Part of our commitment to be a church that doesn’t exist for ourselves is a commitment to missions. So, over the next few weeks, we’d like to elaborate on some of the missions we have planned this year.

One of the ways we live out our church value “We don’t exist for ourselves” is through our church’s involvement in world missions. Some of you may not be as familiar with the term “world missions.” World missions refers to cross cultural communication of the gospel of Jesus Christ which we do in another country. I’m getting that specific because we do cross cultural ministry here in Charlottesville when we bring Christ to people from other cultures than our own. When we partner with missionaries through prayer and financial support to bring Christ to people in other countries, we are participating in “world missions.”

We have taken this world missions involvement one step further when teams from Grace have ventured overseas to serve alongside GCC missionaries and others. Over the history of Grace, teams or individuals have gone out to Mexico, Bolivia, Sierra Leone, Ireland (Eire), West Virginia (don’t laugh – it’s cross cultural), China, Armenia (Iran), and Japan. Some of these trips have been at the specific invitation of a GCC missionary. Sometimes it was an invitation to experience what God is doing in that country. In other cases, it was to assist or serve in a particular way.

This year there are three different Grace missions trips which are in the works: Malawi, Dublin, and Japan. Over the next few weeks we will be telling you about these opportunities to learn, grow and serve.

Regards,

Don