When we think of missions work, we often think of working in a far-off country like Peru or the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In other words, we think of foreign missions. But if we define a missionary as someone fulfilling the great commission, sent to share the gospel with those who have not heard the good news of Christ’s salvation, we will remember that missions work is truly global. If you are reading this, you are, more than likely, somewhere on the globe, and if there are people around, you’ve almost certainly found a good place for missions work. Jesus said to “make disciples of all nations…” so missions work can and should be happening everywhere.

This is an update on some missions work that ClearNote Fellowship is doing in Indianapolis. In November Heidi and I moved from Bloomington to Indianapolis to plant ClearNote Church, and after graduation, David and Vanessa Abu-Sara are planning to move up here to join us in that work.

“But,” you might be thinking, “aren’t there enough churches in Indianapolis already? Why start another one?”

The answer is really quite straightforward. No. There aren’t enough churches in Indianapolis. As a matter of fact, if just half of the people in Indianapolis tried to go to church one Sunday, there wouldn’t be anywhere near enough room for everybody. It can be tempting to think that we live in a Christian nation, and that everybody has heard the Gospel. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Indianapolis is a city in desperate need of men willing to be faithful to Jesus’ command, “Teach them to obey everything I have commanded you.” It is a city in need of men like Peter, who obeyed that command by pointing out the sins of those who would listen to him and warned them of the coming judgment. The “unreached people groups” of Indianapolis consist of enough people to fill about 1000 more churches.

So what has happened in the first few months? God has been very gracious to us. The week after we moved, we began holding a Bible study on Sunday evenings in our house. There have been about 15 adults each week, and it has been a delight to always have visitors. Since that causes our living room to bulge, it quickly became clear that we needed to move to a new location, and we decided to transition to holding services Sunday morning at the end of January.

Please pray that God would guide us in this work, and that we would continue to have opportunities to minister to the poor and helpless. Also pray that we would learn to communicate the gospel very simply, as we have unexpectedly found ourselves spending significant amounts of time with people who speak very little English. In fact, we have spent time with people from Mexico, Venezuela, Burma, and Ethiopia. It seems foreign missions really can be done in your own back yard.

ClearNote Church gathers for worship at Pike YCMA at 11 AM every Sunday. You can get driving directions here.

If you would like to hear more about this work, or receive monthly updates, please email me at jtbayly@gmail.com