[1]RICHMOND, Va. (BP)–Planning a church’s annual emphasis on international missions can be difficult, so pastors and missions leaders will find an array of helps in a new resource the International Mission Board is sending free of charge this month to every Southern Baptist church.
The 2002 International Missions Emphasis Planning Guide is a 32-page manual filled with practical suggestions to help a church maximize its Lottie Moon Christmas Offering promotion.
A key resource included with the planning guide is a CD filled with samples of adult, youth and children’s videos prepared especially for the emphasis, as well as PowerPoint presentations that will help missions leaders present the challenge to a congregation. The CD also contains music videos and links to other resources available on the Internet.
The planning guide includes step-by-step instructions, a detailed calendar and missionary testimonies about how the Lottie Moon offering has helped their witness. It also highlights specific ways churches involve their people in the emphasis and promote the offering.
A section on resources explains how to enlist a missionary speaker and provides a sermon outline from IMB President Jerry Rankin. A children’s sermon and articles on China’s great cities and minority people groups also are included, along with five news briefs about the remarkable way God is moving in China. Four pages of the manual catalog a wide variety of additional resources available through the IMB, Woman’s Missionary Union and LifeWay Christian Resources.
Presentation-quality versions of the video segments are available free of charge in DVD and VHS formats from the IMB Resource Center: on the web at http://resources.imb.org [2], toll free at 1-800-866-3621 or via e-mail to [email protected] [3].
[4]The IMB is extending the hours its Resource Center is open until 6 p.m. Eastern time, from Sept. 30 through Dec. 6, to handle the enormous volume of orders it typically receives during the IME season.
This year’s International Missions Emphasis — “That All Peoples May Know Him” — encourages Southern Baptists to seek God’s passion for each of the world’s 12,000-plus people groups to know and worship him.
The year’s version of the annual event includes a Dec. 1-8 Week of Prayer (which focuses on eight Chinese people groups around the world), the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and missions study materials produced for all ages by WMU.
The $125 million Lottie Moon offering goal set for this year will provide 49 percent of the support for more than 5,300 Southern Baptist missionaries.
More resources are available online at http://ime.imb.org [5].
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(BP) photo posted in the BP Photo Library at http://www.bpnews.net. Photo title: 2002 IME GUIDE.