SABBATH SCHOOL CLASSES AND CHURCH are open for in-person worship. The children’s SS classes begin at 9:45 am and church service starts at 11:00 am Saturday mornings. Please join us if you are able. You can also join us on Facebook Live or on Zoom.
Join us on March 29, 2025 at 11:00 am. Let's discover together what God has in store through the message presented YOU! It's Testimony Sabbath, bring your praises and prayer requests.
Links - Facebook Live
ZOOM Link for March 22, 2025
Dogs, Chiggers, and God
We’ve been very intentional during the past few months to put Mission Refocus in action at the General Conference. This movement calls us to invest our finances and personnel in reaching the most challenging places in the world. As we’ve done this, God has opened doors in marvelous ways. We’re raising an army of new missionaries and volunteers to go to unreached places!
I invite you to explore Acts 19 with me because I believe it has much to say about God’s ideal for our approach to mission today.
Here, we find Paul, the great missionary of the primitive Christian church, arriving in Ephesus. The people were entrenched in self-righteousness and pagan superstition, so you can imagine how hard it would be to share the gospel there. But the challenge didn’t intimidate Paul.
Verse 8 tells us that Paul began his ministry at the synagogue, where he spoke boldly. I like to think that boldness is the identifier of those who walk with God, doing His work and being used by His Spirit. They aren’t limited in their thinking or afraid to face challenges; they keep moving forward in the Lord’s name, believing His promises. God calls us to be bold.
In verse 10, we see how deep the apostle’s commitment was. After a very challenging time preaching at the synagogue, Paul moved, with a group of Christians, to the School of Tyrannus. There, he spent two years preaching to Gentiles so everyone who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus. It wasn’t easy. He faced continual opposition and persecution. But he didn’t give up, and God opened doors for Paul. Miracles happened in his listeners’ hearts. This same God will open seemingly impossible doors for us today.
Verse 11 reveals the secret to Paul’s success. The Bible says, “And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul.” The author of Acts clarifies that the hands were Paul’s, but the power was God’s. Paul just made his hands available to the Lord. Here, we have one of my strongest beliefs about mission: we can strategize, invest, and mobilize, but mission is a miracle.
What could we do on our own to reach the 10/40 Window, where 66 percent of the world’s population live and only 12 percent of our membership? Or the Urban Window, where we have 43 cities with more than a million inhabitants and no Seventh-day Adventist presence? Or the Post-Christian Window, where hearts seem impervious to the entreaties of God’s Spirit? We have an impossible mission on our hands. But by using our hands, God can perform extraordinary miracles.
In 2020, my son volunteered in a country closed to the gospel. An Adventist pastor invited my son to join him in visiting some students at a public university. The pastor told him that foreigners were prohibited from entering, but the two proceeded in faith. When they approached security, the officer requested their documents. My son greeted him in the local language, and when the officer heard the greeting, he looked at my son and said, “Welcome back, I know you. You can enter without any problem.” He didn’t even look at my son’s passport. His experience demonstrates that God can open the most closed places.
The same God who released His people from Egypt and broke down the walls of Jericho is alive and ready for miracles today. He invites us to place our hands in His hands, and He will perform extraordinary miracles for us.
Would you like to renew your commitment to the Lord, offering your hands to be used by Him to reach the 10/40 Window, the Urban Window, and Post-Christian Window? I truly believe that through prayer, God will use you as His agent to help fulfill His mission.
Mission is not about our work for God but about God’s work through us. Mission belongs to Him; we are just agents. And because mission is a miracle, we can move forward with a sense of urgency, trusting in the Owner of the mission.
Global Mission pioneers are laypeople sent to start new groups of believers in unreached areas or among unreached people groups. They’re paid a small stipend and usually work within their own culture. Please support their ministry with your prayers and financial gifts to Global Mission.
Ways to Give
ONLINE
Make a secure financial gift by scanning
this QR code or visiting
Global-Mission.org/giving.
PHONE
Call 800-648-5824
In the United States:
Global Mission, General Conference
12501 Old Columbia Pike
Silver Spring, MD 20904-6601
In Canada:
Global Mission
SDA Church in Canada
1148 King Street East
Oshawa, ON L1H 1H8
Please remember us in your will and trusts. Visit Global-Mission.org/PlannedGiving or
call 800.648.5824.
Transform Lives, One Month at a Time: Join Our Recurring Donor Family!
Andrew McChesneyOffice of Adventist Mission.