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FOREIGN MISSION BOARD 231
kept open. Information, indoctrination, and inspiration must precede enlistment.
The primary purpose of the Foreign Mission Board in publishing The Commission
is to acquaint our constituency with world missionary opportunities and
obligations, and to summon our Baptist people to accept this challenge of our
Lord to be witnesses "unto the uttermost parts of the earth." The justification
for this department of the Foreign Mission Board's ministry is shown not only
in the increased financial receipts of the Board, but in the deepening conviction
of our ever widening circle of readers concerning Christ's program of missions,
evangelism, Christian education, and beneficence.
The circulation of The Commission is steadily increasing, the press run for
the May issue being 84,000, a gain of seventy-five per cent within three years.
But this is not enough. We should make every effort to enlist many more
thousands of homes and, within the next year,'to cross the 100,000 mark. With"
five and a half million Southern white Baptists, we should have a subscription
list of at least a half million.
The most effective plan is the provision for placing The Commission in the
church budget, certainly for all who have places of leadership in the life of
the church. This can be done on a basis so reasonable as to place it within
the reaeh of every church, large or small. One hundred copies, for example,
will cost only $4.50 a month for eleven months (July and August being combined
in one issue), with payments made monthly and magazines mailed to
individual addresses. Already approximately 250 churches have adopted this
plan and the list is growing.
DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE AND EXHIBITS
MARY M. HUNTER. Manager
The Department of Literature and Exhibits acknowledges its indebtedness
to Southern Baptists for their widespread use of foreign mission promotional
literature. Recommended through The Commission and other publicity outlets,
folders, pamphlets, charts, and posters were ordered for missionary programs
in churches throughout the Southern Baptist Convention.
Mimeographed work of the Department in the form of helps to teachers
and workbooks for members of Junior grades has widened and become increasingly
effective. Woman's Missionary Societies, their auxiliaries, and Church
Schools of Missions have expressed their appreciation of the value of the teaching
material furnished by the Foreign Mission Board and the gratifying results
that follow. Never before has the Department handled so much material for
the increasing of missionary knowledge. It is believed that largely through the
educational propaganda, Southern Baptists have become more conscious of the
magnitude of their foreign mission task and more generous in its support.
AH requests sent to the Foreign Mission Board will receive prompt attention.
AUDIO-VISUAL AIDS
The usefulness of the Department of Literature and Exhibits has broadened.
The Audio Visual Library of the Foreign Mission Board has come into a place
of large usefulness in promoting missionary interest and inspiration. It is
certain that enthusiasm for larger endeavor in Southern Baptists' world-wide
work is one of the results of audio-visual education. The value of visual aids
as a method of giving missionary knowledge cannot be overestimated.
"An American Mission," a professionally produced film, highlighting episodes
in the beginnings of modern missionary history and in the Foreign Mission
Board's activities for the past one hundred years, was shown in hundreds of
churches last year.
The two reels on Mexico—one of Mexican scenes and modes of life in
Mexico, the other of Southern Baptists' work in that country—were included
in the library the last of the year. Our first motion picture of Southern Baptist
work in Mexico is in constant use. Reel 1—"They Shall Inherit the Earth";
Reel 2—"Our Nearest Foreign Mission Field."