Saturday, December 1, 2012

Lottie Moon: $175m or bust


The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions, in millions, for the last 13 years.

The goal has been kept the same, $175,000,000, for the past four years in spite of the fact that receipts have been nowhere near the goal, not even in the neighborhood.

I think we are in a mode where lowering the goal (something that was done last in the year 2000 when it was dropped from $125m to $115m making it attainable) is seen as failure. It is not.


I admit to a bit of statistical persnicketiness in regard to goals and achievements. A goal becomes meaningless when it is unattainable. Our present LMCO goal is unattainable. It is therefore meaningless. At the current rate we will make another LMCO goal in about 25 years, assuming we do not raise the goal from its present $175m figure.

A considerable jump in LMCO receipts will likely come one of these years. I don't see it on the horizon for 2012 but, who knows? I would be pleased if we hit the $150m threshold for 2012, something that was last done before the economic meltdown.

Any way you look at it, the LMCO provides a lot of funds for international missions about 46% of the IMB's total budget.

I support it wholeheartedly.

Maybe it would help if the IMB used the "stern" Lottie Moon photograph below. One can hear Lottie saying, "Write the check! Make it large! People are dying here!"



...instead of the ridiculous "school girl" photograph that Lottie herself asked the board not to use:


4 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Jonathan said...

I've been working though some quote packages from contract manufacturers in China for a product that our team is designing. I've done this several times since the late 90s for products to be produced in that country and one trend that I've noticed: labor rates in China are going up...and very fast. This also means that the cost of living in China is also going up.

Here's the cold hard fact for my fellow Southern Baptists in the USA: our giving is not coming close to keeping pace with the cost of the work in the developing countries in the 1040. Even if we increase our Lottie Moon giving by the cost of living indicators in the US, we will continue to fall behind compared to the costs that our missionaries face where they serve.

Translation: in 10 - 15 years, our giving is going to only be able to support 50% of the current IMB force in the 1040.

Do that math on that...and then soak in it for awhile.

The next time you hear about how we can't combine the NAMB/IMB to get better synergy and more efficient use of mission giving...the next time you hear that we must have 6 seminaries in an age when distance learning has become fully acceptable in nearly every field...the next time you hear about a blue ribbon SBC panel that wants to spend 6-9 months coming up with a set of proposals that the SBC has little to no authority to enforce (or worse, a proposal that just nibbles around the edges)...

...the next time you think about these things, think about how increased labor rates in all of the areas where the overwhelming number of unreached live.

Jonathan said...

My grammar in that last comment is evidence of how many translated emails I've read and responded to over the past 14 years.

Good Grief! :)

Tom Parker said...

William:

Maybe it is time to refocus this International Missions giving on another individual--this time a male.

I'm not really serious other than my experience with the Lottie Moon offering is the SBC uses her name to try and raise a ton of money and really does not share that much about her person given the fact that she was a woman.