(sola)s hattiesburg

Hello friends,

Missions Hattiesburg is quickly approaching (July 6-10) and I am trying to get a final count of who is going to be plugging in. If you are planning on helping, or if you are interested and would like some further info, please email me PRONTO (solashattiesburg@gmail.com).

Basic info:
- We are working at 3 different sites Mon-Thurs from 7am-2pm.
- The cost is $30 – this includes lunches each day, supplies, and dinner at the church (Temple West Refuge). If you need help with scraping up the money, as always, let me know and we can help out.
- You are invited to be a part of worship each night after dinner: Codie is leading in song worship and Phil, Pfaff and myself will be breaking open the Word.
- The youth are staying at the church, and if you’d like to, you are more than welcome to stay too.
- Friday the group is going to the water park in Collins. If you’d like to go it’ll cost an extra $20.

If you would like to help but you can’t work every day, no problem, WE STILL NEED YOU. Just let me know which days you can work.

This is an opportunity to live your life for the kingdom of God and to meet needs right here in Hattiesburg.
Love your city!
Love your Savior!

Here are a few things happening within the next month:

- 6/18/2009 – summer bible study @the pfaffs house, 7pm (see the post below for directions). If you are following along in the book, read chapter 5.

- 6/26/2009 – lighthouse work day. Whoever is interested is invited to go with us downtown to lighthouse ministries to do some manual labor. If you’d like to be a part, email me (aadkison@tbclife.net). We’re meeting in the temple east campus parking lot at 8:45 on the 26th.

- 7/10-16/2009 – missions hattiesburg. The student ministry is doing a local service/missions project this week and they have invited us to be a part of what they’re doing. Interested? email me (see above). The cost to be a part of this is $60, which includes your food for the week and supplies for the work you’ll be doing. If you need help with the cost, let me know and we can work something out.

So I just finished reading Let the Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God in Missions, and in the book Piper raises a very interesting question concerning the focus of missionary efforts.  He writes, “Is it biblical to define the missionary task of the church as reaching all the unreached peoples  of the world?  Or is it sufficient to say that missions is simply the effort to reach as many individuals as possible in places different from our own?”  To rephrase his question, Piper is asking if the thrust of the New Testament’s command to “go and make disciples” is aimed at reaching out to as many individuals as possible, or if the aim is to go to all the peoples (or people groups) of the world?  Should we as the church be concerned simply with going to where we would potentially reach the most, or should we go to those groups who haven’t yet heard?  Please note that what Piper is NOT SAYING is that we should limit our missional efforts or that we should not seek to see every lost person come to know Christ – we should be a witness to whoever we meet or come across.  But what he is asking is if we should be strategic and place a priority on sending missionaries and going to people groups in the world that are absent of the gospel?  Is the goal people in general or peoples?  What are your thoughts?