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Gifts to Mission:Dignity made on November 30, #GivingTuesday, will be doubled up to $500,000 because of matching funds in that amount given by generous donors.
Following the typical Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping days, #GivingTuesday is a refreshing change of pace at the start of the Christmas shopping season. Around the world, like-minded individuals join together on this special day to give to causes important to them. With this year’s complications of supply chain shortages and shipping delays, #GivingTuesday is an opportunity to give toward something that matters immediately.
As always, 100 percent of those gifts will go directly to retired Southern Baptist workers, ministers and widows near the poverty line — as an established endowment covers administrative and overhead costs for the ministry.
“Each year, thousands of donors join with GuideStone to provide dignity through Mission:Dignity,” GuideStone President O.S. Hawkins said. “So many of these dear servants served in out-of-the-way places where their churches were unable to pay well, let alone set aside money for retirement. Through Mission:Dignity, Southern Baptists are able to support these retired pastors, their wives, and in most cases, their widows, in their retirement years.”
Annually more than 2,500 individuals receive a monthly measure of comfort, security and dignity in their retirement years thanks to generous financial giving.
“Mission:Dignity is part of the very DNA of GuideStone,” said Hance Dilbeck, president-elect of GuideStone. “For more than a century, we’ve been on a mission to ensure no retirement-age pastor and his wife or widow must live in poverty. We cannot do it without the faithful support of Southern Baptist churches, Sunday school classes and individuals.”
Mission:Dignity receives no Cooperative Program gifts; 100 percent of the funding for the ministry is provided through gifts directly through the ministry. Additionally, all author royalties and proceeds from Hawkins’s Code series of books benefit Mission:Dignity.
Mission:Dignity’s support can mean being able to stay in the familiar surroundings of their own home. For others, it covers the cost of groceries, utilities, prescriptions and other necessities. But for all of them, it’s an expression of the love and care of their Southern Baptist family.
“The gifts from Mission:Dignity to these retired servants is really an honorarium to those who served so well,” Hawkins said. “Paul told Timothy, ‘Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine.’ It is our sincere privilege to serve as the Lord’s hand extended to these retired Southern Baptist soldiers of the cross.
“We would encourage anyone interested in giving this year to consider multiplying the effectiveness of their gift by giving it on Tuesday, November 30.”
To share a gift or for more information, visit GuideStone.org/GivingTuesday.
