Lottie Moon is the Southern Baptist missionary whose life inspired the mission’s offering named after her. She spent 40 years of her life as a missionary in China with the Foreign Mission Board (now the International Mission Board, IMB). She was cultured, brilliant, and godly. She mastered Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Italian, French, and Spanish in college.

Before going overseas, she was engaged to be married to Crawford Toy who had also committed to be a missionary. The marriage never happened because of “religious differences.” Toy studied theology in Germany in the late 1800s under theological liberals and adopted a higher critical approach to Scripture. Eventually, Toy denied the authority of Scripture, and died a Unitarian.

On the other hand, Lottie Moon believed God’s Word to be both true and authoritative. Her belief in God’s Word grounded her understanding of Christian mission. Her words to the Foreign Mission journal appropriately challenge us:

The needs of these people press upon my soul, and I cannot be silent. It is grievous to think of these human souls going down to death without even one opportunity of hearing the name of Jesus. People talk vaguely about the heathen, picturing them as scarcely human, or at best, ignorant barbarians. If they could live among them as I do, they would find in the men much to respect and admire; in the women and girls they would see many sweet and loving traits of character. They would feel, pressing upon their heart and conscience, the duty of giving the gospel to them. It does seem strange that when men and women can be found willing to risk life—or, at least, health and strength—in order that these people may hear the gospel, that Christians withhold the means to send them. Once more I urge upon the consciences of my Christian brethren and sisters the claims of these people among whom I dwell.

Lottie Moon

These words were uttered by a 4’ 3” giant of Baptist mission history. She gave her life to the Chinese people in the work of world missions. She died at 72 years old weighing only about 50 pounds at the time of her death. She had given all her food away to starving children. She knew, believed, and gave her life to share the good news. 

You can find out more about Lottie Moon from the International Mission Board (IMB). Her life and mission work is recorded here.

The year end Christmas offering was named after Lottie Moon by the Women’s Missionary Union in 1918. Since the inception of that offering more than $5 billion have raised for the ongoing work of international missions. You can read more about the IMB and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering here.

Wilkesboro Baptist has a budgeted amount that we give to the IMB annually, and we also participate in the Lottie Moon Christmas offering each year. Wilkesboro Baptist Church has been blessed. As of the writing of this post, we’ve already exceeded our budgeted requirements for 2021. Thank you for your generous giving.

As a reflection of our gratitude and an offering of thanks to the Lord, would you consider a special year end gift to the Lottie Moon Christmas offering? If you are not part of WBC, you can give directly to the IMB through the links above. If you are a part of WBC, you can designate your special offering through your giving at WBC. Whatever you give through this offering will go to support and send missionaries to the nations.

Our mission at WBC is to lead our neighbors and the nations to follow Jesus. Would you pray about what God might have you give to this special offering for Christmas 2021?