Start Something New: 1997 Home Missions Emphasis

                                                                                                                                           Vol. X, No. 2, February 1997

           Southern Baptists' annual focus on Home Missions has historically included three integrated phases: information, prayer, and giving. This year we are being challenged to give a record offering and to get involved in starting something new. This year's theme, "Start Something New", is a challenge to not only to help our home missionary personnel start new work, but to start something new ourselves.

           Larry Lewis, immediate past president of our Home Mission Board, has said that "Start Something New" refers not only to starting new churches and church-type missions, but to any new work or ministry that will evangelize our communities and minister to them. We are Home Missions. This certainly is true in Virginia from the mountains to the ocean, through the cities, and across the country. New outreach ministries and efforts are needed all across the Old Dominion because lost people are there and because "something new" reaches them more effectively.

           Our new state convention, Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia (SBCV), has made church planting the highest priority in our mission efforts. The SBCV Missions Committee is leading in the challenge to enlist 100 churches by 2000 to lead or to be in on a partnering effort in church planting in Virginia. Will your church be one of these?

           The 1996 Annie Armstrong Offering set a record with $39,508,440 being given. The national goal for our 1997 Annie Armstrong Offering is $50,000,000. The 1997 goal for SBCV churches is $250,000. The offering is to be distributed by the HMB as follows:

           New Church Extension                      18.8%

           Black Church Extension                      3.4

           Language Church Extension            20.1

           Evangelism                                           7.9

           Associational/Mega City Missions   10.1

           Ministries                                             13.7

           Special Projects                                    5.0

           Challenge/Advance Funds                 21.0

                                                                     100.0%

           The Advance Funds will be used to advance the gospel into areas and ministries beyond where our previous funding has allowed us to go.

We must engage in all four phases of this year's focus on Home Missions:

           Get informed. The January/February issue of Missions USA and current direct mailings to pastors and church missions leaders have excellent information. And you can call the Home Missions prayer hot line, 1-800-554-PRAY, for current prayer needs of our missionaries.

           Pray. Use the information to pray intelligently and specifically (not just for "the missionaries").

           Give. What is a worthy goal for you personally or for your church? The information you gain and the prayers you ask will guide you to God's answer to this. Given the critical condition of our homeland, the goal ought to require sacrificial giving.

           Start Something New. Begin now to ask God to speak to you through the Bible, prayer, your church, and through the needs around you to show you what and where to start something new. These could be new classes, new extension Sunday Schools, new evangelistic home Bible studies, new outreach efforts, a new missions committee in your church, and other opportunities. And ask God to lead you to be part of I 00 church-planting churches by 2000!

[Editorial Note: One guide to keep in mind is that in giving to the Annie Armstrong Offering for Home Missions we are giving to Jesus, and we should value our relationship to Him at least as much as our relationships to those around us, our family and friends. On that basis, consider contributing to the Annie Armstrong Offering an amount equal to the total you will spend on birthday presents for all members of your family in 1997. Then, in the fall when it is time for the Lottie Moon Offering for Foreign Missions, donate an amount equal to the total you will spend on Christmas presents for people. That may mean spending less on gifts for those around you so that you will have more to give for missions. Which do you think would please Jesus more? TCP]