MISSIONS

MISSIONS is central to our purpose and design.

Jesus commanded His disciples to make disciples of all the nations (Matthew 28: 16-20) This commission shapes the ministry of Grace in both its purpose and its scope.

It all starts here in Lynchburg. As a church we want to help people become disciples of Jesus. We do this by inviting people into our various communities. Our Life Groups are not just social gatherings. They are communities with the purpose of trying to help people take the next step with Jesus.

When people grow in their relationship with Jesus, they experience inner transformation. They become more like Jesus. This will lead them to seek ways to serve Him. As people grow, we try to help them develop their leadership by beginning new Life Groups. This expands our ability to invite people into relationship with Jesus. (We make more disciples.)

Just as we do this here in Lynchburg, we seek to make disciples in similar ways in the midst of other cultures and geographic locations. In Acts 13 the church leaders in response to the Holy Spirit sent Paul and Barnabas to go other places to share the gospel. This was the first “missionary” journey. Just as that local church embraced the goal of sending missionaries, we embrace the same purpose. Specifically, we believe that the Lord wants us to focus our international efforts on “unreached” people groups, i.e. those ethnic groups that do not yet have a gospel witness.

In the spring of 2014, Grace sent two families to an unreached people group in the Middle East to proclaim the gospel. We long to see a Spirit-led movement to Christ among this people group. We hope to send more workers to join this team. We call this our “engaged initiative” because this initiative has a high level of supervision from the church leadership and a greater degree of participation among the church body. Regular short term trips are sent by Grace to support this team with prayer and encouragement.

Grace also supports five families who have been led by the Lord to serve Him in other parts of the world. We call these our “traditional missionaries” who are supervised by a missions agency. We are excited to partner financially and prayerfully with them as God uses them to build His kingdom among all peoples.

For more information about our Engaged Initiative, traditional missionaries, or short term trips, please contact Kenny Longo at klongo@graceefc.net.