As the annual Lottie Moon Christmas Offering nears—and as the 100th anniversary of the Cooperative Program (CP) in 2025 continues—now is a great time to consider how promoting both can help promote a culture of missions in your church.

1. Remember CP and Lottie Both Fund Missions
The CP is “Southern Baptists’ unified plan for giving, through which cooperating Southern Baptist churches give a percentage of funding support.” The single largest recipient of CP funds is the International Mission Board (IMB). In Oklahoma, approximately 20 percent of every dollar given goes to the IMB, for ongoing support. Meanwhile, the IMB points out that when people give through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, “100 percent of your gift goes directly to missionaries and their ministries overseas.” When it comes to giving, it’s not an either/or scenario. Both the CP and Lottie fund missions work.

2. Offer Missions Education for Kids (and Grown-Ups)
Through the lesson of the widow’s mite, Jesus taught us that there are no small gifts in the Kingdom of God. Churches can and should give children an opportunity to give. Churches can also educate children on missions, showing how giving through the CP and giving to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering play a big role in that.

At oklahomabaptists.org/cp, there are children’s activity pages that a Sunday School class can use. The IMB has excellent resources, such as videos, that will help children visualize who our missionaries are.

3. Create Opportunities for Prayer
The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering Week of Prayer for International Missions is Nov. 30-Dec. 7. This is a great time to remind people to pray for missionaries and the Gospel work here and around the world. At oklahomabaptists.org/cp, you will find slides and prayer information for Oklahoma Baptists who are specifically serving in missions. When we pray, by name, for the people on the mission field, God uses it to further open our hearts to give and to be active participants in missions.

4. Show the Link Between Praying, Giving and Going
If you talk to IMB missionaries, many will tell you that God first worked on their heart to “go” when they were young. They saw a missionary speak at church, and the Lord gave them a dream to become a missionary. Their family prayed for missionaries, and God used that in their call. For others, when they put money in an envelope and dropped it in the offering plate, the Lord stirred in their hearts to go on mission. Still others, they went with their church as a teenager on their first short-term mission trip, and now they are a vocational missionary. All of these actions—learning, praying, giving—can lead to going.

These are only a few ways we can promote missions education and fulfill our call from the Lord to go to the ends of the Earth with the Good News.

“And (Jesus) said to them, ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel to the whole creation.’” Mark 16:15