Introducing The One Mission Offering

– November 14, 2022

Beginning this Christmas season at Mountain Creek, we’re launching into a new endeavor for the sake of taking the gospel across North America and to the ends of the earth, both with our mission partners and with our own teams.

In the past, we have taken special offerings for international missions—known as the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, partnering with the SBC’s International Mission Board—and for North American missions—known as the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering, partnering with the SBC’s North American Mission Board. We love our partnerships with these organizations because we love what we can accomplish together with other SBC churches for the mission of Christ!

Going forward, we will continue to support these special offerings, while also streamlining the process and bringing clarity to the purpose of our mission giving at Mountain Creek. That’s why we’re glad to introduce what we’re calling The One Mission Offering.

The One Mission Offering will be our one avenue as a church for giving to three essential areas: International Missions, North American Missions, and Mountain Creek Missions. Beginning this year, we’ll give toward The One Mission Offering in the months of December and January. All money received through The One Mission Offering in that time period will be divided in the following way:

  • Half of all money received in The One Mission Offering will go to international missions through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. This money goes to the SBC’s International Mission Board, with 100% directly supporting the work of our SBC missionaries who are right now taking the gospel to the ends of the earth.
  • A quarter of all money received in The One Mission Offering will be given to taking the gospel to North America through the North American Mission Board’s Annie Armstrong Easter Offering. Again, 100% of this money goes directly to support the work of ministry and missions, right here in North America.
  • Finally, the last quarter of money received in The One Mission Offering will go to Mountain Creek Missions. This fund will be used to offset the costs of sending out short-term teams from Mountain Creek on mission trips to our state, nation, and around the world, as well as providing funding for specific projects for our missionary partners.

So maybe you’re asking, why the change to The One Mission Offering? Let me give you three reasons:

TO KEEP PRESSING FORWARD

First, The One Mission Offering is about helping us continue to press forward. Three years ago we set a goal to send out some from our congregation to the nations and to places of need in South Carolina. We’ve met that goal, but we don’t want to sit back and rest; we want to keep moving forward! Having met that goal means that we now have Mountain Creek members in strategic places among the nations advancing the gospel, members of our body with whom we’re partnering in the work of ministry. We want to be ready to help them with specific projects that may arise, and we also want to be able to send teams to come alongside them in the work. The One Mission Offering will help us do just that.

TO STREAMLINE OUR GIVING

Second, The One Mission Offering is for the purpose of streamlining our avenues of giving and raising funds. We believe that having one offering that can accomplish all these things will be a great benefit to our body. Instead of a season of giving in December, followed by a season of giving in March, and surrounded by various times of giving for our own mission teams or endeavors, making this change accomplishes all of this with just a single offering. We’ll be taking up The One Mission Offering over a two-month period (December through January) to allow members to not only give with their end-of-year giving, but also to provide a longer window of time to allow for making a plan for generous, sacrificial giving over these weeks for the purpose of the mission.

TO CLARIFY OUR GIVING

Third, The One Mission Offering brings much-needed clarity to our mission giving. We are incredibly grateful to be seeing new attenders and members at Mountain Creek who are coming from backgrounds outside of the Southern Baptist Convention, meaning that terms like “Lottie Moon” and “Annie Armstrong” are unknown to them. While we love the legacy of Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong (and while we’re committed to continuing to support the work of the IMB and the NAMB through the Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong offerings!), our in-house rebranding to The One Mission Offering will clarify exactly what this money is for: Missions.

So please know: we are not stopping our support for the Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong offerings. We are continuing to give to both of these, supporting the important work of the IMB and NAMB. We’re just changing what we call them at Mountain Creek for the purpose of advancing the gospel while streamlining our process and providing clarity to our giving.

If you have any questions along the way, please always feel free to email or call either of your pastors. We would love to speak with you about this!

We’ll begin taking The One Mission Offering on Sunday, November 27th and we’ll take it through Sunday, January 29, 2023. During these weeks, you can give through the envelopes marked The One Mission Offering in the backs of the pews, or online at mountaincreekbc.org/give, choosing “One Mission Offering” from the drop-down menu.

The question now for each of us is this: What can we give for the sake of advancing the mission?

Bert Watts has served since December 2016 as the Senior Pastor at Mountain Creek Baptist Church, where he has been on staff since 2012.