I’m sure many of you have heard about it – but do you really know what it means? What about when we talk about going to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and to the Ends of the Earth – do you know where that comes from? What about why we are making such a strong push for missions – what’s the big deal?
God has called every one of us to missions. Now, don’t get all up in arms thinking to yourself that he most certainly has NOT called me to Africa or Timbuktu. God has called us all to missions. Like we’ve been teaching the kids in Music and Missions on Wednesday nights – the mission field is all around us. Our kids are missionaries every time they go to school and are surrounded by their friends. They share God’s love every time they share paper or pencils or crayons. Or stand up for the kid being picked on by the school bully. You are on a mission field every day you go to work or go to lunch with your co-workers. All you have to do is look around.
Matthew 28:18-20 (English Standard Version)
18And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
God has called us to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father , the Son, and the Holy Spirit. . . that is why we are making is such a big deal at Grand Parkway – God has called us to Go.
Now what about that Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and ends of the earth reference – what’s that about?
Acts 1:8 says “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." To us at Grand Parkway we’ve broken that down.
When we say Jerusalem we mean missions and missionaries that are close to home like My
Brother’s Keeper, or Kids Hope USA and the Prison Ministry. We also serve at a Nursing Home and by something we call Worship Abroad where we send out our people on a Sunday morning to work and serve our community. The most recent example of this was when a team went to Oyster Creek Elementary to work on 
their landscaping. Some of our local missionaries are Norm and Fran West who have huge hearts for the Turkish people. They used to serve in Turkey and have settled here in Houston only to find one of the largest communities of Turkish peoples in the US. Every time we talk about Jerusalem we are talking about mission opportunities in our backyard – things that anyone can be a part of. It doesn’t take giving up your job to move across the globe – just giving up a weekend, or an afternoon, or even ten minutes. Anyone can do that and we are all called to it.
When we use the term Judea and Samaria it just means that we are talking about missions and missionaries a little farther from home. Those include our Border Mission, Pastor Freddy, and
our work down in Galveston this past summer. As far as commitment from you it might mean a few more days off work than just a Friday. It might mean having to get a passport if you’re going into Mexico to work with Pastor Freddy. It might even mean that you get hot and sweaty and dirty. But you know what else means . . . it means that you get to help build houses for an old woman whose walls are falling down around her. It means playing with kids who can’t help but smile and that smile lights up their face and your day. It means going to Galveston with your kids and building houses that were destroyed in a hurricane over a year ago that have yet to be repaired on the inside. What a great time to talk to your kids about how those houses can be like people. The outsides look so put together but on the inside decrepit and moldy . . . broken and yet not beyond repair. Just think about the conversations that could take place if parents would go on missions with their kids and began working for the Kingdom alongside them, the passion that would then begin to grow in them!To the ends of the Earth means just that. It’s all our missions and missionaries that cover different continents.
Some Missionaries we support are the Epleys in South Asia, the “G” family in Central Asia, and the Peklenks who served in Russia but are back in the states for a while, as well as the Carty’s who were members of our church but were called to go work at Answering the Call. Answering the Call is a ministry that has created a safe place for pastors from all over the world to; be served, ministered to, and to be refreshed. For some this may be the last time this side of Heaven to experience any of that. It’s also a place to learn all they can so that they can take it back to their own people.
We have also partnered with an orphanage in Lopuhinka Russia. I had the pleasure of working with the older kids this past summer and they actually asked us why we were there. Why when it was so expensive, and so far away did we come? Why we didn’t use our vacation time to be with our families? Why them? What an AMAZING time to tell them about God’s love and that he called us thousands of miles away to see them!! So this is why we “Pray, Send and Go”. This is why we are having a Sunday devoted to Going Global. Because God called us and there are people waiting for you. An old woman waiting for you to wheel her from her room to sing the same hymn for the millionth time but still brings tears to her eyes. A child bouncing up and down in his chair unable to contain his excitement for his one hour a week with you. A pastor waiting to have his feet washed, and to be prayed over for most likely the last time before he sees Jesus. A child waiting to hear that you flew half way across the world just for her. That is why we hear the call to Go and say “Send Me!”
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." Acts 1:8
Will you Go?
