I firmly believe God calls each one of us to a particular ministry. God has called me into mission work and youth ministry. I feel that there are many souls in this world who can be won for Christ yet do not attend a formal church. For me, that ministry and mission field is with teenagers. I have a burden to see young people come to a saving knowledge of Jesus. I firmly believe we are just one generation away from a world that will have no knowledge of Christ. I have a passion for teaching young people about the Christ I believe in and follow. I want to take time and invest my life in the lives of young men and women.

If we are to be effective ministers, we need to apply the principles of missionary work to our ministry. We need to spend time looking at areas such as evangelism, cultural norms, music, language and decision-making processes used by our local culture. Missionaries spend months studying the culture before planning a strategy to reach the nationals. As pastors, we must be diligent in our study of the culture in which we minister. We need to have many avenues of contact in order to impact our churches and communities. We must enter into the world of our global community if we are to be effective. We must spend time listening to music, watching TV shows and movies, and pick up on the dialectic cues of that culture’s language.
As ministers, we must be able to multi-task. As counselors, we must address the problems and issues people experience. As sociologists, we must examine cultural trends and know how much influence they have on our communities. As teachers, we must communicate God’s Word in a culture’s specific language. As theologians, we must have a vibrant relationship with God and make Him known to the people we serve. As missionaries, we must know the local culture and penetrate the areas where people live, work and play.

In order for indigenous churches to be started and continue reproducing, the local people must become involved. The local people need to be trained to do effective ministry. We tend to train only a few workers, and soon they become frustrated and overworked. All members of the local church should take part in sharing the gospel with the people they come into contact with. Local congregations must be given the tools to become equipped for kingdom work. If not, they will become dependant on the church staff; and when they leave, the ministry will die.

In the New Testament, churches spontaneously expanded. There was no great appeal by the apostles to coerce local churches to start new congregations. The Great Commission was understood as a tenant of the Christian faith. They just went and did it. Wherever the apostles went, they started new churches. They were discipling new believers, then turning them loose to do God’s work. We often think only professionally trained people can do the work of a local church, but that is not the case. These new converts were uneducated men who yielded their lives to the leading of the Holy Spirit. We as a church need to return to this way of mission work. It worked then; it will work now. Until we realize the power a local believer has in the church-planting process, our world mission effort will become retarded and frustrated.

If we are going to be the church God called us to be, we must take His message of saving grace humbly to all. The church as a whole does not think about the “The Third Church,” because many people see that is being across the ocean. The do not see as it being in the backyard. They say, “Reaching those people is the job of missionaries.” Many do not realize the “Third Church” is within their own neighborhoods. We must help our people grasp a global vision to reach all for Christ.