The following document is the text from the brochure “Annie Armstrong: Shaper of Missions.” It is now out of print. It was written by Bobbie Sorrill, who at the time of writing served on the staff of Woman’s Missionary Union. This pamphlet is one of 10 in a series designed to help readers understand and appreciate Baptist heritage. Copy is provided by permission of the Baptist History and Heritage Society (BH&HS), P.O. Box 728, Brentwood, TN 37024-0728.  BH&HS toll free number is 1 800-966-2278.

Shapers of Southern Baptist Heritage
Annie Armstrong:  Shaper of Missions

Bobbie Sorrill

Who was Annie Armstrong? Why is she considered a shaper of missions? What were the influences that molded her and enabled her to be a key architect of one of the most effective mission support networks in the history of Christian churches in America? Why is the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for Home Missions, taken annually by Southern Baptists, named for her?

Armstrong was a founder of Woman’s Missionary Union in 1888. As unsalaried corresponding secretary of this national organization from 1888 until 1906, she shaped and molded missions and missions education concepts and practices which still guide Southern Baptists today.

Her Interest in Missions
Annie Armstrong was born on July 11, 1850, in Baltimore, Maryland. Her roots and the era into which she was born shaped her for the role she was later to assume. Her roots were Baptist. Her mother was strong in the Christian faith and involved actively in her church. (Her Presbyterian father died when she was only an infant.) Richard Fuller, Annie’s pastor, helped build her deep convictions about and lifestyle of missions. The stirrings of missions deep in the lives of her mother and other women important to Annie created a missions environment in her home and church.

The city of Baltimore also influenced Armstrong for the 88 years she lived there. The industrial city was linked to a broader world because of its excellent harbor and rail system. Living in the city broadened her horizons and facilitated her developing interest in blacks, immigrants, the sick, and the poor.

Maryland was a border state. Therefore, Armstrong was exposed to both northern and southern influences. No doubt Baltimore’s involvement in the Civil War led to her later aversion to war.

Census records reveal that she attended school, but there is no evidence as to where. Apparently she did not attend college. However, her later literary, speech, and business skills testify that she was well educated.

Mrs. Armstrong and her children regularly attended Seventh Baptist Church. At the age of 20, Annie became a Christian and was baptized into the membership of Seventh Baptist Church. The next year, she and her family became charter members of Eutaw Place Baptist Church, also in Baltimore, a church which became strong in missions emphasis. She was a member of Eutaw Place until her death in 1938.

Armstrong began a lifestyle of ministry through her church and the charitable institutions of Baltimore when she was a young adult. She maintained her interest in and involvement with children, the underprivileged, the sick, blacks, and immigrants throughout her long life.

The year 1880 marked a turning point in Armstrong’s life. In response to a speaker who told of destitute conditions and needs of Indians, she launched forth on a pilgrimage of leadership in missions and mission support. Two years later, at the age of 32, she was elected president of the Woman’s Baptist Home Mission Society of Maryland, her first prominent leadership position. The society’s objective was to involve women in support of the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. She held this statewide office from 1882 until 1906.

Another opportunity of service emerged in 1886. That year, Armstrong became corresponding secretary of the Maryland Mission Rooms, an office she also held until 1906. The Mission Rooms, later called the Mission Literature Department, Southern Baptist Convention, served the people of Baltimore as a missions library and reading room, but became a publisher and distributor of missions literature. During her years of service, the literature work was for the most part supported by the Southern Baptist Sunday School Board and the Home Mission Board.

Architect of a Mission Support Network
Armstrong was elected to her third major office, this one national, when she became corresponding secretary of Woman’s Missionary Union, the new Convention-wide woman’s missions organization, in 1888. She played a major role in the organization meeting in Richmond, Virginia, in May, 1888, and held the office for 18 years, without pay, until 1906.

Armstrong gave Woman’s Missionary Union, and the work it supported, her body, heart, and soul as she led it to be a major force for missions in the Southern Baptist Convention. The organization’s purposes which became her goals, were to distribute missionary information, stimulate missions effort, and raise prayer support and money for missions.

Armstrong and other early women’s leaders led Woman’s Missionary Union to establish bedrock principles. The organization would work alongside and in support of the Southern Baptist Convention and its two mission boards, the Foreign Mission Board and the Home Mission Board. It would not appoint missionaries or disburse funds as many of the other denominational women’s organizations were doing. These responsibilities belonged to the mission boards. Further, the national WMU organization would work closely with and through the state WMU organizations.

What kind of person was Annie Armstrong? The tall, stately, outspoken, strong-willed leader was no doubt the kind of person needed in the days of a pioneer organization. An organizational genius, she was described by many as tireless. She was a self-starter and could do many things well. She had unlimited energy, was resourceful and persevering, stood up for her convictions, and expressed her opinion openly and strongly. Without question, she was loyal to her church, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the Southern Baptist boards.

During her years of service, Armstrong built strong relationships with the leaders of the Foreign Mission Board, Home Mission Board, and Sunday School Board. After all, her organization – Woman’s Missionary Union – was formed to promote and support missions and to assist these three boards in their work. Often she served as a unifier of denominational missions efforts. She was gifted in pulling forces together. She worked tirelessly for Southern Baptist unity at the national level.

Early Woman’s Missionary Union projects were evidence of the kind of mission support she would shape. The first national foreign missions project was in response to a request from China missionary Lottie Moon for reinforcements. Moon suggested setting aside the week before Christmas as a time of prayer and offering for missions.

Armstrong prepared and distributed materials for use by the women and children in the churches during December, 1888, encouraging prayer and promoting financial support. The project was successful. Who can measure the results of prayer? However, the money collected allowed the Foreign Mission Board to appoint not two missionaries as requested, but three women missionaries to China.

Since 1888, Southern Baptists have observed a Week of Prayer for Foreign Missions and taken a special offering for foreign missions at Christmastime. In 1918 Armstrong suggested naming this offering in honor of Lottie Moon. Her suggestion was implemented the next year.

Long a supporter of home missions, Armstrong led the women to raise funds for the work of the Home Mission Board. Her concern for the plight of missionaries on the frontier home missions fields led her to institute a plan of sending boxes of necessities, supplies, and surprises to these missionaries. Throughout her service, she prayed for, wrote, was an advocate for, visited, and encouraged frontier missionaries. She made five trips to Oklahoma and Indian Territory.

In 1895 Armstrong and other WMU leaders responded to a request to help the Home Mission Board out of dire financial straits. During the third week of March that year, a time of special prayer and effort was held for the Home Mission Board. The financial goal was exceeded. Since that year, Southern Baptists have observed an annual Week of Prayer for Home Missions and taken a special home missions offering. The offering was named in honor of Annie Armstrong in 1934.

Armstrong was also a strong advocate for the work of the Sunday School Board. She promoted Sunday School Board literature, helped begin Missionary Day in the Sunday School, urged the formation of young people’s work, and wrote missions material for the board’s periodicals. She worked with Sunday School Board leaders as she managed the Missions Literature Department and made missions pamphlets and leaflets more widely available to Southern Baptists.

Dreamer in Action
Armstrong had the ability to put dreams into action. Seeing a need, she could dream how to meet the need, then move ahead in action to carry out the dream. Her rally cry throughout her service was “Go Forward.”

During her years of service, she put many dreams into action. She cemented strong relationships with key leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention, state Woman’s Missionary Union leaders, and foreign and home missionaries. Wanting pastoral support for WMU, she put into action a new and strong relationship with the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

Armstrong was concerned about border areas and strengthened ties between the Southern Baptist Convention and the District of Columbia, Oklahoma, and Indian Territory. Burdened for blacks, she helped the black women organize nationally for missions. To advance the work of the Southern Baptist boards, she helped establish an annuity plan for Southern Baptists. In her later years of leadership, she traveled extensively throughout the South to strengthen WMU work in the states and to advance the cause of missions.

Armstrong constantly put dreams into action to create new excitement among Southern Baptists for missions. She provided major support for Convention leaders in the observance of the centennial of modern missions in 1892. Year by year thereafter, she came up with new ways to get missions information out to the churches, to stir up missions efforts, and to raise more prayer support and money for missions. All of these efforts were to undergird the Southern Baptist Convention and the work of its three boards.

At the beginning of the 20^th century, Southern Baptists launched the New Century movement. The movement sought to involve the entire denomination in spreading the gospel. The campaign’s primary effort was to enlist churches not giving anything to state, home, or foreign missions.

Armstrong saw the challenge of the New Century movement and began six years of intensive travel to implement the Convention’s requests to Woman’s Missionary Union. She used her influence and the influence of WMU to promote regular and proportionate giving to Southern Baptist causes, the use of Southern Baptist literature, and the organizing of missionary societies. She urged women to help their pastors carry out plans related to the New Century movement.

During her maturing leadership years, Armstrong often proposed new ideas to Home Mission Board and Foreign Mission Board leaders. She urged the Home Mission Board to reinstitute the Church Building and Loan Fund. Her heart was stirred by the frontier, and she saw the need to help struggling churches to build. She promoted the building and loan fund tirelessly and raised much money for it. She wrote leaflets and articles about this fund as she did about most missions needs and causes.

Armstrong also had a growing interest in mountain work, which took in large sections of Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia. She made several difficult trips to learn about the work. She believed that mountain schools would help ultimately to educate mountain churches. If educated about missions, these churches would probably begin to give to missions.

Foreign missions became even more personalized for Armstrong in 1901 when medical doctor Philip S. Evans and his wife, Mary Levering Evans, were appointed to China. Mary Evans was Annie’s second cousin. Annie was already interested in missions work in China, but the appointment of the Evanses made her especially eager to raise funds for medical work in China. She encouraged and promoted support of medical work and all overseas educational work as she wrote articles and spoke on behalf of missions.

Believing that missionaries were our “substitutes,” Armstrong did many personal ministries for missionaries and their families. She had numerous missionary friends and was especially interested in their children. She was instrumental in getting the Margaret Home opened in 1905. This home in Greenville, South Carolina, was for the children of foreign missionaries. Though later closed, the home was the forerunner of the Margaret Fund, a fund used to educate the children of both foreign and home missionaries.

In 1906 Armstrong resigned her three leadership positions because of strong convictions. The major issue centered around a Woman’s Missionary Union Training School. She opposed and took such a strong stand against beginning such a school in connection with the seminary in Louisville. She believed that Woman’s Missionary Union could not give full attention to missions and women’s work in the churches while at the same time raising funds for managing a school. When it became evident that most WMU leaders favored the idea of a training school, Armstrong put her leadership on the line and resigned her office.

From 1906 until her death in Baltimore, Maryland, on December 20, 1938, Armstrong continued her missions lifestyle. She immersed herself in active service through her church and in meeting needs in her city. She was buried in the Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland.