MISSION Regional Mission Written by Daniel Reed
One of my goals upon graduating college was to use my new income to benefit others. I’d spent four years pouring everything I earned back into my schooling and I was more than ready to focus outward. One way to do this quickly grabbed my attention while attending the Spirit West Coast conference in Del Mar. They spoke about Compassion International, the child sponsorship program that I had come to know through Sunday School growing up. (Why is it that so many churches sponsor children, but so few individuals?) I raised my hand to receive information, and was given the card for a little girl from Ethiopia. The card explained how she was one of six children, she didn’t attend school, and how both of her parents were “sometimes employed.” For only $38 per month, this child is now in school, enjoys art and history, and helps support her family. For a little extra donation around her birthday and Christmas, she buys clothing and flour, and maybe some sweets to share. It is humbling to see how such a minimal amount of money can have such a significant impact in a needy society. It is a minor sacrifice for me, and provides a world of opportunity for her.
International Mission One of our Mission Partners is a group of churches that are reaching into to the Ethiopian desert to The Afar people. In cooperation with World Vision, we and many other Christians are helping this forgotten people group to hear and see the good news of the Gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord. Through providing wells, health care, and education, we have been given an opportunity to share the love of God with them. For more information about the Afar people you may go to our church website, www.fhpc.org and click on Ministries on the top menu, then on Mission, and finally click on the side menu for our Mission Partners.
Try It Out... Missional living is not a task, it’s a philosophy. Missional living is a lifestyle that, at its core, seeks to embody the ways of Jesus at all times, aware that the people of God are sent out into the world to be salt and light. Living in the way of Jesus is simple; not easy, but simple. Living missionally necessitates discernment and an attentive ear to the Holy Spirit as the people of God live, and move, and have their being. This movement calls on the Church be the agency of God’s mission in the world. It is a movement that is reliant on the Church to move beyond seeing mission as something the church does. Mission is what the church is. In author Craig VanGelder’s words: “The Church is. The Church does what the church is. The Church organizes what it does.” In other words – being precedes doing. Doing and organizing comes after understanding the church’s essence, which is being the agent of God’s redemptive mission in the world. In focusing on the Church’s essence, this movement challenges one of Protestantism’s greatest weaknesses – its lack of a strong ecclesiology (study or understanding of what Church is called to be and do). At FHPC we hope to establish a strong ecclesiology as we support and encourage one another toward living lives as ambassadors of the missio dei: the God of mission. For a primer on missional living, check out Michael Frost’s Exiles: Living Misionally in a Post-Christian Culture.
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