Life on Mission

Be Ready

“Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,” 1 Peter 3:15

There was a knock on my front door. It was a blessing that my toddlers were napping. My neighbor from across the street was standing there. She and her husband were newly married, and we occasionally waved to each other and had casual conversations outside in the yard. (It has been over 40 years since this happened, and I don’t remember all the details.) What I do remember is that her question led her to trust Christ as her Savior that afternoon, as my children slept and I had the blessing of sharing the Good News with her. I had no clue that this was God’s plan for this day for her or for me. But because He had prepared me, I was ready to be used of Him!

The above verse is not a suggestion but is a command. So that is the first thing: “be ready.” It may not always be to share the gospel, but you may be the one to plant the seed that leads to salvation. Your kindness, forgiveness, listening ear, transparency, purity, or words may begin the journey for someone to be born again. Just live your everyday life in Christ and intentionally be available to be used by Him. You don’t know how your journey will affect others who see that there is something different about you. This is not onerous or hard; Jesus’ yoke is light. We really don’t have to have all of the answers to all the questions. Just trust and rest in where He places you and where you may place yourself. None of this is by accident.

“God calls us to cast our gaze upon Him, trusting His plan and timing – past, present, and future. He is sovereign over all the details of our lives.” – Alistair Begg

My husband and I recently moved into a 55+ mobile home park, and with it comes some new opportunities to “be ready.” We look at the list of social activities and think maybe we should try some of these for fun, but also for the larger purpose of living a life on mission. Where does He want us to place ourselves?

Think about some of the things you enjoy doing. If you visit a gym or fitness center to become physically fit, be prepared to be used of God to help someone become spiritually fit. Take a class, learn a new skill, volunteer, and seek where God wants you to bloom for His sake. Serving at church will also help you “be ready” in season and out of season! You can learn a lot as you engage with all the generations.

Here are a few things to think about as you intentionally take on life with this mission:

• How is God calling me to “be ready”?

• What is God doing to reorder my heart’s desires?

• Reflect on how you approach each day and how He wants you to live with Him on mission.

Francie Overstreet
EFCC Member

by Francie Overstreet

He Uses Everything

A man was born with a neurological condition that makes his eyes constantly shake back and forth. The condition can be subtle, or it can get worse due to stress or dizziness. When he was around 12 years old, a kid at school said, “Can you look somewhere else, you’re freaking me out!” That comment seared his mind and made him start to mask himself from others, avoiding eye contact. He explained that a deep hurt and anger settled in toward God, doctors, and his parents about his situation during his adolescent years.

After completing his undergraduate degree, he went on a mission trip to India for the summer. One day, there were children from an orphanage all around him, making the universal sign that they wanted him to pick them up and spin them around. He did it to one child, and then another, and then a third, fourth, and fifth. After five, the dizziness caused his eyes to shake very badly, and he fell over. Two of the orphan girls gasped when they saw his eyes and ran away. Once again, he felt decades of shame, anger, and embarrassment wash over him because the girls were freaked out by him.

Then he saw the girls in the distance dragging another girl toward him. He thought they were being cruel by forcing her to look at the freak American. Instead, the girls plopped their friend down in front of him. When he looked into her eyes, he saw that hers were shaking too.

When she saw his eyes shaking, she immediately jumped up into his arms and the two of them held each other, weeping at the joy of being understood and not alone. Something amazing happened in both of their lives at that encounter. The man says that, “God actually used the thing I most wish wasn’t true of me to convey and communicate his love for that girl.” The orphanage wrote to him some weeks after summer, explaining that she had changed from someone withdrawn and always keeping in the back to a leader for Christ in her community.

That man’s name is Ian Simkins. Today, he pastors The Bridge Church in Tennessee. You can see him share that story in this Facebook reel: https://www.facebook.com/reel/4408291666064651

2 Corinthians 5:18-19: “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.”

All believers have been commissioned as ministers of reconciliation. God will use everything we do and every part of who we are to accomplish the task. Not only strengths, but weaknesses, not only successes, but failures of the past. God can redeem it all and use it for his kingdom if we are willing to live on mission.

John Riley
Junior High Pastor

by John Riley

Everywhere We Go

There’s a quiet, powerful truth in the words: “Christ’s love compels us.” It moves us, shapes us, and sends us. Not out of obligation, but from a heart transformed by grace. Everywhere we go — whether it’s the grocery store, the office, the school pickup line, or across the world — we carry something eternal. We carry Him.

When we placed our faith in Jesus, everything changed. As 2 Corinthians 5:17 reminds us, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” This isn’t just a fresh start; it’s a whole new identity. The old labels, the past mistakes, the guilt and shame — they’ve all passed away, and in their place stands something brand new: a person made righteous in Christ.

But this new life doesn’t stop with us. God has entrusted us with a mission — one born straight from His heart. He reconciled us to Himself through Christ and then handed us that same message of reconciliation to carry into the world. That means everywhere we go, we are representatives of His love, His forgiveness, and His hope.

We are ambassadors of a kingdom revealed through lives. And it’s such good news that we’re not alone, and it’s not all up to us. “God [is] making his appeal through us” (2 Cor 5:20). What a wonder that God would choose to speak through the words we say, the kindness we show, and the grace we extend. Even on Mondays. Even in traffic. Even before coffee. Even in line at the DMV.

So today, as you step into the places God has called you, remember this: His love is in you. His mission is with you. And everywhere you go, you are carrying the message of hope that changed your life so that it might change another’s, too.

• Take a moment to thank our Heavenly Father for: Jesus; for making you new, for the cross, for reconciliation, and for the irresistible compulsion of love.

• Ask God to help you walk as an ambassador today with a message in words, actions, and even in silence.

Jessica Klootwyk
Discipleship Director

by Jessica Klootwyk

“I WANT YOU”

by Donielle Winter

Willing to Stand The Watch

This Memorial Day weekend, we should remember the selfless sacrifice of our nation’s veterans who fought to preserve the freedoms and liberties we all hold dear. We applaud that sacrifice and admire the courage of our service members who were willing to stand the watch.

The origins of Memorial Day can be traced back to the aftermath of the American Civil War. Communities across this divided nation began placing flowers on soldiers’ graves as acts of remembrance, healing, and hope. Memorial Day was born out of great national sorrow. Originally called Decoration Day, it emerged as a response to the deadliest conflict in American history then and still to this day. It’s intention was a way to honor those who gave their lives on both sides of the battlefield. Local assemblies gathered to honor the dead of the Union and Confederate Soldiers.

As the conflict ended in 1865, people across the country began holding ceremonies to honor all soldiers who had died in the conflict. The first national observance was declared by General John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic on May 5, 1868. The day was designated as a time to decorate the graves of the fallen with flowers and to hold ceremonies to honor their sacrifice. One of the earliest known ceremonies took place in Charleston, South Carolina, in May 1865, when a group of freed slaves gathered to commemorate fallen Union soldiers buried in a local racecourse.

Over time, Memorial Day became an important national holiday, honoring all Americans who died while serving in the military. In 1971, Congress declared Memorial Day a federal holiday to be celebrated on the last Monday in May.

In light of that context, let us turn to the words of Luke 4:16-19 regarding Jesus:

“He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Jesus’ followers at the time responded with enthusiasm. Israel had been waiting for a liberating King and leader who would restore the prominence of the nation, restoring both religious and civil liberties to the people. How easy it would have been to hear the words of Jesus and miss their deeper meaning. On a national holiday like this, it would be easy to look to the flag or the monument instead of the cross and the empty tomb. This Memorial Day, let me encourage you to both be grateful for the service members who have fought for us and, at the same time, to lift high the name of Jesus, who has given us true freedom. There is no greater oppression known to mankind than the bondage of sin and guilt. Satan uses it to weigh us down, and our very souls feel the impact of sin’s distancing from our Heavenly Father. To be liberated from the shackles of sin and death is the greatest victory ever won — we have much for which to be grateful.

For followers of Christ, this day also calls us to prayer, not just for remembrance, but for peace and reconciliation. After the Civil War, believers lifted up their voices to God, seeking unity and healing for a fractured land. Today, we join in that legacy, asking God to mend what is broken in our time as well.

May we remember the fallen with reverence, thank God for our freedoms, and proclaim the deeper freedom found in Christ — a freedom that brings peace not only to nations but also to the human heart.

In peace, with gratitude,

Jaisen Fuson, EFCC Elder
U.S. Navy, Retired

by Jaisen Fuson