By Bill MacLeod

Over the years, we have seen the Lord bring new volunteers into leadership roles in what we call the Mission Connexion “Steering Team”*, even as He has called others away who had been with us for a time, into other fields of service. Consider these former members, and where they are now:

• Laurie worked at Multnomah University and helped coordinate their annual missions conference each year. She coordinated our Workshop schedule since she was already interfacing with many of the same mission representatives.  Eventually, she followed her life-long calling and today serves as a career missionary in Latin America.
• Sandi served faithfully in the Exhibitors area for a few years, then became the area coordinator for Perspectives.
• David was a website designer who served on the missions team of his church, got involved with us developing our first website, then a host of other communication and promotion areas. He then left the business world; earned a ministry degree at Multnomah, and is now involved in ministry fulltime.
• Bob was one of the original founders of MC as the Global Outreach pastor at City Bible Church and served on our Executive & Steering teams before leaving us, their kids and grandkids, to return to Uganda where he and his wife are church-planting where they first started out as young marrieds.

Those listed above and others who are drawn to join us typically have a desire to be among those of like-minded passion: to see the gospel proclaimed worldwide, among every tongue, tribe, people and nation.  Many find opportunities to serve they cannot find in their church or anywhere else yet all are committed to their church.

Here are some common attributes I have found among those who join us for years or only a season:

• Love for the Lord Jesus, His Church, and a desire to be actively involved in His Great Commission.
• A curiosity about world events, especially among those yet unreached by the Good News.
• A desire to serve among those with similar passion for reaching the lost.
• A willingness to pray with others, asking the Lord of the Harvest to mobilize workers.
• An heart to serve selflessly with a “whatever it takes” attitude, and availability.

I doubt if any of those listed above who served with us had any idea the direction their lives would take post-Mission ConneXion.  I also do not mean to presume or even imply that Mission ConneXion was key in leading them into their next phase of life.  However, I do believe that when we pray together, when we are engaged in a work that can only succeed as we trust Jesus for the impossible, our faith grows, and the Lord does begin to lead us in powerful, unexpected ways.

If you identify with these attributes, and would like to join our Steering Team, even just to observe or if you have an interest in a particular area – we would love to welcome you!  We meet the third (3^rd) Thursday of each month, at the Rocky Butte campus of City Bible Church (9200 NE Fremont St., Portland, OR 97220) at 9:00am in the upstairs conference room.  We can’t promise you that you will become a cross-cultural worker, but we can guarantee that your life will not be the same.

* The Steering Team’s function is to plan every aspect of our January “Mission ConneXion Northwest” event – which has become the largest, annual event of its kind in the Northwest.