Grace Pulpit

Missions, Part I

Missions at Grace

We are glad to announce our church’s further commitment to heed Jesus’s command to be His witnesses “both in Jerusalem, and all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth (Acts 1:8).” This work is often called Missions. The local and global proclamation of the gospel to establish lifelong believers in doctrinally sound and biblically aligned churches. At Grace Chapel, missions is incredibly important for us, but it's been a long journey.

Five years ago, just after the COVID pandemic, we took a look at our missions program. We had missionaries everywhere—lots of red pins on the map. But, as we scraped the surface, we didn't know who our missionaries were, what they were doing, or even where they were. So, we took a step back and put our program on pause.

Now, we went back to the Bible. And asked: What does God teach us about missions? For, we desire to be a Scripturally-driven church—doing what God says about His very important work. Moreover, we wanted Biblical leadership over this very important ministry endeavor as the Lord commands.

Make Disciples

In our study, we found missions and evangelism is throughout the Scripture, but the pursuit is well summarized in Matthew 28:19, also known as the Great Commission. In this verse, Jesus tells His disciples: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I commanded you (Matt 28:19–20).

Quickly, we discovered the most important word and only verb and command in the text is make disciples. You heard that right! The main verb is not go or baptize or teach. Instead, they all support the main action: make disciples.

Simply, this means real missions begins here at Grace Chapel. First, we must be a church that's focused on God's Word, changing our own hearts before we go anywhere else. We must make disciples here, before we can ever hope to make them anywhere else. This means we need to see leaders raised-up, members edified, the lost saved at our own church!

We can’t possible help another church, before we understand our own spiritual growth as a body. In fact, after the Iron Curtain fell and missionaries flooded into post-Soviet Union. The Soviet churches starting asking the Western missionaries to go home! The reason? They thought Western missionaries were too focused on a type of Christian materialism, which they feared would hurt their church members. Amidst the persecutions and repression, the many Soviet churches had healthy congregations—disciples making disciples.

Therefore, the more we understand our own local church; the more we will be prepared and able to spread the gospel abroad. Remember: making disciples starts in Jerusalem.

Moving Forward

Now, as we survey the current state of our church, we are ready to go make disciples outside our walls. For this pursuit, we've created a clear mission statement, biblical purpose, and elder oversight process.

I’ve shared our purpose statement here (Grace Missions.pdf). Over the next few weeks, we will expand each aspect of our plan. We will address the connection between missions, worship, leadership, discipleship, and evangelism. Alongside each teaching, you will find our church’s next practical steps forward and how you can help.

Yours in Christ,

Brendan Flannagan

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