LMCO

Evant , Texas,

In the very heart of Texas lies a small town who's history goes back over one hundred and fifty years. A hundred and fifty years is not very long for most towns that lie in eastern states. However for Texas, one hundred and fifty years goes back close to the inception of the state. This town has always comprised of hard working, mostly blue collar, salt of the earth people where over 25% of the people live below the poverty line.

There are four churches in town; a Church of Christ, a Methodist church, a Baptist church and a Spanish mission planted by the Baptist church. The Baptist church is the church where my Baptist roots began over 30 years ago. It was under the preaching of Robert Simmons, now the pastor at Annaville Baptist Church outside of Corpus Christi, when God chose to reveal Himself to me and I was born again. Many pastors have passed through the office at FBCE prior to Brother Robert and many have passed since.

In the 30 years that I have been familiar with FBCE, I am not aware of a single foreign mission trip prior to one that was taken this past summer to Acuna, Mexico and there has been only one mission trip within the the United States. This trip was taken several years back with a youth group. The great thing about this recent trip to Acuna was it was comprised of adults, and it was not just any adults, the ages ranged from 40 all the way to 70+!

Like He did with the Macedonian church in chapter 8 of 2 Corinthians, it seems that God is pouring His grace out on this body of believers whose average Sunday attendance is around 45. This tiny churches aim of around $500 has historically has been the goal for the LMCO. However, this year the goal has been increased 4X. From recent reports it seems that this goal is not only going to be met, but shattered. In addition to this goal, there are talks of doing various fund raisers which will be given to the LMCO.

Imagine what giving to the LMCO would look like if every SBC church would pray that God would birth in them a passion for giving like He did with the church in Macedonia.
Imagine what it would look like if every SBC church had a mindset like the following one described by IMB missionary Ken Sorrell. “A missions mind-set can easily be described as another expression of obedience flowing out of an intimate relationship with our Lord. Both individual believers and churches that desire to have the mind of Christ will also have a heart for the nations.”