As David Platt was explaining his decision to become the new president of the International Mission Board, he recalled a flight returning home from Nepal. On that flight, he said, God burned into his heart that “it is not tolerable that a couple of billion people have little to no access to the gospel.”

Last year, the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions set a new record for giving: $154,057,852. This year, with the theme “One Sacred Effort,” the goal is $175 million. The IMB emphasizes that “every penny of the offering goes to the International Mission Board’s overseas budget.”

The cost to support a missionary overseas breaks down as follows: $139 a day; $977 a week; $4,233 a month; $50,800 a year. The IMB believes there are least 6,500 unreached people groups in the world. More than 4,800 Southern Baptist international missionaries are serving across the globe.

Platt has outlined five desires he has for a mission strategy:

1) Exalt Christ globally — the supreme purpose of missions.

2) Mobilize Christians for God’s mission.

3) Serve and equip churches for their biblical purpose of making disciples among all nations.

4) Enable churches to reach every unreached people group with the gospel and plant churches among them.

5) Complete God’s commission to the church.

In 1918, the Woman’s Missionary Union named the annual Christmas offering for international missions after Lottie Moon. She had influenced them to start an annual offering for world missions years earlier.

Lottie Moon joined her sister in mission work in China in 1872. She served as a missionary, primarily in the Shantung province.

She once wrote home from China: “Please say to the missionaries, they are coming to a life of hardship, responsibility, and constant self-denial.” The offering that bears her name enables more mission personnel to serve more effectively throughout the world.