When casting around for ideas for a new mission undertaking, the first place to start is prayer. As Psalm 127: 1 reminds us, “unless the Lord builds a house, the work of the builders is wasted.” The purpose of prayer is not to ask God’s blessing on something that we have decided to do. Rather it is to seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance, to ask the Holy Spirit to draw our attention to what God wants us to do, to an unreached, unengaged people group that God wants us to reach and engage, a need that God wants us to meet. This may prove challenging since we may have all kinds of ideas about new mission activities which we may like or prefer to do or to begin doing, activities that are worthwhile but are nonetheless not what God wants us to undertake. The time may not be right. We may not be the right people. God has other things that he wants us to do or begin doing. As the apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we c...