Reach Texas Offering exceeds two giving goals in one year

The way Terry Coy sees it, the Reach Texas Offering has certifiably arrived as the state missions offering for the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. In years past, occasional questions would arise about whether or not the SBTC had a state missions offering or if Reach Texas was synonymous with an older offering named for a person.

But 15 years into the convention’s life, the Reach Texas Offering is a source of strength, helping advance the gospel in densely and sparsely populated areas of the Lone Star State.

In mid-August, two weeks before the giving year ended, Coy was ecstatic with giving of $1.238 million—exceeding not only this year’s goal of $1.1 million but next year’s goal of $1.2 million.

Last year’s giving was boosted by a large year-end gift, “which when that happens you thank God for it but think that’s not going to come in next year,” Coy admitted. So when $1.2 million was chosen as a challenge goal for 2013-14, it seemed reasonable.

Coy was right. No large year-end gifts came in this year—just hundreds of Texas Southern Baptist churches giving generously over and above their Cooperative Program (CP) gifts, Coy said.

Every dollar from the Reach Texas Offering is used for evangelism and missions, with church planting being the largest beneficiary. That’s possible because administrative costs are covered through CP giving—the shared funding stream that fuels Southern Baptists’ cooperative work in Texas and worldwide.

“Of course, thanks for the churches’ faithfulness and generosity,” Coy said.

This month, the offering year begins anew. The 2013-14 Reach Texas Offering Week of Prayer and Emphasis is Sept. 22-29 with the theme “Hometown Texas,” following last year’s theme of “Life in the Big City.”

“The emphasis for ‘Hometown Texas’ is on what churches are doing in smaller and mid-sized cities in the varied regions of Texas,” Coy said.

Of 27 million Texans, more than 3 million live outside the large metropolitan areas and more than 7 million live in small or mid-sized cities.

Coy noted that the theme each year is merely an emphasis and not a reflection of the broad missions engagement in urban and rural settings where Reach Texas dollars further gospel work.

“For example, we have emphasized the Borderlands—Laredo and El Paso are two cities where we are active—and the Reach Texas Offering assists us in funding new church plants and training and deploying new church planters there and elsewhere, of course. And it supplements disaster relief, evangelism strategies and missions mobilization.”

Keeping pace with church planting needs is a primary concern. The SBTC missions team reports that to keep up with population growth, 300 rural and 5,060 urban churches would need to be started every 10 years.

Also, Texas has 6.8 million residents who speak a language other than English at home, almost double the national percentage.
Glenmary Research Data reports that 76 percent of Texans would beconsidered “unchurched.”

To learn more about the Reach Texas Offering or to download offering resources, visit sbtexas.com/reachtexas.