This past week at Waverly Alliance Church, we had our annual missions conference. We were privileged to have one of our C&MA missionaries join us for a few days. George Nuss has been serving in the country of Guinea (West Africa) for over 20 years now and has no plans of retiring any time soon. He shared many stories of the great work God is doing in that country and he also shared of an exciting new project he is involved in – translating the Old Testament into the Fulani (or Pular) language. After over 25 years, the New Testament was recently completed and published in the Fulani language, but much work remains to be done on the Old Testament. We were thrilled to hear of this opportunity, and we know George and his team will need our prayers.

I often tell our church that there are two primary reasons we support missions. First, because we know salvation is found in Christ alone (Acts 4:12, John 14:6, 1 Timothy 2:5, Romans 10:13). And second, because we know not everyone has heard the gospel message (Romans 10:14-17). Therefore, we must go! And as I reminded our church this past Sunday, its not just about crossing cultures and seas, it’s also about crossing the street to our lost neighbors and friends. Supporting the work of missions does involve giving and praying for cross-cultural missionaries, but it’s also about “being” the missionaries God has called us to be (Matthew 28:19-20) wherever you are.

Let me encourage you to get behind the work of missions. I fear that there is a decreasing sense of urgency in our churches. The remedy for this is to be awakened to the reality of life and death, heaven and hell, acceptance (in Christ) and judgment (in Adam). Many professing Christian’s don’t believe that those apart from Christ are truly lost. But I pray that you will see the need of the hour and do whatever you can to support missions.