This month marks two work anniversaries. 5 years for me on staff at Connection Pointe, and for Teresa…. 27!! We enjoy what we do, leading our church’s involvement in God’s Kingdom work all around the world.

While I am one who likes to reflect on the past, I would like to take the next several weeks to dream about the future. This post will be an overview, with the weeks to follow more in-depth.

The mainstay of global missions at Connection Pointe is our missionaries. Before mission trips, before child sponsorship, before faith promise weekends, Connection Pointe was sending missionaries. Did you know we have had a continuous string of church members serving as missionaries in another country and culture since 1966? That’s when Tom and Wanda Kirkpatrick went to Ethiopia, serving with CMF. I was 7 years old at the time. I will share about these home-grown missionaries in a future post.

The largest involvement we have in missions as a church today is in child sponsorship. 670 students in 5 countries are sponsored by over 500 different Connection Pointe families. Our goal is to equal one student sponsored in these 5 places for every child that attends Kid City on a weekend.

The largest amount of energy we put into missions as the global impact staff is our global trips. Our missionaries work with organizations, our child sponsorship is through organizations, but all our missions trips are created in-house. We do it this way because our trips are planned to augment the ministry of our missionaries and child sponsorship partners. We have more trips planned in 2020 than any year since I started on staff.

In addition to these, we have several new things under way:

• We are beginning a partnership with International Justice Mission (IJM), connected to two field offices – Guatemala and India.
• We have two families and a single from our church that are in the beginning stages of raising support to serve overseas.
• We now have a Global Leadership Team (GLT), all volunteers, that is being empowered to lead several areas of our global engagement. One of these GLT volunteers will be giving a training next month to our partners in India. Another GLT volunteer couple will be presenting a workshop with me next month at a national conference on missionary care.
• New countries for trips are in the planning for Panama and England, plus another to an undisclosed location.

Our church is in the midst of a campaign called Greater Things, based on these words from Jesus:

I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things. (John 14:12)

What are the Greater Things Global?

• Next Gen – 670 children being sponsored in 5 countries, all being taught about faith in Jesus by local staff
• Next Gen – mission trip opportunities next year, discounted even more
• Digital – our GLT member going to India next month will be training on more effective use of social media in their context
• Digital – I am processing ideas on digitizing global missions involvement for anyone being reached online by connection pointe
• Mortgage – financial support for our missionaries has been guarded by our elders and executive staff ever since I started on staff. Paying down the mortgage at an accelerated rate has not meant any reduction in the budget for missionary support

Our greatest days are ahead to make a larger impact for our Lord around the globe. As more church members prepare to move overseas as missionaries, more children are sponsored, more people of all ages go on mission trips, and more digital opportunities for global involvement come online, Christ will be better known in many countries. And Connection Pointe people will receive a blessing in return – a greater understanding of Christ lived out in other cultures, challenging us to walk with Christ better in our own culture.

Next week, our home-grown missionaries: 1966-present. Who are they?

Til then,

Happy Work Anniversary!

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