Planning for the Great Commission Offering (GCO) is simple, but can make a big difference. Review the ideas to begin to plan a whole-church mission experience.
PREPARE
Review the resources provided
Watch the featured videos and read through the mission stories on the GCO resources web page. Catch the vision for your church’s role in missions.
Pray and plan
Pray about the direction God wants you to take with the missions emphasis.
Set an offering goal for your church. Remember that this offering is distributed among three different areas: International Missions, North American Missions and Church Strengthening.
Set a specific date or dates when your church will hold the GCO emphasis. You can use the GCO Resources whenever you like, as many times as you like. Some churches prefer to focus on missions around Easter and/or Christmas, when people are in the spirit of giving and helping others.
Organize your resources
Photocopy resources from master copies provided in the GCO mailing sent to your church. Or, download and print online resources linked through the GCO Resource Page.
NOTE: If your church is unable to print copies of the resources and would like to have them printed and mailed to you, please contact the CNBC office. Printed resources must be ordered two weeks before they are needed to allow time for printing and mailing.
Contact: Hanna Greenwood
SHARE
Share from the pulpit
Ignite your church members’ excitement about this year’s GCO and encourage them to pray about how they can join the work. Introduce the offering to your church by showing the videos, announcing the goal and distributing the GCO brochure. Encourage all age levels to focus on missions within small groups, such as in Sunday school classes or home groups as well as during the main worship services.
Publicize
Publicize the mission emphasis to your congregation so all hearts will be prepared and everyone will know about the special offering to be collected. Use the GCO logo in bulletins, emails or social media. Place GCO posters in high-traffic areas and make the GCO offering envelopes available for use.
Plan a missionary visit
Help church members understand the impact of their praying and giving by hearing directly from a missionary. Consider contacting the CNBC office for the availability of missionary speakers (in person or via Skype or video message), or ask someone from your own church who has been on a recent mission trip to share their experience.
PARTICIPATE
Collect the special offering and celebrate what God did during the missions emphasis. Maybe mark the occasion by holding a celebration dinner or having a missionary guest speaker.
Send your missions offering cheque to the CNBC office. Indicate on the CNBC contribution form that it is for the Great Commission Offering.
Keep missions as a focus all year by praying for missionaries, doing mission projects, sending out mission teams, praying for an unreached people group, and praying for church planting missionaries.
