Lottie Moon, missionary to China from 1873 to her death in 1912, is the most famous person in Southern Baptist history. Our largest offering, the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions, is named for her.
In time, her life came to be mythologized by Southern Baptists and her name invoked in order to raise money for missions. Over $1.5 billion has been received for overseas missions use since 1888. I hope your church has and will receive a Lottie Moon Offering for International Missions this year. Do your best. There are many good things to support. This is the best thing for Southern Baptist churches and individuals.
Here are some things you probably did not know about Lottie Moon:
1. When funding from the Foreign Mission Board was not sufficient to provide additional workers for Moon’s lonely and arduous mission in Pingtu, China, Lottie loaned the Board $1,000 to help support a new missionary. The sum is equivalent to about $25,000 today.
2. Moon’s home in the seaport city of Tengchow was once hit by a shell from a Japanese warship. Moon was not home at the time. The bombardment was part of the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905.
3. At the 1890 meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in Ft. Worth, Texas, it was said Lottie Moon: “She is the greatest man among our missionaries.” Let the CBMW chew on that and not choke.
4. The Christmas offering later named for Lottie Moon was an idea copied from the Methodists.
5. Lottie had a sister, Edmonia (“Eddie”) who preceded her to China being appointed in April, 1872. Lottie followed the next year. Eddie was often sick and left China for good in 1876.
6. Lottie Moon’s uncle once owned Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s plantation, post Jefferson, of course.
7. When Moon arrived in China in 1873, she found that there was serious personal conflict among missionaries in the mission. This would cause difficulty for decades. She had to contend with and endure this constantly; whereas, the wars, famines, and plagues were just sporadic. Truth be told, we still deal with this type of conflict.
8. Among other things, Lottie endured at least two outbreaks of bubonic plague. She would simply close the school she was operating at the time and wait for the plague to pass.
9. When a new missionary asked Lottie in 1909 what the secret was to her long success in China (she had been in the country for 36 years at that point), Lottie answered, “Early to bed and do not worry.”
10. Southwestern Seminary has a memorial to Lottie Moon that includes furniture and some of her house from Pingtu. I’d like to see it one day. The contrast between that memorial and the stained glass windows is sufficient to cause one to blush.
11. She was not the first single female missionary of Southern Baptists. Harriet Baker, sent in 1849 to China was the first and was considered an “experiment.” She returned to the states in 1853.
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Most of this is from the latest biography of Lottie Moon by Regina D. Sullivan. The article is mostly a copy of one I did here in 2015. There are three biographies of Lottie Moon. The definitive bio has yet to be written. The photo above of the “stern Lottie” and two ladies is from IMB.
One might say that Lottie is timeless.
On a personal note, my ten year old church has always taken a missions offering and given most of it to IMB but we haven’t called it the LMCO or promoted it as such. This year we’re taking an offering exclusively for IMB and I was asked to say something about it, since I know some IMB folks well. With prior approval I secured the LMCO envelopes and we will use them, although I was told that “no one knows who Lottie Moon is in our church.” During my five minute explanation I said, “Many churches have this offering which is named for a 19th century, single female missionary to China by the name of Lottie…” and I cupped my hand to my ear. “Moon” was the answer that rumbled out of the congregation. Not a few were familiar. I thought so.
I appreciate my church taking this offering. We will do the best we can. It wouldn’t take much for Southern Baptists to hit $200 million which is less than than the University of Texas’ athletic budget. But they have folks who give big even if the results are mediocre.
The Foreign Mission Board (now International Mission Board) appointed Lottie Moon to teach in a girls’ school in China. She did that for some years, but then she became a church planter. Other missionaries advised her not to do village evangelism because it was too dangerous. She insisted on going to the villages, and she planted more than thirty churches in the Pingtu district. Some of those churches still exist today. She was a tiny woman with a big heart for the lost.
P.S. William, I’m delighted to know that your church will receive the LMCO this year. Our church is increasing our goal for the LMCO.
The original Southern Baptist missionary-martyr was Samuel Cornelius Clopton, also from Virginia, who was sent to China in 1846, and felled there by disease in 1847. He was kin to the real life Grandma Walton, Susan Henry (Spencer) Hamner.
I visited the small house where Lottie Moon lived while visiting Pingdu “visiting friends”. Believe it or not, the urban sprawl of the city hadn’t overtaken it yet. While humbling to visit, it reminded that how the fields there are still white unto harvest and while the task is great we serve a God that is much greater than the task we see before us. Please lead your churches to participate in this very worthwhile offering and pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ who are suffering very heavy persecution from the new regieme that is in power now.
“the most famous person in Southern Baptist history”
Well, if you don’t include President Carter or President Clinton. Of course, they weren’t famous for being . . . Southern Baptists. And they did both leave us of their own free will. So . . . .
Actually, Billy Graham is probably the most famous Southern Baptist. and one might argue Lottie Moon is largely unknown outside SBC circles. But, otherwise, this is a very good summary article about her containing some good information that I didn’t know. Thanks, William Thornton.
I take your point but would guess that most folks don’t know BG was SB. Anyway…I like a provocative title. Carter’s church lists SBC as one of its affiliations. Don’t know about Clinton.
You do have a good point about many not knowing Billy Graham was Southern Baptist.
First, I appreciate that you don’t show what seems to be a teenage picture of Lottie. I wonder why folks do that….
Second, our church has taken up an LMCO, and we call it that. At least we have for the 37 years we’ve been there.
Our goal is the amount it takes to keep a family of 4 on the field for a year. This year, that’s roughly $56,500 (as I recall).
Third, it was a lot of years of hearing about the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering before I heard who Lottie was. And even then, it was longer before I heard much about what we were actually doing out there in the uttermost parts.
Anyway, thanks for the post.
I took my family to see the exhibit at SWBTS in June when we were in town for the convention. They did a good job job with it. Not huge, but meaningful, especially watching my daughters interact with the information.
Glad to hear you were educating folks at your church. We need to hear these stories and tell our kids.
Thanks, William. 36 years. Go to bed early and do not worry. Good advice.
I am glad to see that Lottie Moon is revered and has not suffered the fate of other SBC founders.
I feel certain that Lottie Moon was a Southern woman of her era. I understand that she was once engaged to Crawford Toy, who was dismissed from Southern, and then became a Unitarian and went to teach at Harvard. I read that Toy was an ardent Southerner and secessionist, more so than even Boyce or Broadus.
But I still get inspired by reading accounts like this of Miss Moon. Just like I get inspired reading about Washington, Jefferson, Adams et al.
I am proud of and inspired by the good they did. And I am even more proud that our nation and our denomination expanded the franchise to include all people.
Btw, Lottie Moon is also portrayed in art – in the Baptist version of the Sistine Chapel at Samford University.
I like the idea of remembering people in portraits and statues. Stained glass and ceiling portraits seem to belong to another millennia, and thus, for me, seem more like deification. I am not sure that’s logical, but it’s how I feel. I feel weird looking at the ceiling at Samford. Have never seen the stained glass at SWBTS.
The portraits at Southern of all the Presidents are great. I think I remember seeing some nice portraits at SWBTS years ago.