BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (BP)– Due to the anticipated success of the 1997 Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, the Woman’s Missionary Union executive board has approved raising the 1998 LMCO goal from $100,000,000 to $110,000,000.
International Mission Board officials projected in March that receipts to the 1997 LMCO would reach $102.6 million when the books close in May. The projection means that receipts to the annual offering for international missions will meet the goal for the first time since 1981 and will surpass $100 million for the first time in history.
WMU began the offering for international missions in 1888. For many years, the organization’s executive board set the goal and the budget for the offering. In the 1950s, WMU released the budgetary process to the then-Foreign Mission Board, but maintained the responsibility for setting the goal each year. The goal is set in consultation with mission board officials.
WMU has maintained the $100 million goal for the Lottie Moon offering since 1995. The goal jumped from $86 million in 1994 to $100 million in 1995 in honor of the sesquicentennial of the Southern Baptist Convention. The Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American missions goal was $50 million for that year.
“We knew when we set the 1995 goal that it was a significant challenge to Southern Baptists,” said Dellanna O’Brien, executive director of WMU. “However, our board, along with International Mission Board staff, agreed that it was a worthy goal and have kept the goal since then as a constant challenge to Southern Baptists. I’m thrilled that it was reached in only three years.”
The original 1998 goal was set by the WMU executive board in its June 1997 biannual meeting. The revised goal was approved by a mail ballot.
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*Name changed for security concerns.
