I have a vivid memory, from my childhood Sunday School days, of the time when a Lutheran missionary visited our church. I remember this tall, bearded man talking to the Sunday School kids about his missionary work in Africa. He showed us many pictures on his slide projector, held up various exotic items he had brought back to the States, and told us stories of people in Africa coming to faith in Jesus Christ. I even remember the special mission hymn our pastor made us all try to sing that day, “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains” (The Lutheran Hymnal, #495).

For many years in my life, the memories of that missionary’s visit formed my image of what the Church’s mission was all about. Bold, brave missionaries, traveling off to distant lands, learning new languages, adapting to local cultural standards, bringing the Good News of Christ to those who’ve never heard it, changing the eternal destinies of the lost.

That kind of mission work still goes on, of course. Our Lutheran Church Missouri Synod currently has missionaries in 90 countries, and our own congregation here at Hope is part of Christ’s global Church.

Through the years, though, I’ve learned that mission work doesn’t only take place overseas. The mission work of Christ’s Church happens wherever the Church is. We live in a mission field. All around us are people who need the Gospel, individuals and families who seem happy and secure but are spiritually lost. Every single day, Christians like us have opportunities to interact with people who do not believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior. It’s not our task to shout at them and beat them over the head with the Gospel. But it is our privilege, as Christ’s ambassadors, to get to know them, listen to their stories, offer them friendship and care, and steer our conversations with them toward Christ.

In the end, missionaries – those called to serve overseas, and those of us who live right here in the Triangle – only plant the seeds. God brings the growth. Happy planting, in your mission field!

Can we whose souls are lighted with wisdom from on high,
Can we to men benighted the lamp of life deny?
Salvation! Oh, Salvation! The joyful sound proclaim
Till each remotest nation has learned Messiah’s name! (TLH 495, v.3)

Pastor Wayne Puls