Where is Your Mission Central?

“Return home and tell how much God has done for you!”

Luke 8:39a

A number of years ago I had the privilege of hearing Dr. Ed Westcott preach at a mission festival in Tilden, NE.  You know that he preached a good sermon when some thirty years later I can still remember specific things he said in that morning.  One thing he said that day has been really important to me throughout my ministry.   He said, “Discovering your mission field is easy.  Your mission field starts where your feet hit the ground every morning when you get out of bed.”

This place, Mission Central in little Mapleton, Iowa, is the perfect example of that.  This wonderful place in rural Iowa is where the feet of Old Missionary Gary and 91 other volunteers hit the ground. 

Ask most any missionary in the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod and they will tell you how much they love this place and the people who serve here.  Gary and the 91 volunteers are “Not normal” people.  Their mission is to raise up people who will love, pray for, and give support to missionaries around the world.  I cannot thank God enough for the miracles He works through His “Not normal” people of Mission Central.

Where is your mission central?  Where has God called you to serve Him?  To be one of His missionaries?  Where do your feet hit the ground when you get up in the morning?  So many of us forget that it’s not just Pastor’s… not just foreign missionaries whom God calls to tell the good news.  It all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus… who have been saved by His death and resurrection.  To all of us He says, “Shine like stars in the Universe as you hold forth the word of life.”

For Linda and I right now our feet hit the ground most mornings in Frankfurt Germany.  Please know that serving overseas does NOT mean that our mission calling I greater than yours.  That’s why I picked the words from Luke 8 for this blog.  Jesus has just delivered a man from a legion of demons.  He is about to return to his side of the Sea of Galilee.  The man wants to return with him.  He wants to go with Jesus on His mission.  But Jesus says no.  He says, “Return home and tell how much God has done for you.”  In other words, “Your mission is not over there.  It’s right here where I have called you and placed you.  It’s right here at home, where your feet hit the ground every morning.”

Where is your mission central?  It’s right where God has placed you.  Your place for sharing the love of God is in your family – where God has called you to be a mom or dad, a son or daughter.  It’s in your neighborhood, where you live… and among your friends.  Your mission central is the school where you are a student or a teacher… your work place.   You want to know where God wants to use you to tell people about Jesus?  Look where you are right now.  That’s your mission field. 

Last August Linda and I were in Prague for a meeting.  When it was over She traveled on to Budapest to help Jon and Dora settle in.  I wasn’t looking forward to the four-hour bus ride and two-hour train ride home by myself. I figured I would read some and sleep some.  God had other plans.  He sat a young teen from Switzerland next to me.  At some point, as we talked, I told him that that I was Pastor.  He wanted to know was I a good Christian or a bad Christian.  Would I listen to and respect what he thought even as I shared my own beliefs?  Or was I going to beat him over the head with my beliefs?  I did a lot of listening in those four hours.  Eventually I was able to share with him my faith in Jesus… talk to him about how Jesus gave his life in love for him and for me.  I have no idea what God did with what I shared that day.  I only know that God had driven home a message to me.  For that bus ride to Nuremberg, that was where my feet hit the ground.  At that moment that was my mission central.  Where is your mission central?