ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP)–An “On Mission Celebration” (OMC) is coming to a Southern Baptist church near you.
Over the years, thousands of Southern Baptists have attended OMCs, which were once called “Schools of Missions” in the 1950s and ’60s and World Mission Conferences in the ’70s through 1998.
Today’s OMCs are designed to inspire and mobilize participants to intentionally celebrate God’s activity in the world, anticipate their role in God’s mission and participate by making a commitment to being on mission for God.
With the cooperation and support of local SBC associations and churches, the North American Mission Board’s church relations group along with the International Mission Board will manage and resource nearly 60 OMCs throughout the United States between February and mid-November 2007. The first On Mission Celebration was scheduled for 18 churches in the Adams-Union Baptist Association in Natchez, Miss., Feb. 4-11. Some 70 OMCs took place in 2006.
In some associations, as many as 40 different churches will join together to hold a customized celebration, and dozens of international, North American, state and local missionaries will participate as speakers at the events, which usually run from one to four days.
“On Mission Celebrations give Southern Baptists a chance to see and hear the missionaries they support,” said Beth Bootz, mobilization specialist on NAMB’s church relations team and manager of the OMC program. “They learn the biblical basis for missions and how to pray for missionaries.”
Taking the form of missions fairs, banquets and worship services, OMCs offer Southern Baptists -– who with their prayers and money support the Cooperative Program, the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering and Lottie Moon Christmas Offering -– a chance to see where and how their missions dollars are being spent. Since 2005, about $717 million has been donated to the three funds by Southern Baptists.
“OMCs also open doors whereby local Southern Baptist churches and missionaries can create mutual partnerships, providing the much-needed volunteer and financial support churches raise for the missionaries,” Bootz said.
Dave Howeth, director of missions for the Treasure State Baptist Association in Helena, Mont., described OMCs as “a successful and vital strategy for our association. Our churches were not seeing any tangible difference in their Cooperative Program giving. … Lottie and Annie giving were dropping. So I decided to try an OMC to put a new face on Lottie and Annie.”
Following the OMC event, Howeth said churches adopted one or more missionaries and began to correspond with them. Missionaries spoke about the Cooperative Program and the SBC missions offerings and what they mean to missionaries.
“As a result, our churches have given more to the Cooperative Program, Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong than ever before,” Howeth said.
Following an OMC at a local mall in South Daytona Beach, Fla., Dennis Belz, director of missions for the Halifax Baptist Association, reported that nearly 2,400 people attended the three-day event.
“It has given us a new outlook on missions around the world and in our own backyards,” Belz said. “It gave our association a desire for missions I’ve never seen during my tenure as director of missions. I will always remember how individuals came up to me during the missionary displays in the mall and said, ‘We always pray for missions, but this is the first time I have ever met and talked to a real missionary — how exciting!’”
Paul Koonce, director of missions for the Washington-Osage Baptist Association in Bartlesville, Okla., and his planning team combined their 2006 annual meeting, the association’s 75th anniversary and an OMC into a single weekend of activities last November, using a NASCAR theme of “Race to Win.”
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Churches or associations interested in hosting an OMC can contact Beth Bootz at [email protected] or call 1-770-410-6398.
