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Key: Clear Direction

How do we know who to prioritize and serve in our local community?

We must transition from a singular or random path of ministries to focusing on the people Jesus highlighted in His vision of mission for the disciples.

Jesus gave His disciples the best blueprint for understanding where they were going on mission in Acts 1:8. After being empowered by the Holy Spirit, they would represent Jesus in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. 

We can examine which people those four locations represented to the disciples to discover our four focuses of mission today: 

For the disciples, Jerusalem was the place where they already were. The people they were already around. Those they were interacting with and those who were passing through their lives.

So for our Jerusalem mission, we need to look at the people we are already around. Who are the people who we already interact with on a regular basis? Our coworkers, family, friends, and acquaintances are already in our lives. What if God has placed us in the lives of these people to be light and salt towards them? Jesus’ love was filled with service and sacrifice. How can we serve and sacrifice for those we see every day?

The key for deepening our individual “Jerusalem missions” is awareness. As the people of God, how can we cultivate this awareness together? We suggest Jerusalem Circles. Jerusalem Circles are simply a consistent time where everyone in our church community breaks into small groups to discuss how they are being light and salt towards the people in their lives every day.

While every person has their individual lives of mission to live in their Jerusalems, we encourage Judea and Samaria to be team effort as the Body of Jesus.

For the disciples, Judea was the region around them. They often had walked throughout Judea with Jesus and in their lives before being disciples. But with Jesus sending them as His ambassadors to Judea, this changed the way they saw the people in their area.

We can see our Judea mission as the people in our local area. This can be our neighborhood or part of our city. We’ve heard church leaders ask the question, “What is different in our neighborhood since we are here representing the Kingdom of God? If we left, would anyone notice?” 

This is a challenging question, but a profound opportunity to cultivate a Judea mission perspective. God is on the move all around the world and that includes your neighborhood! But not only do our neighbors need to meet us as representatives of Jesus, but we need to be actively building bridges throughout our community to be salt and light. How can we start doing this?

The key for growing a Judea mission is creating Kingdom infrastructure. Now, “infrastructure” does not sound like an inspiring spiritual subject, but think about it this way: in the same way you can look at a map of your neighborhood and see how the electrical and water systems run throughout every area to make sure every single person has access to reliable electricity and running water, we as God’s people need to create Kingdom inroads throughout our neighborhoods. We want to make sure every person has access to a clear example of the people of God in action. How can we do this? 

Two ways—blessing the neighborhood residentially and culturally. We can start residentially by finding ways to bless the people most immediately around us. Who are the people who live in the houses we can see from the front door of where we gather, and how are we serving them? Or culturally, think about the seven different spheres of culture. Arts and entertainment, business, faith communities, media, education, family, and government. How can we create relationships of blessing within these spheres of culture where they can experience what it’s like to have the Kingdom of God present in their lives?

Now Samaria is critical to understand. Jesus sent the disciples to Samaria. I can imagine the disciples’ skin crawling and eyes widening when Jesus said He was sending them to Samaria. Why? Samaria was the region that had major social barriers for the disciples. They say that in that time, people would choose to add days to their journey to walk around Samaria rather than walk through it and connect with Samaritans directly.

When we think about our Samaria mission today, it may actually be way too easy for us to identify. Who are the people that we would rather walk around than engage with personally? What groups of people are we hoping that someone else gets called to serve? In Matthew 25, Jesus makes quite the compelling case that serving the “least of these” is connected to not only our overflowing mission, but direct service of Him.

The late, great village-development leader, Hal Jones once said, “I want to make sure the poorest little girl, in the darkest corner of the poorest village, in the poorest country is met with the hope and help of Jesus.” Hal saw that within the poor, those in need, the marginalized, the forgotten, and the least of these, there are individual people. People who God dearly loves and is sending His family to care for.

An amazing volunteer organization called Serve the City says, “We know them by their needs. What if we knew them by name?” Rather than only knowing categories like the homeless, the elderly, refugees, victims of abuse, the disabled, or children with needs, what if we knew the individual people that God sees? What if we found the poorest little girl in the darkest corner of the poorest street in the most forgotten parts of our city, and shared with her the hope and help of Jesus?

The key to developing our Samaria mission is names. Who are the individuals that we only know by their needs? To start, we recommend finding “persons of peace” or people who are already serving those in need like non-profit organizations or charities. Sit down with the leaders of these organizations and discuss ways to relationally connect with those in need. We will go deeper into these connections in the next step.

 After Jesus identified three very specific places that strategically connected the disciples with different groups of people, His next assignment for them was pretty much “everywhere else”!  

For us today, our ends of the earth mission can also be viewed in a similar way. After developing a Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria mission, how can we reproduce what we’ve learned around the world? 

There are millions of ways to approach the “everywhere else,” so let’s start with two.

First, send people to reproduce the Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria culture that they’ve experienced in your church community. If people feel called to serve elsewhere, having the practical experience of a life of mission towards those they see everyday, being light and salt in their neighborhood, and serving the least of these in your city will be a critical part of their preparation. The overflow principle applies here once again. “The ends of the earth” can be a neighboring town or another country. The more the culture differs from your own, the more it is critical to seek guidance from experienced people or professionals in the process.

Second, pray and connect with God’s global work. Though you are living in a particular country with its own history, borders, and familiarity with Jesus, it is essential to be connected to God’s work around the world today. In the age of information that we’re navigating, we now have the ability to find out important prayer needs all over the world. Understanding how to pray and engage with world crises, extreme poverty, natural disasters, unreached people groups, and diverse spiritual needs around the world is more accessible today than ever before in history. May we be people who pray, give, and go to see the advancement of the Kingdom of God both deep in love and wide in invitation. 

Note: The second half of our Activation Training will lead us through exercises to grow in awareness of our Jerusalems, connect to our Judea, and begin to know names in our Samaria.