Kids, Churches, and Districts Set New Record for BGMC with Focus on Raising up Future Missionaries

When the dust cleared to reveal the final total in giving to BGMC (Boys and Girls Missionary Challenge) for 2023, a new record had been clearly established as the giving topped $12.4 million — exceeding 2022’s record year by hundreds of thousands of dollars!

According to National BGMC Director David Alexieff, multiple districts had outstanding giving totals, with some new districts — Minnesota and Kentucky — joining the “usual” top-giving districts of Peninsular Florida, Georgia, and Alabama.

Alexieff says that the shift made to NextGen Missions, where Speed the Light and BGMC keep separate projects and tallies, but combine their overall missions message, has helped create a cohesive missional movement.

“It’s kids helping kids,” Alexieff says. “The passion and compassion that kids have, the Gen Z and the Gen Alpha, they are generations that do whatever it takes to help people in need.”

Pointing out the countless ways kids have raised funds for BGMC throughout the year, he notes how an 11-year-old ascended the second highest mountain in Colorado and raised $28,000 for BGMC and how a 9-year-old girl’s picture she drew sold for $30,000 at a pie-auction fundraiser in Montana.

“But it’s not just these kinds of ‘big money’ efforts that demonstrate the hearts of kids,” Alexieff says. “It’s the small things too. There are kids selling lemonade or wrists bands, putting on a dinner and talent show, and even some kids selling hot chocolate on a bitterly cold day in Montana to benefit BGMC and reach other kids with the gospel.”

Noting that over the years leaders have done a tremendous job teaching kids how to raise money for missionaries, Alexieff says they’re now placing even more emphasis on kids being missionaries to their own communities right now and one day becoming career missionaries later.

“Our Fellowship has a focus on making disciples who make disciples,” Alexieff says. “We believe that there’s no better way to reach kids than with discipled kids. So, we’re encouraging leaders to disciple their kids to reach other kids, and in that way I believe we will see many more career missionaries raised up through the local church than in years’ past. Kids who are missionaries — spreaders of the gospel — to their friends are more likely to become adults who share the gospel with the world.”