The International Mission Board has announced that the 2010 Lottie Moon Christmas Offering Goal is $175 million! Our church goal is $1000.00.
The 2010 theme is “Are We There Yet?”
The following is taken directly from the IMB website:
Are we there yet?
When it comes to reaching a lost world for Christ, some may wonder how far we’ve come and how much farther to go.
Today, we can identify the people groups that remain untouched by the Gospel. For the first time, it is conceivable that all people groups can be reached in the coming years with a Gospel presence. According to IMB’s 2009 statistical data* there were 506,019 baptisms, 204,192 churches. Church membership overseas was at 10.7 million, and there were 24,650 new churches.
Yes, there is still a long way to go, but progress is being made every day.
Now is the time to also take a fresh look at the challenges ahead and be ready to finish the task. With 45,560 churches in the Southern Baptist Convention, there is much work to be done.
Here’s a global snapshot of the work ahead of us:
* 4,743 people groups are not engaged at all with the Gospel
* 6,426 unreached people groups (those with less than 2 percent of people who profess to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ)
* 1.7 billion with little or no access to the Gospel
* 1.5 billion Muslims – 22 percent of the world’s population
* 950 million Hindus in the world
* Christian witness among China cities less than 1 percent
* 3 percent evangelical believers among Ethiopia’s 82 million people
* 355 million in South America do not know Christ
* Less than 1 percent Christian among more than 270 million living in the Central Asia region
* 650,000 Lezghi in the Causcasus Mountains fear evil spirits
* 97 percent of all Palestinians are Muslim
* 89 percent of North African and Middle Eastern people groups are unreached
* 311 people groups in India have no known evangelical believers
* Only 1,600 believers among 1.6 million Muong of Northern Vietnam
A little overwhelming isn’t it?
he task is doable, but it will take all of us – our churches, our missionaries, our national partners, our Great Commission partners.
Are we there yet? Not quite. But we’re on our way.
