One Mission

What are you investing your life – your time, energy, skills and resources – into? This is a critical question, not only for us as individuals but also corporately – what are our churches investing in?

When Jesus sought to address this question, he often used agricultural analogies, particularly the metaphors of “sowing” and “reaping”.  (For example: Mark 4:3-9; John 4:35-38) He portrayed our lives as being like farmers choosing where we would sow seed, cultivate the soil and reap a spiritual harvest based on our work. The Apostle Paul continued the use of this analogy, reminding us that what we invest our lives in (what we “sow”) will have a resulting “harvest”, whether positive or negative. “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. (Galatians 6:7)” (See also: Romans 1:13; 1 Corinthians 9:11; Galatians 6:8-9) If we consider ourselves to be like spiritual farmers – the question of what we are investing our personal and church lives into can be of eternal significance. 

Our GCA MAT team has been thinking a lot about this question. We want to invest our shared resources, time and efforts into that which will have a lasting, eternal impact. At GCA, our answer is that we exist to cultivate churches and leaders who advance God’s Kingdom together. This cultivating work is our singular mission – the outcome of which we pray and hope will be flourishing churches in gospel transformed communities. 

And we cannot do this work alone – everyone and each church has a role to play in our shared mission. We all have differing gifts to invest and different roles but together we remain radically dependent on God to bring forth the fruit. The Apostle Paul wrote, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.” (1 Corinthians 3:6-9)

As we enter this new year, let us join together in investing deeply, sacrificially, and persistently into God’s kingdom work with your time, energy, resources, and skills. Paul reminds us that, “whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.” (2 Corinthians 9:6) And if we feel fearful that investing so deeply in God’s kingdom will bring about some lack in our own lives, Paul goes on to remind us of God’s sufficiency and faithfulness: “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work… He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.” (2 Corinthians 9:8, 10)

So let us join together in 2026 by committing anew to investing deeply and dependently into the corporate work that God has set before us!