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How Can We Magnify God in Missions and Outreach?

Mission development consists of reminding everyone of their calling and of helping guide churches and individuals to engage in this most fundamental of Christian duties to magnify God’s name by praying and giving and doing in His name and for His sake to all who are needy materially or spiritually.

In the past nine months I’ve discovered that as in most all things there is a great disparity in the level of mission work being done around the Conference (no great news here!). Some churches and individuals have always been about doing the Lord’s work in missions, some have rediscovered the call, some are “on fire” and others are just ‘lukewarm;’ in some churches 20% of the folk do all the missions work, etc. A great deal of the differences can be accounted for by how churches (individuals) view ‘their mission.’

See how you or your church view missions and outreach involvement and you will see a correlation in the results you or your church are getting … Is it just a task, a vague aim, just part of the church business, or is it a Worthwhile Goal? Is it aresponsibility we take seriously or just another undertaking? Is it just a church job or a Lifework? Do we treat it as a Christian Vocation or treat it as just ‘holy’ work. One of so many planning objectives in the church, something done by someone else such as a missionary or a church staff member or is it something we all do with purpose in pursuit or in a Quest for Holines? Is it just a duty, part of what we must do as Christians, an errand we do once and then forget, or is it a Calling, a Holy Charge, a Divine Commission?

While we are often reminded that as Christians we have been commissioned to be in mission and ministry; we should, likewise, be reminded that we are most privileged to be allowed to tend to the Lord’s work here on earth!

And now to an update of some things that have occurred in missions and outreach since the beginning of the year … there have been three missions training events at the district level, a Strategic Plan was developed and approval of a major grant for the Hispanic ministry in our conference have occurred, Choctaw Mission development talks are being developed, a $10,000 grant for the Trinity Mission Center has been received from GBGM, a Nicaraguan Covenant agreement is in the process of being formed, cooperative engagement with the community centers in the Conference has been started, a Missions and Outreach Handbook for our Mississippi churches has been developed and printed and will be distributed at annual conference. Of course, there have been many other lesser but no less important mission outreach projects in which Connectional Ministries has been involved not least of which has been being involved in outreach in our own home churches.

Help us Lord to always and everywhere magnify your name, your love and your mercy, by loving You and serving others in Your name! Amen.