Welcome to our Missions Connections

Our purpose as the local church body is to lead people into a life changing relationship with Jesus Christ, by loving God deeply, serving one another willingly and sharing the gospel (good news) of Christ unceasingly.  This purpose is a restatement of the Great Commission given by Jesus (Matthew 28:18-20).  It encompasses the full life cycle of the church in the following ways:

1.    Reaching and teaching the unsaved about the gospel (Next Steps share)

2.   Furthering spiritual growth of Christians at any level of spiritual maturity (Next Steps serve/connect)

3.   Christians being in relationship with other believers.  (Next Steps connect)

We define the ministry of the body of Christ as evangelical in multiple realms. 

First, it is our corporate responsibility to reach the lost where we are, in our own backyard.  For FBCC, that means that Cloudcroft and surrounding communities in Otero County are our local mission.   The goal with this local mission field is to fulfill the great commission and to add to our local church body.

Second, we are called to make disciples of all nations.  We refer to these missions as focused missions.  They might be in a foreign country, or they may be closer to home but not in our own backyard.  In these cases, we are participating in adding to God’s Kingdom but not to our local body of believers. 

We are also honored to have a number of people who are missionaries from among the congregation in a part time or full time capacity, who must raise their own support.  Therefore, we define these as targeted missions, which we define as those which are not supported in the church budget, but which are supported by individual members of the congregation.  Examples of these would be the trips to Creel, MX, the work done for Casas por Cristo or supporting Compassion International children.

It is our intent to be culturally mission centered (dedicated to the spread of the gospel in all these realms).  Therefore, our first priority is to pray for all missions activities, and then to support them via the church budget and individual gifts as the Holy Spirit leads.

Structurally, we have separated the local mission and the focused and targeted missions.  The local mission is under the direction of the Pastor.   Focused missions and targeted missions are under the direction of the Missions Team.

Further, it is our goal to engender excitement and passion for all our missions activities.  We have chosen to accomplish this within our focused missions by developing relationships with our focused and targeted missions partners.  What that looks like is greater accountability of our partners, more frequent communication between the church and the partner, and bringing our partners in on a regular basis so that the church can more tangibly understand and share in their ministry.