North American Missions and the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering®

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You may order materials using our Annie Armstrong promotional materials order form.

2012 Theme: Whatever It Takes

Scripture: Mark 2:1-5 (HCSB)

When He entered Capernaum again after some days, it was reported that He was at home. So many people gathered together that there was no more room, not even in the doorway, and He was speaking the message to them. Then they came to Him bringing a paralytic, carried by four men. Since they were not able to bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above where He was. And when they had broken through, they lowered the stretcher on which the paralytic was lying. Seeing their faith, Jesus told the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

National Goal: $70 million

Dates: March 4-11, 2012

The annual Week of Prayer for North American Missions is March 4-11, 2012. This year, five missionaries representing thousands of missionaries serving throughout the United States, Canada, and their territories are spotlighted. The other three days focus on ways Southern Baptists are reaching the lost in North America.

How Can I Get a Missionary to Speak to My Church?

If you would like to invite a North American missionary to speak at your church, use these steps:

Decide who the “audience” will be. Will it be a churchwide event or targeted to a specific group?
Determine which category of mission service you would like to consider (Mission Service Corps missionary, missionary, chaplain) as well as the missionary’s geographical location or setting (resort missions, church planting, associational missions, church and community ministries, etc.) you are interested in.
To locate and contact a missionary in North America (United States, Canada, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands) who fits your criteria, e-mail missionaryspeakers@namb.net.

If you cannot secure a missionary speaker to be on site at your church, consider doing a telephone interview (using a speaker phone) or Instant Messenger Internet chats. You will need to contact missionaries directly to check their availability/access for such.

Your Mississippi Baptist Convention has directors and consultants available to speak on the promotion of Annie Armstrong Easter Offering. For a list of contacts, click here.

History

Annie Armstrong was the founder of the modern Woman’s Missionary Union and served as its first Corresponding Secretary. To understand Annie Armstrong is to understand the zeal for missions that has characterized the WMU organization since it’s founding in 1888.

Immediately after the organization of WMU in 1888, Miss Armstrong was asked to work on getting a missionary to relieve Lottie Moon in China. She had worked for 13 years without furlough. Miss Moon had written many letters urging the organization of Southern Baptist Women.

The home mission offering became an annual event. The (then) Home Mission Board requested Miss Armstrong work to send boxes to missionaries on the western frontier and to missionaries in Cuba. A week was set aside to pray for this effort in the early spring of 1892. The first “Week of Self Denial for Home Missions” was in 1895, over one hundred years ago. In 1934, the name of the week of prayer and offering was changed to the Annie Armstrong Offering for Home Missions which has gone to support the missionaries of our own country and the needs that they and their families have.

In 1997 the mission-sending agency for home missions re-organized and changed its name to the North American Mission Board. The Season of Prayer for North American Missions and the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering is emphasized around Easter every year.