Missions
Our Missional View:
At The fellowship at Bend we believe that The Command for “Missions” begins with Jesus and His words to his disciples in the Gospel of Matthew 28:16-20.
This is a command to the disciples of God to go to all nations, and preach the word and baptize all peoples. The main objective to this command is making disciples. A disciple is one who follows another. The disciples, by preaching and proclaiming God’s word were doing just that, making disciples for Jesus.
In Acts 1:1-8 we see a similar Command.
Jesus in v 8 calls the disciples to receive the power of the Sspirit so that they might be His witnesses. The Greek word there is (MARTYS), which in a legal sense means a witness in court. It refers to someone that has seen something and they can give an account of the events. Jesus called His disciples to be his witnesses in 4 main areas.
Jerusalem, Judaea, Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth, and this is exactly what the Book of Acts portrays concerning there mission.
In Jerusalem and Judea, we see in Acts 2 the Spirit coming as Jesus said He would. The people below said the believers were drunk because of the many languages being spoken, at that moment Peter stood up, and He taught the Word pointing the people to Jesus and 3000 were regenerated and baptized.
In SAMARIA- Acts 8-The Church was being persecuted in Jerusalem. At that time Phillip was called to Samaria, and in Acts 8:5- He went down Preached Jesus. Verses 6-12- tell us that there was great Joy and many people were baptized
The Ends of the earth–From Samaria Phillip was called in Acts 8:26 to go into the desert. After being obedient to Gods command He finds a Ethiopian man (ends of the earth) reading Isaiah but not comprehending its meaning. So Phillip begins to expound the Word, and the Ethiopian man is regenerated and Baptized.
In Acts 9 Right after that a man named Saul is regenerated. His name would be changed to Paul. He would take the Word of God deep into the heart of Europe. At the end of His life He relays an important message to his “son in the faith” Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:15-4:8… The thrust of his message/mission… Preach the word Timothy! For that’s what his mission was…
At The fellowship at Bend we believe this is our mission as well.
Our Goal in Missions
Our goal is to teach and disciple others that they may be regenerated, and then have the ability to teach others. When we say teaching we mean literally teaching Gods word and training people to teach God’s word.
We also believe that could mean helping a local church in teaching of the Word of God. It may mean helping to build a building for a local church, put a roof on a church in Africa, or simply producing bibles in a foreign language. The Goal is teaching people about Jesus.
Jesus also said we are to love our neighbor as ourself, and loving your neighbor means helping those who are hurting, that need clothing, food, or some form of practical aide.
This is seen in James 1:22-2:8. This means that we will be a church that not only talks about the Love of God but shows it by helping the widow, the fatherless, and the poor.
At the fellowship we believe that those needs are best met by the local church, so we will work together with the local church wherever they may be.
How it all works out
Bend is our Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria—Locally we proclaim the word week after week as the church gathers together on Sundays, and also through our community groups scattered throughout the week. We have teachings available online, we haves studies meeting in the community, we also do outreaches to this area from time to time as a body corporately, but also we are reaching out at our schools, jobs, and in our neighborhoods as a people individually. We also have a helps ministry ready and available to meet the physical needs of this community. We believe in the importance of planting Churches, which is something we look forward to in the future.
Ends of the earth… The Fellowship at Bend is currently assisting Marcel Yanoga in ministering to churches in Burkina Faso Africa. We are providing pastoral training, prayer, financial assistance, and short term mission trips to assist them in sharing the Gospel of Jesus. We are also assisting Jerry and Jan Swanson in the building of church roofs for the pastors we are training in Burkina. www.burkinafasomissions.com
For Further information on TFAB missions or questions you might have you may/can contact any of the Elders at the Fellowship. We also encourage the body at TFAB to pray that the Lord will give them direction to fulfill this mission He has called them to and we are more than willing to support other short term mission projects as long as they are inline with the vision the Lord has given to us.
If you would like to hear a teaching on this by Pastor Loren you can follow this link…
