To the Neighbors and the Nations

Grace Missions

To the Neighbors… To the Nations

Recently, I was reviewing the history of our Grace Missions endeavors here at Faith Baptist Church. It is hard to believe that fifteen years have passed since the commencement of the Grace Missions program.  God has been incredibly good!  In 1996 we supported six missionaries and our annual missions budget was just $5800.   Currently, our budget is ten times that, and we generously support seventeen different missionary families and ministries.  That's exciting!  In 2011, twenty-three families or individuals participated with Grace Missions commitments.  That is a tremendous representation of our faith family.  Again, praise the Lord!  

God has been working in me and giving me a vision for our church where the proclamation of the gospel is concerned.  While consideration of Grace Missions from its humble beginnings until now clearly demonstrates God's provision and a generous spirit of giving on the part of our people, it also highlights the potential within this church to be even more effective in our gospel effort both here at home and to the uttermost parts of the earth.

This has been a trying transitional period in the history of our church and many things, including our missional focus, have taken a back seat to the search for a pastor for this fellowship.  With that search behind us it is time for us to realign our priorities and get back to the things to which we have been called as a church.   It has been over a year since we placed any special emphasis on the global ministry of the gospel through missions.  I want you to know that I, along with the other leadership of Faith Baptist Church, am working diligently on a strategy to draw us together with renewed vigor and vision for the spread of the gospel to both the neighbors and the nations.   My heart for Grace Missions here at Faith is more than material.  We should continue to give, and as God continues to prosper us we should give more.  But engaging in missions is so much bigger than just our wallets and checkbooks.  Missional emphasis needs to be more than a month set aside out of the year.  Missions must occupy a place at the forefront of our daily thought.  Give? Yes! But also pray, connect, encourage, equip and go!  In the months ahead we will be developing ideas and strategies that will take us to a place where we are more missionally minded as a congregation.  Your ideas and participation are critical and very much invited. 

I am so thankful for the great things that God has done in us and through us over the years.  I am tremendously excited about the things that I know God can and will do in and through us in the years ahead!

To the neighbors and the nations!

Pastor Mick