Our calling extends beyond our local communities. Let's discuss how as churches we can engage with our global mission.
Resonate
Staci
Amy
Kent
Jan
Write your own blog post to share your ministry experience with others.
As a kid, I thought of a cross-cultural missionary as a church planter or community developer sent by a denominational agency to some remote country in Latin America, Asia or Africa. As I grew older I realized that my childhood image was not all that Biblical.
I grew in Sully, Iowa, in the 1960’s. Every year my parents would take us to Mission Fest at Market Square in Pella. I thought of missionaries as rather exotic creatures who travelled to far off lands. They showed slides that could have been borrowed from the files of National Geographic.
Circles of friends can warp into ethnic or denominational bubbles or even just plain Christian bubbles. And sometimes we are tempted to think that we have been sent on a mission to or for those outside our bubbles.
The question was really quite simple, “Can we be friends?” My first unspoken instinct was the somewhat sarcastic rejoinder that in my opinion we were already friends. But I bit my tongue and instead asked Darryl what he meant by his question.
Programs can be efficient ways to accomplish specific results. They usually involve commissioning or delegating people with special gifts to do certain tasks on behalf of the rest of us. Movements, on the other hand, happen when ordinary people like you and I become contagious about a shared vision and begin infecting our neighbors.
One out of every four Nicaraguans currently claims a “born again” experience. There’s little doubt that many individuals and families have changed because the Gospel has taken root in their lives. But a growing number of Nicaraguan evangelicals are beginning to ask the “Pentecost question.”