OK! I know! The word has been out there for a while, and, in fact, even used in the Hollywood film, Up in the Air. But I like it as it pertains to Missions, because through just one new word in our vocabulary, you have a good definition of what the church’s view of missions is and must become. Unless you understand it from the perspective of modern missions, geographical and anthropological thought, you miss the idea all together.

A GLOCAL mission mentality means that you no longer view the Great Commission as GLOBAL or LOCAL—it’s both! For a long time, we referred to Missions as either here or there. But having a GLOCAL view, means that we talk about becoming involved in the jungles of Peru with the same enthusiasm and burden as we do when talking about the complexity of ministering to Detroit or Los Angeles inner city mission. It means that we pray and support the new and creative ministry of a Brian Wardlaw in Seattle, Washington, with the same intensity we carry for China’s billions. It means that we care for the College Church pantry mission with the same interest we show towards the starving in Ghana. It means we get as excited about the 365M project of the Nazarene Theological Seminary as we do when our teens visit and care for some folk at the Good Samaritan Towers in Olathe; or equally as concerned for providing a meal at the local Hospice House as we are in providing Crisis Care Kits to Haiti.

I trust that each Sunday, you take a little time and read the Mission Moments section in your Sunday bulletin. I was encouraged and impressed to see that during the month of July there have been some incredible acts of compassion demonstrated by our ABSF classes as well as by individuals. What you have done so well has ranged from helping a disabled couple with home care and repairs, to providing a meal for some needy folk, to serving a meal at the Rescue Mission, to providing both funding and delivery of 1000 soccer balls to Haiti, to what really got me as I saw a teen stop, help pull a wheelchair out of the trunk of a car and with a smile of his face, wheel a struggling senior citizen into the building.

Now I ask you—are we becoming a GLOCAL church? Yes! But don’t let up—we are just beginning!