“They wanted a pastor who would help lead them to be a more outward focused church,” says Pastor Reg Overstreet. This was one of the many responsibilities given to Pastor Reg when he came to Community Grace Church of Warsaw, Indiana in 2020. There was not much—if any—missions leadership at the church when he arrived. But Pastor Reg had a heart to be heavily involved in Great Commission pursuits by mobilizing the church. And over the last five years of his tenure, there has been significant movement toward that end. 

• The church uses several strategies to champion missions, including a sermon series on missions based on 1 Corinthians 3:6. “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.”
• Out of that, the term “Gospel Seeds” began to be used and now someone shares a Gospel Seed testimony from stage every month.
• A resident Great Commission Consultant was brought on staff (who happens to be former Encompass staff member, Jay Bell!)
• The word “mobilize” is intentionally used in some way during every service.

Even with all of these accomplishments, their most impactful strategy has only begun recently: As a church, they’ve adopted an unreached people group, the Fulani of Central Africa. 

In November 2024, the church held an official adoption ceremony, complete with documentation of their vision and goals as well as a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that specifies what exactly the church and the Fulani people are agreeing to. Part of their vision and goals is to make an annual trip to central Africa to visit, encourage, share Christ, and help meet current needs.

As an associate pastor at his previous church in Washington state, Pastor Reg had experienced just how powerful it was for a church to adopt an unreached people group. It was an incredible mechanism for growth and mobilization! 

Pastor Reg calls this the “Rifle and Shotgun” approach. The “rifle” is the narrow target of the adopted people group, and the “shotgun” is the wide range of the church’s other mission pursuits (support of specific missionaries, mission team initiatives, short-term trips, etc). 

As the church becomes more and more excited about the narrow, targeted initiative, all other pursuits also begin to grow, and the congregation becomes more invested in missions. After five years of much prayer and implementing various strategies, Community Grace is currently experiencing significant movement toward mission mobilization, both abroad and locally. They now have a fully functioning missions team with strong leadership. In just the past year, five people expressed interest in exploring full-time missions work! 

Perhaps there are strategies and ideas from Community Grace that your church could adopt?