But too many Christians are content in their own salvation and allow an ethnocentric provincialism to dismiss the imperative of God's mission to the nations.

A disciple who grows spiritually will have a growing desire to be a witness and reach out to those who are lost.

Missional churches act faithfully and intentionally wherever God gives them opportunity.

Being missional means moving intentionally beyond our church preferences, making missional decisions rather than preferential decisions.

If they do what missionaries do—study and learn language, become part of culture, proclaim the Good News, be the presence of Christ, and contextualize biblical life and church for that culture—they are missional churches.

Just as the true fruit of an apple tree is not an apple, but another tree; the true fruit of a small group is not a new Christian, but another group; the true fruit of a church is not a new group, but a new church; the true fruit of a leader is not a follower, but a new leader; the true fruit of an evangelist is not a convert, but new evangelists. Whenever this principle is understood and applied, the results are dramatic.

We believe the church's purpose is to glorify God, not to make people happy. The church does not exist for believers or unbelievers; it exists for God's glory, for the equipping of believers, and the church is God's missionary in the world.

Scripture teaches us to contend for the faith (Jude 3) and contextualize to culture (1 Cor. 9:22-23).

During the nineteenth century, one home missionary of the African Methodist Episcopal Church reported to the general conference in 1844 "that during four years he had covered 300 miles in his itinerant preaching, establishing 47 churches with a total membership of 2,000. He had seven other itinerant preachers working with him, and 27 local preachers had organized 50 Sunday schools with 200 teachers and 2,000 students.

No longer representative of the dominant culture, Christians need to rethink the way we understand cultural engagement, mission, and evangelism in a newly post-Christian society.

Teachers touch the future.

How can we be witnesses of the one true God if we hold the truth as our own possession? God meant his truth for the world.