Ministering to the Nations and the Neighborhoods

[gtxvideo vid=”TOHAMC0t” playlist=”” pid=”2gxTqEDg” thumb=”http://player.gtxcel.com/thumbs/TOHAMC0t-120.jpg?cachebust=1452487547629″ vtitle=”FBC Mission PKG”]

When you think about taking a mission trip, you usually imagine going to an exotic location or third world country. Ministering to downtown Montgomery is probably not the first place that comes to mind.

But that is one of the options available at the First Baptist Church’s Missions Expo. The expo offers many different places and people to minister. Places as far away as Cuba and people like the Ejamat of Senegal, Africa. And there are a few options in the states, like Seattle or New York.

Minister of Missions at First Baptist, Brian Gay, says that the location of the mission is not important. Helping a community is what is important.

“We have a saying here that we want to do missions in Montgomery to Malawi, from the neighborhoods to the nations,” Gay says. “Missions is really just a state of mind, in a sense. It’s an attitude that we take. Christ said to go, and make disciples. And so, as we go, we’re going to make disciples wherever we are. Sometimes that does mean going across the ocean to the farthest ends of the earth. But sometimes it just means going across the street.”

Allen Luckie leads a mission team stationed in Montgomery. He says if the church is not present and doing missions in the community, the community will not want anything to do with the church.

“People forget that there’s a church reaching out if you’re not there,” Luckie says. “If there’s not a community involvement, then you know, people really don’t care to hear what you have to say if you’re not reaching out and seeing that they have needs.”

He says that just because Montgomery is exposed to Christianity often, does not mean the people are all Christians.

“In the Bible belt, you have a lot of churched people that don’t have Christ,” Luckie adds. “And it’s people whose grandparents went to church, and whose mother goes to church, whose brothers and cousins go to church, and they think that by going to church they’re saved. And the truth is, they’re just churched.”

Both Gay and Luckie agree, there are no special skills you need to go on any mission to any location.

“You don’t have to have a special need or skill,” Gay says. “All you have to really know is how to be saved. And so if you’re a follower of Jesus Christ, you can be on a mission. You can just walk across the street and start telling people about Jesus and that’s being on Mission.”

Last year, First Baptist sent 480 people out of Montgomery to minister the world. Gay says that around a thousand individuals worked in the Montgomery area. To join one of First Baptist’s missions or get more information on the program, click here.