Mary Hill Davis Offering funds cutting-edge missions, helps Texas Baptists meet needs_61404

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Posted: 6/11/04

Mary Hill Davis Offering funds
cutting-edge missions, helps Texas Baptists meet needs

By Ferrell Foster

Texas Baptist Communications

Since Baptists give regularly throughout the year to support the varied ministries of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, why is the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions needed?

“Over the years, it has allowed Texas Baptists to begin new mission ministries that could not have been funded by the BGCT Cooperative Program,” said Carolyn Porterfield, executive director of Texas Woman's Missionary Union. WMU's board of directors approves the offering budget allocations each year.

River Ministry is the best example of how the offering enables the start of new ministries, she said. The multi-faceted ministry along the Texas-Mexico border initially received all its funding through the Mary Hill Davis Offering and probably could not have grown over the years without continued financial support from the offering.

“What (the offering) has begun is just phenomenal,” Porterfield said.

The statewide goal for the 2004 Mary Hill Davis Offering is $5 million. All of the money received will support BGCT ministries. Churches send their offering to the BGCT for disbursement to the various ministries. The offering also provides the entire operating budget for Texas WMU–$983,000 in the 2004 offering budget.

But the offering is about more than raising money for missions, she said. “It became a way for people to have focus” on mission work in Texas through the education and prayer that accompany the offering. When Baptists are knowledgeable, then “praying, giving and going increase.”

“I'm not going to pray for people or needs I don't know about,” Porterfield said. “In Texas, we can put our hands and our dollars together since the Mary Hill Davis Offering supports ministries that are close to Texas Baptists.”

She connected it to Jesus' announcement that the spiritual fields are white and ready for the harvest. “Sometimes we like to pray with our eyes closed so we don't have to see the fields,” Porterfield said.

Jesus offered a different model. He “walked out among the people, and he challenged us to go out among the people,” she added.

“The Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions allows Baptists a chance to go out among the people of the state through our prayers and our offerings and even personal involvement.”

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