In the years that I have been privileged to serve First Church, we have seen a dramatic and momentous shift in how our congregation is involved in God’s work around the world. When I arrived in Bonita Springs in May 2004 and was shown the church budget for the first time, I was surprised by what I saw. The Mission budget consisted of a lump-sum annual contribution of $50,000 to the Presbyterian denomination. When I asked which missionaries and projects our money was going to, the accountant indicated that it was just being placed in the Presbytery’s undesignated pool of funds.

At my first Session meeting as Senior Pastor, I asked the elders to make an important policy change: beginning the following year, we would designate every cent we gave to local and global missions to specific workers and causes. And we would recruit a team of church members to communicate with, pray for, and develop relationships with those specific causes and people. This change—one of the first I made—was inspired by my past experience at other congregations and by my deep conviction that every church is called to fulfill a meaningful role in God’s work in the world.

What has happened to us in the years since? First Church has become a truly mission-minded church. Our mission giving, directly through our annual budget, has increased more than tenfold, and we now have relationships with over 50 different missionaries, agencies, and projects—both locally in Southwest Florida and spanning the globe. Additional giving by church members directly to Christian work (including Compassion child sponsorships, Operation Christmas Child, and the Manger Tree project) exceeds another half-million dollars a year. We are known and respected broadly as a church that is open to the leading of God’s Spirit to support new ministries and initiatives.

Why am I passionate about seeing the churches I serve become mission-minded churches? BECAUSE…
• They are the healthiest churches. Giving generously to God’s work outside the congregation’s walls brings blessings back many times over. All the great churches I have witnessed shared this commitment.
• When a body of believers opens their minds and hearts and wallets to their role in the gospel, those members learn to be more generous individuals. Because of that, I have never seen a mission-minded church struggle to pay its own bills. God provides as His Spirit works in His people.
• The mission to redeem a lost world of humans is at the very center of the heart of God; it is the reason why He took upon Himself human flesh to be born, live, die, and rise again. Since He did that—for a fallen race, out of love—the more we can become like Him and the more we experience that same compassion.
• Jesus commanded it. Our Lord and Master, in His final words to His church, issued the mission mandate: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19).
• Taking our place in God’s work opens our minds to the world. It is so easy to think only locally and provincially and to be clueless to all that is beyond us. When we build relationships with people of other cultures (or missionaries who serve elsewhere), our perspectives are broadened.
• It connects us with some amazing brothers and sisters. I have been blessed to meet some incredibly dedicated Christian leaders who have willingly and courageously gone where I could not imagine. Their example and faith inspire me.
• We would be lost if missionaries in previous generation shad not taken the gospel to our people. Unless you are a Middle Eastern Jew, your ancestors were not the original recipients of the life-transforming message of Christ. At some point in the past, missionaries had to cross the mile sand the language and the cultural barriers to bring Jesus to the place where we could hear of Him. Thus, we are indebted for our eternal life to some faithful servants of the past whose names we do not know, but who loved us even before we and our ancestors were born.

Why do I want First Church to continue to be a mission-minded church? For all the above reasons. It has now become the cornerstone of who we are as a congregation—and I pray it will always remain so.

by Pastor Doug Pratt