September charity offering - BMS World Mission
This Sunday (27th September) is our Harvest Service, with Rev. Chris Norden from Bristol Baptist College. There are special BMS Harvest envelopes available in church to be collected for your Harvest offering, which is our September charity offering. As usual there will also be the opportunity to bring tins and dried food for Raven House on Sunday.
The Change Agents’ mission (BMS World Mission 2026 Harvest Appeal)
This year, BMS is asking us to give towards the Change Agents of Sierra Leone – the everyday heroes in local churches breaking the cycle of poverty in their communities.
THE STAKES
Sierra Leone is beautiful and rich in natural resources, yet it’s one of the poorest countries in the world. The average person has so little, and faces so many barriers to their health, mobility, and education, that it’s easy for them to feel they can hardly take a step forward.
THE OPERATION
The churches of Sierra Leone have found a powerful way to bring long-term change to their communities using the Church and Community Mobilisation process (CCM or CCMP for short). It starts with studying the Bible together to understand the church’s role as God’s agents, fulfilling his purposes in the world. People learn to identify what’s keeping them stuck in poverty and find ways to break free, using their God-given skills and resources. Churches are equipped to lead community workshops and determine what projects will serve their community best. Together, they begin to make those changes happen.
THE TEAM
Two BMS partners – the Baptist Convention in Sierra Leone and the New Harvest Development Office – have been training churches in this process and they’ve seen so much success. Churches across Sierra Leone have helped members start businesses and farms, formed lending collectives, built public toilets, started schools and sports programmes, dug wells and paved roads. They’re leading the way for their communities, serving as ‘salt and light’ as they follow Jesus, who fed the 5,000 and healed the sick. People are seeing churches that value them, believe in their potential, and join them in their struggles. People are being cared for and coming to know Jesus.
YOUR MISSION, SHOULD YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT…
But there is still a long way to go. So many churches want to be trained, but don’t have the money to send someone to the training. That is where you come in. BMS wants to help our partners train many more churches. We want to see every city, town and village in Sierra Leone have a church full of change agents – confident, capable and prepared to lift their communities out of material and spiritual poverty. Your church can stand with the churches of Sierra Leone as they train in ways to break their country free from poverty. When you give to Change Agents, you fuel the change and become an agent too. We hope you’ll join us.
This is our September charity offering – please do support this worthwhile cause.