
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 23, 1991                   TAG: 9103230161
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Cody Lowe
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

GIFTS TO LOTTIE MOON OFFERING DOWN

The executive in charge of the "largest single offering of its kind that we know of in Christendom" says that the Southern Baptist Convention's Lottie Moon Christmas offering will decline this year for the first time in 53 years.

Keith Parks, president of the Foreign Mission Board, said in a prepared statement earlier this week that he is not sure why the funding is down, although he cited the Persian Gulf war and "uncertainties in the denomination" as possible explanations.

The offering is the primary source of funds for the Foreign Mission Board, responsible for sending missionaries overseas.

Projections based on surveys of state Southern Baptist conventions indicates that the offering will drop by 1.4 percent from last year, leaving the agency with about $7 million less than it had budgeted. A spokesman said a 7 percent increase had been anticipated.

The offering is expected to total about $79 million when the books for the current year close in May.

The losses will be deleted from capital projects, officials said, not from missionaries or administration.

In the last few months, alternative mission-funding projects have been started by Southern Baptist groups unhappy with the current ultraconservative leadership of the national denomination. It is unclear to what extent they may have led to the decreases to the Lottie Moon offering.

by CNB