
Joseph Early. Nashville: B & H Academic, 2008.
imb.org
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