Reaching North America for Christ

by Robert E. “Bob” Reccord

    President, North American Mission Board                                               Vol. XVII, No. 4, April 2004

This time of year has traditionally been a very special one in Southern Baptist life as we focus on the mission of reaching North America for Christ and we celebrate the missionaries who are ministering in the spiritual outposts of our homeland. It’s also a time to lift up the needs of the mission to reach North America.

As Southern Baptists prepare to give to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions, I want to express my deep gratitude and offer a reminder of our ongoing needs. One hundred percent of the Annie offering supports our missionaries and their ministries in the United States and Canada. It pays their salaries, health benefits and directly funds activities such as starting new churches, proclaiming the Gospel on college campuses, and meeting human needs. And it pays for the work NAMB missionaries are doing in community ministry settings and in local Southern Baptist associations.

Giving to the Annie Armstrong Offering is critical to keeping our missionaries on the field and to placing new missionaries in the areas of greatest need. Currently nearly 200 North American missionary positions are vacant—most because NAMB and state Baptist conventions lack the budget dollars to fill the positions.

Without increased giving that will allow us to outpace the rising cost of health insurance and other fixed expenses, we will continue losing ground on the mission field. In the meantime, we have stopped recruiting full-time missionaries due to the current shortfall. Already, areas of need are going unfilled as we and our state partners are unable to fund approved missionary positions.

This is also why I encourage you to give generously to your state Baptist convention’s annual mission offering as well. The missions partnership will only remain strong if we continue supporting missions at every level of need.

During this season, I hope you will have a chance to learn more about and pray for our missionary heroes who are serving sacrificially throughout our land. Missionaries like An Van Pham who risked everything escaping with his young family from communist Vietnam in a rickety boat. Today he’s a NAMB missionary starting churches in Georgia for immigrants from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, China and other Asian nations. And missionary Stephanie Smith in Minnesota who leads hockey training camps as a way of creating opportunities to share the Gospel. And, missionaries Michael and Michelle Dean who share Christ with international college students in Boston.

These missionaries each have remarkable stories of how God called them to their ministries and some took unimaginable risks to follow His leading. Please remember to pray for them and to pray for God’s leading about your support of them by giving to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering this year.