Lottie Moon A Generous Offering

Born into a privileged southern American family, Lottie Moon became a missionary to the poorest cities in China, risking her life for others.

After becoming the most educated woman in the American South, Lottie Moon (1840-1912) spent thirty-nine years in China. As she watched her fellow missionaries fall to disease and exhaustion, she became just as dedicated to educating Christians about the often preventable tragedies of missionary life as she was to educating Chinese people about the Christian life. Today, an annual missionary offering taken in her name continues to enable countless others to give their all for the gospel.

Legendary Southern Baptist missionary Charlotte "Lottie" Moon played a pivotal role in revolutionizing southern civil society. Her involvement in the establishment of the Women's Missionary Union provided white Baptist women with an alternate means of gaining and asserting power within the denomination's organizational structure and changed it forever. In Lottie Moon: A Southern Baptist Missionary to China in History and Legend Regina Sullivan provides the first comprehensive portrait of "Lottie," who not only empowered women but also inspired the formation of one of the most influential religious organizations in the United States. Despite being the daughter of slaveholders in antebellum Virginia, Moon never lived the life of a typical southern belle. Highly educated and influenced by models of independent womanhood, including an older sister who was a woman's rights advocate, an open opponent of slavery, and the first Virginian female to earn a medical degree, Moon followed her sister's lead and utilized her extensive education to successfully combine the language of woman's rights with the egalitarian impulse of evangelical Protestantism. In 1873 Moon found her true calling, however, in missionary work in China. During her tenure there she recommended that the week before Christmas be designated as a time of giving to foreign missions. In response to her vision, thousands of Southern Baptist women organized local missionary societies to collect funds, and in 1888, the Woman's Missionary Union was founded as the Southern Baptist Convention's female auxiliary for missionary work. Sullivan credits Moon's role in the establishment of the Woman's Missionary Union as having a significant impact on the erosion of patriarchal power and women's new engagement with the public sphere. Since her initial plea in 1888, the Missionary Union's annual "Lottie Moon Christmas Offering" has raised over a billion dollars to support missionary work. Lottie Moon captures the influence and culminating effect of one woman's personal, spiritual, and civic calling.

The first part of this study, published in 1984, recounts congregational growth from a brush arbor meeting to a thriving church adjacent to a bustling college campus. Carolyn Gaddy reconstructs the congregation¿s evolution as it confronted missionary and education controversies, the Civil War, industrialization and depression, and modern times. Jerry Surratt deals with the 25 years preceding the church¿s bicentennial in 2010. It is a deeper probing into challenges of ministry, growth, building renovations, denominational change, and gender issues. The congregation expands its ministry to local needs, regional disaster relief, and the plight of abandoned street children in Ukraine.

"When the author's father died, Marc Jolley decided that he needed to write something for his sons about what was important in his life. The result, while not a full autobiography, deals with three things in his life that have shaped it more than others; it is about what he loves: baseball, God, and family, but not necessarily in that order all of the time. This memoir, then, is about what the author "knows" and to that extent, each sentence is true in the best tradition of Hemingway. Safe at Home is both a phrase used in baseball and an expression that captures the importance of family." "This story is about how faith, family, and baseball have intersected in his life, an intersection that occurs at home. Critical moments of Jolley's life have seen God, baseball, and family impact at very important times in his life. Whether losing game after game in little league, watching the World Series with his father, or quitting the high school team, the presence of family and his faith shape how he overcomes disappointment or celebrates the sheer joy of playing. Collecting baseball cards in 1968 provides him with a lesson in race and his mother's faith that opens his eyes to a world he never knew."--BOOK JACKET.

Whether reading for themselves or being read to, children will love the captivating stories, language, and art of these unforgettable picture books. Families will want to collect the whole series Amy Carmichael (1867-1951) rescued hundreds of women and children, first in Irish slums and then in India, by fearing God and nothing else.

Originally published in 1935, Gold by Moonlight was not written by the well for the ill, but by one who knows the sensitive lessons that come from a walk with pain. This book is for all who are walking in the difficult places of life. It is a literary signpost pointing toward the peace and comfort that only comes from the Lord. A spiritually rich book, full of courage for anyone who suffers. “Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the adversities of life? Then this encouraging and comforting book is just for you. Written by Amy Carmichael who has known pain and suffering herself and has an amazing capacity to guide a weary soul back into God’s presence.”—Prayer Tray Illustrated throughout with beautiful photographs.

"This is a story about Christian women. It is a story of martyrs, mystics, missionaries, leaders, preachers, theologians, saints, and prophets." For most of its two-thousand-year history, Christianity has told its stories from the perspective of men, mostly powerful men, and almost always men in control of the "official" narrative. These masculine narratives tell only part of the story because they obscure the rich and essential contributions, large and small, of Christian women throughout time. If the stories of women have been overlooked generally, stories of women from outside the Western tradition have been even more seriously overlooked. In this exciting, readable, and fresh new history of Christianity, Jennifer Hornyak Wojciechowski foregrounds the story of Christian women for a new era. Be they powerful or nameless, saintly or flawed, women across two millennia and six continents are lifted up and allowed to speak fully to their part in the spread of the faith. Wojciechowski's book works perfectly as a classroom text while welcoming general readers of all backgrounds and interest levels.