The Chicago Golden Light Chinese Baptist Church has honoured the pioneering work of Southern Baptist missionary Lottie Moon with an online conference reaching more than 1,000 churches and homes worldwide.

The recent conference recognized Moon’s contribution to catalyzing missions to China.

Evan Liu, the pastor of the Chicago Golden Light and Asian Studies professor at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, called the conference a “missional feast for the global Chinese Christian community.”

The multi-day conference in September featured plenary sessions from Todd Lafferty and Hal Cunningham of the International Mission Board, Andrew Brunson, a former missionary to Turkey and religious prisoner, and many Chinese Christian leaders.

Workshop sessions brought the experiences and witnesses of frontier missionaries in East Asia, Central Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas to Mandarin-speaking Christians in person in Chicago and Montville, New Jersey, as well as around the world through live streaming.

Liu also leads the Chicago China Servant Leadership Center. He has written on the need for missionaries to model Lottie Moon’s strategies on the mission field.

Liu emphasized Moon’s importance to Chinese Christians, noting the stone monument built in her honour in Shandong province that reads, “For the unending love of missionary Lottie Moon from Great America.”

Moon served in China from 1873 to 1912. She died from malnutrition in Kobe, Japan, while travelling back to the United States.

The Southern Baptist Convention’s annual Christmas offering for international missions is named in her honour.

Born Charlotte Digges Moon, December 12, 1840, in Albemarle County, Virginia. Lottie rebelled against Christianity until she was in college. In December 1858, she dedicated her life to Christ and was baptized at First Baptist Church, Charlottesville, Virginia.

Lottie attended Albemarle Female Institute, the female counterpart to the University of Virginia. In 1861, she was one of the first women in the South to receive a master’s degree. She stayed close to home during the Civil War but eventually taught school in Kentucky, Georgia and Virginia.

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