Promotion Ideas

Use the following ideas in your church and/or family to raise awareness about hunger and poverty issues.

Give One Meal Once a Month

Consider the simple goal of donating the cost of one meal once a month to the Offering for individuals and families in your congregation.  This goal is relatively modest, easy to calculate, and can be incorporated in the promotion ideas listed below.  While the impact of this giving pattern on most family budgets is small, the collective impact on Baptist ministries to hungry people is enormous.  If only one out of twenty Texas Baptists gave just $10 per month to the Offering, we would give in excess of $12,000,000 annually—well over fifteen times what we are currently giving.

Fifth Sunday Observance

Use the fifth Sundays of five Sunday months to emphasize the ministries of the Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger (TBOWH) and to collect contributions in support of the Offering.

Fifth Sundays in 2010:  January 31, May 30, August 29, and October 31

Lord’s Supper Observance

Use the observance of the Lord’s Supper as an occasion for contributing to the Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger.

Special Day Observance

Use special days like Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, World Food Day (October 16), and Super Bowl Sunday to conduct a world hunger emphasis.

Encourage Volunteer Teams

An important aspect of the Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger is the chance for Texas Baptists to become directly involved in the ministries which we support financially.  Two main avenues for involvement are available.  First, there are opportunities to perform volunteer service at ministry sites.  Second, there is the need for learning groups to visit ministry sites to learn, observe, and report.  Arrangements for both volunteer service and learning team membership are made through the mission organization which sponsors the particular ministry served or visited.  If you are interested in serving as a volunteer or a member of a learning team, please contact the Christian Life Commission at 333 N. Washington, Dallas, Texas  75246; (214) 828-5I90; worldhunger@bgct.org.

Planning a World Hunger Emphasis Period

1. Decide on Fifth Sunday Observance, Lord’s Supper Observance, Special Day Observance, or other dates appropriate for your congregation’s emphasis.
2. Display TBOWH resources, including posters, worldwide ministries bulletin inserts, and prayer and meditation guides, prominently throughout the church.
3. Use TBOWH bulletin inserts during Sunday morning worship.
4. Place TBOWH offering envelopes in pew racks and in envelope distribution to members.
5. Spotlight the Offering from the pulpit, in classes, and during prayer meeting.
6. Set a goal for the congregation’s world hunger giving and challenge classes, youth groups, and missions organizations to reach the goal.
7. Host a hunger meal serving inexpensive food like soup or beans and rice.  Place collection containers on tables and ask people to give what they would have paid to buy a meal.
8. Host a hunger awareness banquet (see instructions below).
9. Use TBOWH video and printed resources to tell the stories of lives saved and changed by the Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger.
10. Set up a world hunger display table several weeks in advance with printed resources and Offering collection containers (TBOWH “Texas” banks or labeled jars) available for church members to take home.
11. Use worship times to promote the ingathering period when members will bring back TBOWH banks or collection jars back to the church.
12. Plan a party for bank collection – divide into teams, teams count money, give prizes for first team to finish, team with the most money, etc.  Make it fun!
13. When the collection container ingathering moment arrives, consecrate the offering of church resources to help hungry people with a worship time and/or a fellowship event like “selling the deacons by the pound.”  Be creative!
14. Distribute the TBOWH ministry list to Sunday School classes and ask class members to indicate if they have visited any of the ministry locations. Allow the class members to share their experiences with the class.  Sunday School classes can also participate in a variety of world hunger giving challenges (total giving, per capita giving, fastest to reach goals, etc.).
15. Distribute TBOWH banks or other collection containers to the children at Vacation Bible School.  Challenge the church to match the total of the children’s donations throughout the week.
16. Adopt a hunger ministry as a mission project for your church.  Several TBOWH supported ministries need volunteers of all ages during the summers and other times of the year to serve a variety of needs.  See “Encourage Volunteer Teams” above for more information.

Host a World Hunger Awareness Banquet

Hunger banquets can be an effective means of demonstrating the demographics and dynamics of hunger and poverty.  Participants get to learn at an experiential level how poverty translates to dietary intake around the world.  Detailed directions for staging a hunger awareness banquet are available for free download.