All ministry is local. No matter how big or broad the brush of the message, it always comes down to the Holy Spirit convicting a person’s heart and bringing mercy to a life. Quite often we see the big-picture work occur as one person helps another.

There is a neighborhood woman who sends her child to our weekly KidZone program. She often stays for a women’s Bible study. People in the church have been ministering to her and her family for years. Only recently did some of us make the connection that this woman’s first contact with our church, many years ago, was when members bought and delivered gifts to her family through project Angel Tree. That project is a ministry of Prison Fellowship International, which brings the good news to prisoners and their families.

Does that international ministry do critical work? Absolutely. But the moment when that international organization made a difference was when one of our members handed a gift to our neighbor.

This is a difficult day for genuine churches and ministries in North America. Our privileged place in society has nearly evaporated. At times it seems that Christians and churches are the least tolerated groups in America. The dream of Reformed Presbyterians of old to see the U.S. acknowledge Christ in its constitution seems forever out of reach (though God may have other plans). The assertion of the broader church that we are a Christian America is a phrase that has died out. We are firmly entrenched as a Secular Humanist America.

In the days of old, Reformed Presbyterians (and others) had a plan, a strategy. It was, in part, the Christian Amendment Movement. That had its benefits. What’s the plan today? Perhaps you say that we still seek Christ to be acknowledged in the constitution. Yes. What is your plan? Where is your strategy? To my thinking, we need a strategic plan, one that starts with current conditions, a plan that helps us focus on what we are to be about in our acts of ministry each week.

I don’t know what that will look like, exactly, but I know one key part of the strategy: Individual Christians, equipped and mobilized by strong biblical congregations and denominations, seeking out and ministering to individuals. The government may take away every privilege for believers, but it cannot stop us from loving our neighbor and sharing and showing the good news.

It’s interesting that China, without any hope of a Christian consensus in powerful places, cannot keep a lid on the growth of Christianity. Locally, one person at a time, under persecution, the Word is going forth and being lived out. This issue of the Witness focuses on the local. We need the national, the international, but we sorely need you to seek and minister to the spiritually and physically needy in your local area. That will make a difference in the big picture. As always, it comes down to following Jesus.