The Nazarene World Mission Society

82 / Mission to the World2. Other Sheep subscriptions (equal to 60 percent of churchmembership)3. Missionary book readers (60 percent reading at least three)4. Prayer and Fasting League members (equal to 75 percent ofmembership)5. Completion of study book lessonsBy 1963 not only were there 3,262 Star societies, but the five-stargoal was reached denominationwide. By the 1970s, however, the Starsociety incentive also began to wane. Thus in 1976 the "MissionAward" concept was introduced, which set achievement goals in threebasic areas: membership, reading, and General Budget giving. Thiswas later expanded to include a prayer ministry and youth pro-gram.Thus to qualify to receive a Mission Award, a local society needed (1)to develop a mission prayer ministry; (2) to have a minimum of 1 1 /2times church membership in number of missionary books readincluding regular reading of World Mission magazine (Englishspeakingareas only); (3) to involve youth and children in specificmission activity; (4) to pay the General Budget in full. Because of thedifficulty in establishing worldwide norms, guidelines for achievementwere left to regional leaders to decide. An entire district could alsoearn the Mission Award if 90 percent of these goals were achieveddistrictwide.Box Work and LINKSAnother phase of NWMS activity was its direct ministry to themissionaries themselves. This began as part of the "Box Work " program,the forerunner of which was a project promoted in Californiaby Mrs. Paul Bresee as early as 1913. This original plan was to sendclothing, boxed foods, and other supplies to the missionaries.When Mrs. Bresee was elected to the first General Council (committee)in 1919, she presented the plan as a worthy project for thenew missionary society to consider. It was officially adopted by theExecutive Committee of the General Council in February 1921. Asmight be expected, the responsibility for the program was delegatedto Mrs. Bresee, who continued the work until her death in 1946.To the personal items for missionaries were added boxes of usedclothing for distribution to the people, bandages (rolled from discardedsheets), books, and equipment items. The value of these boxesmounted into the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. But astime passed, problems developed in receiving countries. Import re-