Many age-level missions-related materials which can be viewed and ordered online at www.wmu.com Compassion Ministries offers a series of mini-online courses on refugees, poverty, human trafficking, and others. Online blogs and articles provide training tips, current information about missionaries, and project ideas. Training for Christian Job Corps is now offered online. WorldCrafts catalogs are available online also. Many resources can be downloaded and printed: Compassion Ministries Prayer Calendar, Starter Packs information and others. New “Missions in a Box” continue  to be produced. They are now available for Japan, China, and Nigeria. Especially written for families, these are excellent materials for families that home school or want to promote missions in their homes.

It’s time to begin thinking about how your church will promote and participate in the annual Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions! Free materials can be ordered from the Indiana State Convention offices. A promotional packet will be sent to every church in Indiana that includes sample envelope, poster, and prayer guides for North American missionaries.  Videos for use in worship services can be found online at namb.net 

It’s time to order your free offering promotion items from the Indiana State Convention, WMU Office! Posters, prayer guides, and offering envelopes can be ordered to assist your church in setting and reaching a goal for this important season of missions giving.

Contact the State Convention at: 317.481.2400

For information about international missions:  www.imb.org

For information about North American missions: www.namb.net

For information about missions education/discipleship resources: www.wmu.com

Creating Awareness for Missions Education:

1. Displays – emphasize one part of missions education with a display. Go to www.wmu.or for current themes and information about WMU ministries. Gather display items to create a display that is not “flat” and distribute resource materials.
2. Be present – attend missions events in your area and tell others about it...
3. Promote state missions – Hand out information about upcoming missions events such as your state’s mission offering, annual meetings, and evangelistic events.

Creating Enthusiasm about Missions:

1. Share information about church planting efforts in your area, suggesting ways others can become involved in supporting the new ministries. Adopt a church planter!

2. Plan church wide missions activities and involve the entire family. Collect canned food r makeup food baskets for the holiday season.

3.  Help promote the special missions offerings: Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions. Show videos from NAMB and IMB during worship services. Go to: www.imb.org or www.namb.net

Creating Mission Opportunities:

1. Focus on special projects such as Christmas in August (go online to www.wmu.com for information) to motivate churches to participate on at least a quarterly basis in some type of mission activity.
2. Search online for short-term mission trip projects and present them to the church missions team for consideration.
3. Contact community agencies to find out about their current needs and plan several activities in your local area during the upcoming holidays.

The evangelism team of SEIBA is providing an evangelism training event for all ages on Saturday,  September 11.  The event will be held at Eastern Heights Baptist Church, Jeffersonville beginning at 5:30  p.m.

The event is specifically  designed to help you, your family, and your church extend loving hands to people who  do not  know Christ as Savior. The first  part of the event will model a block party to show you resources that are available,  give  you and those with you a hot dog fresh from the grill and fellowship built around games and activities associated  with block parties.

There will be breakouts for children, students, adults, and church staff giving new ideas for reaching out into your communities with the good news of Jesus. There will  be a variety  of topics: being evangelistic in the workplace, working with students, how children can tell others about Jesus, how  to use hospitality to share your witness, how doing ordinary things intentionally will help you  be effective in personal evangelism, and how pastors can lead their churches in evangelism. There will also be a session to help you work through the details of hosting your own block party!

Here is the schedule  for the event:
5:30      -   Registration / Block Party model (food, games)
6:00 - 7:30   -   Breakout sessions (each session will  be 30 minutes long and will repeat 3 times)
7:30  - 8:00 - Wrap up, a word from our associational missions coordinator, and GIVE-AWAYS!

THIS EVENT IS ONE YOU WON’T WANT TO MISS! GRAB THE WHOLE FAMILY AND JOIN US FOR A TIME OF LEARNING HOW TO SHARE THE GOOD NEWS OF JESUS WITH OTHERS!

Pack a Box of Items for North American Missions

Are you looking for a missions project for the people in your church or small group? Christmas in August provides a simple way you can directly help a North American missionary.

Every year Woman’s Missionary Union partners with the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board to select missionaries who are featured in the national annual Christmas in August emphasis.  These missionaries provide a list of items they need for ministry and outreach.

Here’s how you and your church can participate:

1. Pray - pray that this project will help our missionaries tell others about Jesus.
2. Choose and Promote - select a missionary and tell others about the project giving them a list of items they can purchase. Use church newsletters, online information, social media and a display to inform your church/small groups.
3. Gather - provide an in-gathering location as people bring their Christmas in August items. Crate a Christmas display to catch their attention (wrap a large open box in Christmas paper) and to hold items..
4. Pack and Mail - organize donated items and mail following instructions found online at wmu.com/chirstmasinaugust

Need current missions information? Does your church need a fresh approach to missions? Do your youth and children need to learn about missionaries and what they do? Is God calling you to do something new in missions? If so….this day is for you!

Saturday, August 21 from 9:00 a.m. to 3:30, the annual Missions Lifeline event will be held at Calvary Baptist Church in Greenfield. Sponsored by Indiana WMU, the day’s activities will enhance your church’s missions emphasis.

The event features guest missionaries, a mini kids’ Missions Day Camp, breakout sessions, and the annual election of Indiana state WMU officers.

The day will be filled with mission activities, current information about praying for and giving to missions, and breakouts deigned to help your church fulfill its missions mandate of making disciples for Christ.

Lunch will be served, and participants will enjoy the Missions Rally’s upbeat music and motivational missions speakers. Plan now to attend! Register online on the state convention website.

As a special  project, attendees are encouraged to bring items for two Indiana church planters who are featured as Christmas in August recipients. These items will help their ministries with homeless and college students:  school supplies for backpack distribution, $10 gift cards to Kroger and McDonald’s and travel size items for homeless hygiene kits. Items will be collected and given to the church planters.

Plan to attend; bring others with you; take advantage of the children’s Day Camp; enjoy a day full of missions challenges!

It would be great if Indiana Southern Baptist churches supported Chris Cook in Bloomington with Christmas in August donations!

Christ serves as lead pastor and church planter at Embassy Church. The church has ministries on the University of Indiana campus and in the large homeless community in the area. Let’s join together to encourage these ministries through our donations to Christmas in August.

Here are the items Chris requested:

• $10 McDonald’s gift cards
• $10 Kroger gift cards
• Travel-size wet wipes, deodorants, dry shampoo, toothbrushes and toothpaste
• Nail clippers
• Large bandages
• Wool socks
• Wool gloves
• Breath mints

Mail to:

Chris Cook
2419 E. Oakmont Drive
Bloomington, IN 47401

Monday Missions Projects – Schedule a regular weekday morning for mission projects such as preparing healthcare kits for a crisis shelter, packing backpacks for needy school children, or stocking the shelves of the church food pantry.

Prayer Walking Upgrade – Ask adults in community groups to adopt an area near your church to do prayer walking: the neighborhood school, community facilities like the police department or city hall.

Benevolence Ministries – Some churches use benevolence funds as an opportunity to talk with recipients, counsel them, and share Christ. Decide as a group to volunteer a specific day once a month.

Adopt a Church Planter and Family – Community group members can introduce church planters to influential community leaders, politicians, business owners, and local craftsmen who may be of help to the planter as he and his family make community connections. Get current information on planters from SEIBA’s office.

Befriend a Church Planter’s Wife – Take her to lunch, remember her birthday, pray for her, and encourage her as she helps her husband establish a new church.

Friendship Food – Cook extra lasagna or ham and deliver it to a senior who is unable to get out due to illness or care giving responsibilities.

Be Creative in Outreach - *Bake cookies for a high school sports team who has a weekly meal in your church’s gym.  *Invite young mothers in the neighborhood to tea and share the gospel with them.  *Knit or crochet prayer shawls for patients or those grieving (patterns on Pinterest)  *Make receiving blankets for a crisis pregnancy center.  *Write to recovering wounded soldiers (address on Pinterest).  *Pray for missionaries on their birthdays (monthly list in Missions Mosaic Magazine. Order at www.wmu.com/curriculum).