KINGSTON, Tenn. — Eight women sat around a table, their laughter filling Union Chapel Missionary Baptist Church. Flour flew in all directions as Janice Poland instructed the group of 70- to 82-year-old women on how to make fried apple and peach pies. They have a hefty goal of making 2,000.

Technically, that’s just phase 1 of their overall goal to support and send International Mission Board missionaries to fulfill the Great Commission. After this, they’re selling the pies for 21 weeks in the local farmer’s market. Then, it will be time for the holiday craft bazaar. Everyone in the community knows all proceeds go to missions and the task of taking the gospel to places that might not know Jesus’ name.

“We aren’t going, so we need to be sending,” Poland said, explaining the reason the women’s group worked year-round to raise money for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.

Mary Lane Moore added that many in their small church of 50 members cannot go to the mission field due to health or work, but that didn’t stop God from calling them to be a part of it in some capacity.

“We all can’t serve the same way. This is where we are meant to be,” Moore said. “We can give, pray and send missionaries.”

Pastor David Acres never imagined the impact the International Mission Board’s (IMB) Church Connections initiative would make on his congregation. The church has always given to missions, but they went from relegating it to a line item in the annual budget to being actively engaged year-round.

It started with an email from IMB missionaries Jon and Betty Loving. They described their ministry in Europe, introduced their family and asked the church to pray for specific requests. The small Tennessee church did not have a missionary sent directly from their congregation, so as part of IMB’s Church Connections, they were matched with the Lovings. The goal of Church Connections is for all 47,000 Southern Baptist churches to connect and engage on a personal level with the missionaries they cooperatively support.

Acres read the Lovings’ email aloud to the small church and prayed for the family. Their requests went on the church’s prayer list. With each new ministry update, Acres followed the same procedure. As the church got to know the Lovings’ struggles and life highlights, like one of the Loving kids winning a soccer match or a refugee coming to faith in Jesus, a subtle shift happened. 

They regularly prayed for other missionaries. The Woman’s Missionary Union group that went dormant after the COVID years began meeting again as women’s ministry. The biggest shift, though, came when church members discussed the 2024 budget and their annual $750 gift to international missions. One stood up and proclaimed, “We can do better!”

No one knew what that might look like, but the whole church got involved. The women’s group gathered donations from church members and prepared crafts for a holiday bazaar. Poland made fried pies to sell. Another woman made Italian cream cakes, while someone else made full-sized Christmas wreaths. A 13-year-old made bookmarks and other crafts. Even Moore’s 3-year-old grandson helped with simple projects. After months of work, the church hosted a holiday bazaar with people coming from as far as 50 miles away to help the cause.

“I think it was us just stepping out in faith,” Moore said. “We never imagined the kind of results we’d get; we just knew God wanted us to do what we could.”

When Poland and Moore tabulated the results of the church’s efforts, they increased their 2024 Lottie Moon Christmas Offering from $750 to $9,200.

The church hasn’t stopped. The group of eight women meet every two weeks to make pies and plan out the 2025 bazaar. They know they can top last year. In fact, they are expanding their efforts to include the community food bank while increasing their Lottie Moon giving.

The bottom line, Acres said, is because of getting to know the Loving family and praying for their work, the church took ownership of cooperatively supporting and sending missionaries. They discovered a small congregation is part of the big picture.

“Thank you for your work,” Acres wrote back to their missionaries in Europe. “Thank you for inspiring us to do better. I pray this is only a beginning for our church to understand our partnership in missions.”

*IMB missionary names changed for security.

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Sue Sprenkle writes for the IMB. Contact the IMB or call 1-804-353-0151 to learn more about Church Connections and how to get involved.)