TRACK B · SERVE OVERSEAS
International Mission Board
The SBC’s agency for missions overseas — the path to the nations, and to the unreached.
Founded | 1845 (originally the Foreign Mission Board; renamed the IMB in 1997) |
Headquarters | Richmond, Virginia |
President | Paul Chitwood (serving since 2018) |
Size | Nearly 3,600 missionaries serving in more than 100 countries |
Funded by | The Cooperative Program and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering |
Website |
What the IMB is
The International Mission Board is the Southern Baptist Convention’s overseas missionary-sending body — one of the largest in the evangelical world. Where the North American Mission Board focuses on the United States and Canada, the IMB carries the gospel to the nations, with a particular heart for the unreached — the peoples and places where the gospel has never been clearly proclaimed. If your sense of call is across an ocean rather than across town, the IMB is your path.
~3,600 missionaries worldwide | 100+ countries served | 1845 founded (as the Foreign Mission Board) | $200M+ Lottie Moon Offering (2024–25) |
A long history
The IMB was formed in 1845, the same year as the SBC itself, when the new convention established the Foreign Mission Board and placed it in Richmond, Virginia. It sent its first missionaries to China that same year, and it has carried Southern Baptists’ overseas work ever since. It took its current name, the International Mission Board, in 1997. Today it serves among unreached peoples and places, increasingly through a network of global partners — churches and conventions that were once mission fields themselves and now send missionaries alongside the IMB.
How IMB missionaries are funded
This is one of the most distinctive and attractive features of the IMB, and worth understanding clearly: long-term IMB missionaries are fully funded. Unlike many sending agencies, where missionaries must raise their own salary from supporters, IMB missionaries are supported by Southern Baptists together — so they can give their full attention to the field rather than to fundraising. Two streams make this possible:
• The Cooperative Program — the SBC’s unified giving stream (see the Cooperative Program profile).
• The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering — an annual offering devoted entirely to overseas missions. Named for Charlotte “Lottie” Moon, a famous missionary to China appointed in 1873, the offering was first taken up in 1888. In 2024–25 it crossed $200 million for only the third time in IMB history, and the IMB commits that 100% of it is spent on the field.
The pathways to serve
There is more than one way to go, depending on your life stage, length of commitment, and calling:
• Journeyman. A two-year, fully funded term for younger adults (generally under 30). Begun in 1964, the program marked its 60th anniversary in 2025 and continues to send singles and young couples around the world.
• Long-term, career missionaries. Fully funded missionaries who commit to extended service. Increasingly, these go as “missions for everyone” — accountants, IT workers, doctors, and other professionals who carry their careers onto the field as a platform for ministry.
• Short-term and volunteer service. Trips and projects ranging from days to months — tens of thousands of volunteers serve alongside missionary teams — a common on-ramp for discerning a longer call.
Across all of these, the focus stays on the unengaged, unreached — the places with the least access to the gospel, reached directly by IMB personnel or through its global-partner network.
The local church’s role in sending
Like NAMB’s planting model, the IMB sends through churches, not around them. For those pursuing long-term service, there is a defined process that equips the local church to help prepare and send the candidate in cooperation with the IMB. New missionaries are publicly commissioned at “Sending Celebrations,” often held at churches and at the SBC Annual Meeting, where the gathered family prays over them before they go.
A note for Slavic believers
Why this matters for you A Russian- or Ukrainian-speaking believer is unusually valuable on the world’s mission fields. Russian remains a bridge language across much of Central Asia, the Caucasus, and parts of Eastern Europe — regions that include many unreached peoples. Your language, cultural instincts, and immigrant experience are not obstacles to overseas service; they may be exactly the doors God uses. If the nations are tugging at your heart rather than a U.S. neighborhood, this is the track to explore. |
What this means for you
If your calling is overseas, the IMB is your path — with its own separate qualification and candidate process, distinct from the Send Network assessment used for U.S. planting. It offers fully funded service so you can focus on the work rather than fundraising, multiple pathways for different life stages, a defined role for your sending church, and a clear aim at the places that have heard least. The fuller details of the candidate process live in the IMB section of this hub; this page is your orientation to who they are.
NAMB sends across the street; the IMB sends across the sea — both through churches, both funded by the family together, so the missionary can give all their attention to the mission.
International Mission Board — an expanded profile within the Slavic Church Planting & Missions Hub. Missionary counts, offering totals, and program details change over time; the data here reflects the most recent verified reports and should be confirmed at imb.org before publishing.