A Note from John Roach
World Mission Offering
In December of 2021, my family began transitioning from replanting a church in Caddo Mills, Texas, to becoming members of the Green Acres Baptist Church family, where I would begin serving as the Missions Pastor. As this transition began, one of the primary questions I asked was, “What is the World Mission Offering or WMO?” Without going into all the thoughts and questions I had initially, allow me to give some insight into what I have learned about WMO.
The first thing I learned is that Green Acres Baptist Church is generous. Our church believes in generosity. For all three years I have served here at GABC, our church has set a goal of one million dollars. In the last two years, we have surpassed this goal. I have full expectations that we will surpass it again. In addition to WMO, our church has also collected special offerings throughout the year for Disaster Relief, designated a portion of our budget for missions efforts, plus we will give ten percent of our receipts to the Cooperative Program, which supports Southern Baptist Churches and missions efforts nationally and internationally. The estimated total of all these endeavors will be well over $3,000,000. As I said, our church is generous.
Our Missions Staff has worked hard with our Communications Staff to create an incredible digital representation of how the WMO money is allocated. There are specific endeavors we typically give to each year, including the International Mission Board, North American Mission Board, Texas Baptists, The Southern Baptists of Texas, and our local Smith Baptist Association. For more information on these offerings, please access the WMO brochure here. In addition to these offerings, we will allocate portions of WMO to short-term mission efforts with our partners and local ministry efforts in East Texas. The money designated for short-term mission efforts is used to subsidize over 500 short-term mission trip participants on 28 different trips, the majority of which serve the church planters and missionaries we support.
These short-term efforts are designed intentionally to support GABC’s partners. Our partners include church planters from Hawaii, Washington, Colorado, Texas, Florida, Massachusetts, and Maine. We also have partners in Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Scotland, England, Italy, Spain, Lithuania, Morocco, Namibia, Uganda, Zambia, Malawi, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Tanzania, Mozambique, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Iraq, Indonesia, Philippines, and Australia.
Locally, we serve at or with Bethesda Health Clinic, Tyler Junior College, the University of Texas at Tyler, Breckenridge Village, Celebrate Recovery, East Texas Food Bank, Texans on Mission, Samaritan’s Purse, Hope Haven, Prison Ministry for Men and Women, Refuge of Light, Tyler ISD, Whitehouse ISD, Bullard ISD, The Fostering Collective, Triumph Village, The Mentoring Alliance, The Promise Academy, Smith County Fire Fighters, Tyler Fire Fighters, Tyler Police Department, Smith County Sheriff’s Office, and more! A conservative estimate is that our church mobilized over 2,000 individuals to serve in East Texas, our country, and the world!
Thank you for taking the words of Jesus in Matthew 28:19-20 seriously. “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Pastor John