What does it mean to be engaged in discipleship? It is getting involved, collaborating, working behind the scenes or on the front lines, assisting a friend in a project, donating funds to help the youth, making phone calls, or joining a group in a mission outreach locally or overseas. Historically, the Seventh-day Adventist movement is known for its missionary approach to proclaiming the gospel of Jesus based on Acts 1:8, when He commissioned His disciples to “be my witnesses in Jerusalem . . . and to the end of the earth.”
These actions of mission engagement were evidenced in the lives of the apostles Peter, John, and James, who concentrated their efforts initially in Jerusalem. Included in that group are the legendary apostle Paul, his spiritual son Timothy, and Philemon, who spent the majority of their years in ministry, working with people of different cultures and traveling across the then-known world.
The same spirit that moved our pioneers to travel on foot and in buggies to spread the gospel is the same power that motivated J.N. Andrews to take his family to the overseas mission field, a trip that changed that family forever. Over the decades, thousands of church members in the Atlantic Union have responded to the call of discipleship by systematically and intentionally taking action and engaging in missions locally and overseas.
Various Mission at Home initiatives, led by church leaders and the Atlantic Union Conference Adventist Youth Ministries in collaboration with each of the six conferences, are evidence of how the Holy Spirit is still leading God’s people to a more intimate relationship with Jesus through serving others.
Recently, Adventist International Medical Missionaries (AIMM), a lay-led ministry based in the Atlantic Union, organized a mission trip to the community of Peruibe in Brazil. Young people from the Greater New York Conference Youth Ministries also joined in this endeavor. Together, they completed several community projects, including conducting health clinics, a vacation Bible school, remodeling a church building, donating musical instruments, and conducting a nightly evangelistic effort.
Constantly, church members are using their resources, time, professional talents, and expertise in response to the call to mission. In the Atlantic Union, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, teachers, students, business owners, plumbers, electricians, masons, lawyers, barbers, transportation specialists, and others are stepping up to the plate, taking action, and engaging in mission initiatives.
The mission of the Atlantic Union Conference is “United We Go to Grow God’s Kingdom,” and we look forward to finishing the work which God has entrusted to us. As leaders in the church, we share and support the same commitment with our members and the community at large.
The very last part of Matthew 23:23 in the English Standard Version reads, “These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.” The advice from scripture and the inspirational writings is for church members as true disciples to continue to be engaged in mission work.
In Acts 20:34, 35 (ESV), the apostle Paul said to the elders at Ephesus “You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”
