The Annie Armstrong Easter Offering provides half of NAMB’s annual budget. All Annie Armstrong Offering funds go directly to the mission field. These gifts are used to pay missionary salaries, fund new church plants, and purchase equipment, material and other resources used on the field. The Annie Armstrong Offering also helps pay for orientation, training, coaching and care for missionaries and their families.
Ezell said the gift is the largest single offering to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering as well. “I’m incredibly grateful for Bryant Wright and Clay Smith and the priority they have given to the mission field,” Ezell said. “It reflects where their hearts are focused. For all of our churches who so faithfully give, I hope this will encourage and challenge them to continue to focus resources on changing lives with the power of the gospel.”
IMB missionary Robin Tinley talks with women in a leather factory where Venezuelans are trained in how to make shoes, purses and other goods so that they can support their families. Most Venezuelans left everything they had behind when they crossed the border into Colombia. Gifts through Johnson Ferry’s Great Commission offering will support the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering, which make it possible for Southern Baptists to share the gospel across North America and around the world. (IMB Photo by Chris Carter)
Make history, reach the world
Typically, when a tenured pastor retires from Johnson Ferry, the church takes a love offering for the pastor and his family. Wright announced his retirement in Nov. 2018. In June 2019, he and his wife suggested to church elders that they forego receiving a love offering on their behalf and instead promote an offering for Great Commission causes. The elders readily agreed, and momentum and excitement began to build.
“It was like God was saying, ‘Yes. This is good,” Wright said.
The offering was scheduled at the end of the service, and the pastors called the church to come forward to give their offerings.
“They came in droves,” Smith said. “Deacons were carrying out bags of offerings.”
“It was an amazing Sunday,” Wright said. “We are overwhelmed with thanksgiving and what this can mean in carrying out Christ’s Great Commission.”
Appreciate the past, accelerate the future
Wright, who will hold the title “outgoing senior pastor” through Dec. 15, is working through a transition period with Smith. Together the two men began a six-week series in mid-September titled, “ONWARD: Moving Forward with the Great Commission.”
Johnson Ferry has always taken its commitment to the Great Commission seriously, Wright said. The church sends about 2,000 people per year on 70 to 80 mission trips around the world. To encourage participation in these short-term trips, the church covers half the cost for each participant, but members may only participate in a short-term mission trip if they have been trained in evangelism during that year.
“This has been life-changing for our church,” Wright said.
With missions positioned at the forefront of the church’s vision, participating in the Great Commission offering was an easy ask.
“The six-week series Clay and I did together helped prepare the way,” Wright said. “We’ve had other large one-day offerings for various capital campaigns, but this is the first time we’ve set aside a day to give exclusively to the Great Commission. The congregation embraced it.”
“The offering is a wonderful act of transition,” Smith said. “It highlights the truth that this church is bigger than Bryant Wright and bigger than Clay Smith. It is about the Great Commission.”
Wright and Smith hope the offering will serve as a catalyst for other churches within the Southern Baptist Convention to set large goals for their missions offerings. Every church, regardless of its size, can set a goal to achieve a record offering for missions, Wright said.
“Through this offering, we want to see people reached for Christ like never before,” Wright said. “Our prayer is that churches of all sizes will say, ‘If Johnson Ferry can do this, why can’t we give the largest offering ever in our church’s history to Lottie and Annie?’”
Smith agreed, “Together as Southern Baptists, let’s make this the largest year ever for mission offerings.”
This article originally appeared here.
