United Mission
American Baptist Churches USA
What Is United Mission?
Introduction:
The identity of the American Baptist family is built upon personal faith in Jesus Christ and on a deep commitment to mission. Our mission budget provides opportunities for local churches to fulfill their mission by investing in American Baptist mission and to carry out the purpose of the covenant relationship of American Baptist churches. The grand total of all money given to the ministry that God has given to American Baptists is called American Baptist Mission Support. The largest portion of the American Baptist Mission Support budget is called United Mission. These contributions from local churches provide the foundation of support for our entire mission.
What unites American Baptists in Mission?
We believe that the local congregation is the fundamental unit of mission and our priority as a denomination is to affirm, support, and challenge congregations as they live out their mission in "Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth." American Baptist congregations are called by God through Jesus Christ to be communities of faith:
Because this is God's call to all churches, it needs to be considered through the lens of American Baptist heritage and present distinctives as a people who are evangelical, ecumenical, multi-racial, mission-minded, committed to social justice, and informed by global perspective.
What's in a name?
The words "united" and "mission" are rooted in the teaching of scripture and the experience of the early church.
The call for unity in Christ's church resounds through the New Testament. Jesus prayed for the disciples "that they may all be one" (John 17:21). The book of Acts speaks of the earliest church as being in "one accord" (8:6). The Apostle Paul heralded, "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Ephesians 4:5).
The New Testament church united for mission. The Great Commission affirmed this mission simply and powerfully: "Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation" (Mark 16:15). "Proclaim the message," the author of 2 Timothy 4:2 writes, "be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage." Paul identifies the focus of mission, "All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation" (2 Corinthians 5:18).
American Baptists are united in a vision of mission that brings Christ to this nation and to the nations of the world. United Mission responds to the mandate from Jesus that "you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). United Mission funds ministries that witness in local congregations (Jerusalem); and witness in mission in America and international mission around the world (Judea and Samaria).
What kind of ministries are supported by United Mission?
Hundreds of Christ-honoring, church strengthening, disciple-making ministries exist because of United Mission. Currently, five ministries receive special attention:
Why should our church contribute to United Mission?
How did out United Mission get started?
From the very beginning, Baptists in America have been a people of mission. The forming of the First American Baptist Church in Rhode Island was itself an act of mission in an often hostile environment. Mission pastors were soon preaching the gospel and forming churches throughout New England in all 13 colonies.
Mission brought these Baptists into closer fellowship and cooperation. Adoniram Judson and Luther Rice, who left Massachusetts as missionaries of the Congregational Church, studied the biblical teaching of Believer's Baptism, and were baptized by William Carey in India. Suddenly, without prior planning, the Baptists had a foreign mission. Rice eventually returned to the United States to organize support for Judson's mission to Burma.
Luther Rice developed and promoted a growing interest in mission as he traveled throughout the colonies and the burgeoning frontier. Interest in establishing new churches resulted in mission at home. Interest in proclaiming the gospel to the whole world resulted in mission overseas. Interest in training pastors and laity, providing Bibles and teaching helps for the unchurched led to educational mission. Interest in strengthening local churches by helping them bond together in fellowship and service resulted in regional mission.
A network of societies emerged, giving direction to the outline of our American Baptist mission system of fundraising for essential ministries. The societies spearheaded the promotion and development of mission within the family of churches eventually known as American Baptist Churches USA.
The societies each approached churches directly with appeals for support of their ministries. But in 1907, with the formation of the Northern Baptist Convention to merge the societies, a cooperative strategy for mission support fundraising and a unified mission budget developed. In its early form, all dollars raised by any group were put into a common fund and shared with each ministry for a negotiated percentage distribution.
Seventy years later, the American Baptist General Board adopted a Budget Covenant that recognizes and assigns responsibilities of cooperative distribution of mission receipts by affiliated boards and regions. The American Baptist Mission Support system provides American Baptists with a variety of ways to support the mission, including four annual offerings for specific board ministries. The largest giving category, which provides vital and basic support for all American Baptist mission and ministries, was named United Mission.
American Baptist Mission Support
Thank you for our church's continuing support of United Mission. Please increase your United Mission giving as a way of investing in Christ's mission for American Baptists.
Income Sources:
How do I give to the ministries supported by United Mission?
United Mission is part of your church's mission budget. Each fall, when pastors and congregational leaders plan your church's budget for the following year, they should prayerfully consider God's vision of ministry for your church, and include increased support in our financial commitment to United Mission. Your faithful response and increased support of your church's mission budget throughout the year are vital to our shared ministry.
Congregations give to United Mission in three ways:
The United Mission Logo
The United Mission logo includes symbols of the mission to which American Baptists have been called. The orange sunburst represents the warmth and radiance of the light of the Holy Spirit. The gold-color of the word "mission" denotes the reward and treasure of mission. The green background symbolizes growth, creation, renewal, giving. The stamp-like shape implies service, communication, and on-going outreach. But three symbols portray the most important components of United Mission.
The Cross
The cross is in the forefront, it is central. The purity of white contrasts the colors around it, showing everything else is in support of it. The words of the apostle Paul become our words: "For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Corinthians 1:18). All mission and ministry respond to the amazing love of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. United Mission provides a vital way for American Baptists to respond to God's grace in Christ.
The Globe
Our mission is to the world. The Bible teaches that God is "not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). Jesus is introduced by John the Baptist as "the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). Our mission begins in local congregations and stretches to every person in every country in God's creation. United Mission provides a far-reaching way to respond to God's vision of ministry for us.
The Church
The church is symbolized not by a building, but with people. The red, blue, and purple figures represent American Baptists as multi-cultural members of one body. We re united as a community of faith at the foot of the cross with the world in our hearts. The diminishing dark blue behind the people implies less of self, more of Christ, as with outstretched arms we receive and share God's blessings with joy and worship. The American Baptist Churches USA logo symbolizes ministries supported by our gifts. This mission is not a burden; it is uplifting.. The church is the central component of United Mission. In fact, contributions to United Mission are given by churches, not individuals. Strengthening the local church is the prime focus of United Mission. Jesus said, "On this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18). Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. United Mission is a church-friendly system for Christian financial stewards.
How the United Mission Dollar is Distributed (based on 1996 projections)
How the Regional Portion of United Mission is Distributed (Actual 1994)**
**Based on actual 1994 distribution. Percentages vary each year according to the amount of United Mission money raised and the negotiated percentage returned to a particular region.