Women's Missions and Ministry
The WMU/Women’s Missions Theme for 2009 here in the Jefferson Baptist Association will be: “Putting It Together: Patchwork, Pieces, Patterns and Puzzles” We’ll be addressing some questions throughout the year starting with: Did you meet your goal for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering?
I am very proud to say that my church did, although at this writing, just days before Christmas, I have not yet met my personal goal. I was challenged by a verse from Luke 2 in the nativity story that I had read a thousand times before. “And a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed…” “There’s nothing more certain than death and taxes,” I thought to myself. “Our property tax is so high this year that it’s going to be a pretty slim Christmas,” I complained to the Lord. And then it hit me. What I had was worth the cost. I am so abundantly blessed! I have a beautiful home, cars that run most of the time and enough land for my children to run and play on. Of course I’ll pay the taxes, no matter how high the price.
God Himself paid an incredible price for us when Jesus laid down his life on that cross. The song says “I’m amazed at how much God thinks we’re worth.” How much is Lottie Moon worth to you? What if there was a “tax” on your world? What if your favorite things were on the courthouse steps being auctioned? What would you pay to redeem them? A penny a piece? A dollar?
Just for fun, I decided to assign a dollar amount to some things I enjoy having. Shoes! I love shoes! Surely I could cough up a dollar per pair and give my self-imposed shoe tax to missions. I got in my closet and counted sixty-three pairs of shoes. That’s a lot! I have a plaque that reads “One shoe can change your life”…Cinderella. The money you and I give to missions can change many lives. It changes the world, one life at a time.
I’ll be writing my check for Lottie Moon with a smile on my face. And I challenge you to do the same. Find a way to make missions giving joyful. Some folks around the state had these creative suggestions for their church families:
• shoe tax, baseball cap tax or tie tax
• $’s for notes – fill in music notes for dollars received until a song can be sung all the way through
• use battery-powered tea-lights or Christmas lights to light up a map of the world
• create a goal board/thermometer
• move Mary and Joseph nativity figures closer to the manger as the dollars come in
• plant little churches made of cardboard around the sanctuary in pots of dirt
• display flags of the world and have the children make and serve Lottie’s cookies
• stuff a deflated ball of the world as the money comes in until it is fully round
• work a puzzle over a map, take away pieces for money given to reveal the world
• make ornaments for each family in the church and give to them as a reminder to
pray for our missionaries and give to Lottie Moon
• have a Lottie Moon post office at church, donating the money you would spend
on stamps to missions
• adopt Lottie as a child into your family and spend as much on her as you would your own children
Julie Norris
Association WMM Director
