Your Mission Field

So many times when we think of missions we think of third world countries or the reservations of the native Indians in America. We think of helping out the oppressed in devestated areas of our own country and sometimes the world. Think about it, how many organizations went to help with hurricane Katrina? I was blessed to be a small part in that effort myself, but as I study the Word and I look at our own churches and communities I often think that in our efforts to help "others", we often leave out those in our own immediate communities. In an evangelism class I recently took, there was discussion about evangelizing and it seemingly always went elsewhere. This class was full of pastors and as I sat quietly and listened intently to the discussion I finally asked the question. How many of you have churches running in the 100's? I knew that we all had small churches and that most everyone had less than 100 people in their church on average. I then asked the next question. Do you think if we took the same initiative and enthusiasm we have to help other areas of the world and the country, and took that to our own surrounding communities could we perhaps build our churches? There was silence for quite some time, then responses like "there are so many churches in our immediate area all ready we can't be as affective", to "people are more educated here and more set in their beliefs or lack their of". That posed my next question of how does the missionary in China succeed then if he can't even be open with his faith? How does the missionary that has to battle the buddist belief succeed since Budism is so prevelant in some areas, more so than the amount of churches in any part of this country. I believe we need world missions by far, but I also believe that as people of the local church we are also to be as missional as our world missionaries, but in our own communities. Did you know that if you took all of the people in the U. S. that didn't go to church, those people alone total more than the total number of people that do attend church at some place in America. That is huge, because there are some huge churches in America. That just reiterates the fact that the local mission field is huge as well. If you love your church and you love your God shouldn't you do your part in "make disciples of all nations", including the part of the nation that is right next door to you? Have you invited anyone to church lately? If God is the greatest thing that has ever happened to you, and I hope He is, then tell someone. Through the recent loss of a very close friend of mine who died trying to save another person from drowning, God made it clear to me that my mission field was right here. I had felt that before and was thankful that I had had the time to spend with this man who exercised John 15:13 to the extreme. Let's build the local church with the intensity of world missions right here in our own community.

God Bless and Empower you!