Blog by Jerry Benge

June 19, 2024

I hope you have taken advantage of the opportunity to sharpen your focus on missions this month by reading the 31 day devotional guide, Gospel Meditations for Missions. The daily reflections from Scripture are written well. The contributors make their case from the text and get you thinking about what God has been doing in the world from the very beginning right up to the present. They show the interconnectedness of Scriptures that reveal God’s heart for the nations. Their telling of the biblical story of God’s mission (with fresh illustrations from their respective ministry contexts) offers our media-distracted minds an IMAX theater of wonder and worship. My prayer is that God will use this little book to sharpen your focus and and renew your passion to see His name made known to all the peoples of the earth. If you haven’t gotten a copy, there are a few left at the bookstore. If you have a copy and have not read it, start today.

Additionally, we send out articles and blogs every Monday and Wednesday. Our selections are brief (well, at least most of them), but they are on topics that are vital for every Cornerstone member to know. Why? Because we believe a well-informed, biblically minded congregation is essential for faithfulness and effectiveness in our cross-cultural mission endeavors. Missions is not just for the Missions Pastor or Missions Team, though they might help with managing details of member care, special projects etc. Rather the congregation has been given the authority and responsibility to do missions. So, what does that entail? In brief, it’s about going and sending.

“Going” is pretty clear. These are the ones we call “missionaries.” They either go as Paul did, to take the Gospel to the “unreached.” Or they go as Timothy did to help already “reached” people to be trained and assembled into healthy local churches. The majority of our congregation will not likely be “goers.” That would not be sustainable. That leaves the rest of us as “senders.” Not some of us. Not even many of us. It means all of us. As John Piper likes to say: There are three types of people: obedient goers; obedient senders; and just plain disobedient.

If you are among the (obedient) senders, you want to be looking for ways to be engaged in missions. In giving, encouraging, and most importantly in praying. More will be said later about these opportunities. But let me encourage you about an immediate opportunity: Praying for our Manitoulin Team and their upcoming ministry (July 1-5) on Manitoulin Island, ON.  Most of you are familiar with this ministry that’s been going on for a number of years. What you may not realize is the breadth and depth of the spiritual challenge our team members face on multiple fronts. I would encourage you to follow the link below to the prayer page where you can learn about the needs and sign up to pray for one or more slots. It may not seem spectacular on the surface, but praying for those who go on this trip and for those to whom they will minister is absolutely crucial, both for this short-term trip and our long-term goals on Manitoulin. Pray especially that God will raise up a healthy church among the First Nation People of Wiikwemkoong. As you pray, consider these words from the renown missionary (early 20th century), Samuel Zwemer: “The history of missions is the history of answered prayer.”

For the sake of God’s Mission to the Nations,

Jerry