Missions at Wintersburg
January 2026 Epistle article
Missions at Wintersburg
2025 has been a year of learning what Missions has looked like and meant at Wintersburg. My natural inclination is to quickly survey the landscape and start putting plans into motion. However, the Lord has gently and persistently pressed on my heart the importance of patience – waiting on Him, surrendering my plans, and trusting His timing.
In many ways, leading and rebuilding a ministry mirrors the work of evangelism itself. We are called to prepare faithfully and be ready to respond, while remaining attentive and submitted to the leading of the Holy Spirit. It is the Lord who saves, moves hearts, and draws people to Himself, not our strategies or best-laid plans. We are called to obediently prepare with diligence, listen carefully, and surrender fully. While I have felt both eagerness and excitement to plan and mobilize, the Lord has been teaching me to wait on Him as He continues to clarify, refine, and strengthen the vision He has placed on my heart for the Missions Ministry at Wintersburg.
Overview
At Wintersburg, the Missions Ministry is centered around three primary areas: 1) supporting and caring for long term missionaries, 2) engaging in local outreach in our neighborhood in Santa Ana, and 3) sending short term missions teams.
To better equip our church to pray, learn, and participate in missions, we have recently launched a new Missions section on the Winterburg website (www.wintersburg.org/missions). This serves as a central hub where our church can stay informed and engaged with what God is doing locally and globally through our body.
The Missions page includes three dedicated areas that reflect the core focus of our ministry. The Local Outreach page highlights opportunities to serve and engage in our neighborhood in Santa Ana and will continue to grow and be updated as we build partnerships and expand opportunities to serve. The Global Missions page introduces the long-term missionaries and ministry partners we support around the world, with plans to further develop this page so that covenant members can access missionary updates and pray for them with greater intentionality. The Short Term Missions page provides information about upcoming STM opportunities, including details about the Fukuoka trip, team expectations, and the application process.
Our hope is that this website will be a practical tool that helps move missions from something we hear about occasionally to something we regularly pray for, learn about, and participate in together. Whether you are exploring how God may be calling you to go, seeking ways to send and support others, or simply wanting to grow in awareness and prayer, this page is designed to help you take that next step.
Looking Ahead for 2026
2026 will be a year of preparation, relearning, and rebuilding a healthy, biblical understanding and foundation for Missions so that we become a body of believers that loves, prays for, and goes out to our neighbors and to the nations. Our hopes are to host a missions conference at Wintersburg in the fall as well as offer some missions-focused workshops and training opportunities. Additionally, 2026 will mark our first short term missions trip since the pandemic.
Vision for Missions
As we look toward the future, our desire is to focus our support and sending efforts to unreached people groups in the world – communities that have little to no access to the gospel. Many of these people groups are located in South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, and parts of Africa, where faithful gospel presence remains limited and the need is great.
As a church with Japanese heritage, we are particularly aware that Japan remains one of the most unreached nations in the world, with fewer than 1% of the population professing faith in Christ. We are committed to continuing our support for efforts to reach the Japanese people, while also allowing the Lord to broaden our vision and burden for other unreached peoples throughout Asia and the Middle East.
To help cultivate informed prayer and deeper engagement, our Missions website includes a Resources section designed to equip our church to intercede with understanding and hope. There you can learn about regions with high concentrations of unreached people groups, engage with specific prayer prompts, and reflect on Scripture that reveals God’s heart for justice and righteousness, provision and peace, healing and restoration, and the spiritual awakening and softening of hearts among the nations.
Short Term Missions (STM)
Sending and going on short term missions (STM) teams overseas are a way for our church body to serve, learn, and witness God’s work across cultures. The primary purpose of these trips is to support long-term missionaries and the work and relationships that they have faithfully cultivated throughout the years.
This summer, we will be sending a small STM team to Fukuoka, Japan to partner with Samuel Kan, a missionary who leads UTMOST Ministry, which seeks to share the gospel through music, film, and dance. The team’s primary focus will be supporting UTMOST Ministry’s Kids Gospel Camp, taking place August 3-5, 2026. As this is our first trip of its kind in several years, the team will also serve in additional ways as opportunities arise, with the aim of encouraging both the ministry and the local community.
Beyond logistics and preparation, STM trips require character shaped by humility, teachability, and a willingness to serve and submit. Participants are asked to commit not only their time and energy, but also their hearts – to listen well, to follow the leadership of long-term missionaries, and to represent Christ faithfully in every interaction. STM is not primarily about personal experience or enrichment, but about surrendering to God’s leading by boldly stepping into opportunities to serve, share, and love, while remaining humble and culturally sensitive to the local community and missionaries.
STM trips require a significant commitment of time, preparation, and active participation in the months leading up to and during the trip. It’s also important to recognize that STM trips do not replace faithfully serving in our local context through local outreach. If we are not already actively praying for, loving, and seeking the welfare of our neighbors in Santa Ana, a STM trip overseas will not suddenly produce a servant-hearted posture in a different cultural setting.
Local faithfulness and global missions are inseparably connected. Faithful service in our local community forms us to love, listen, and serve cross-culturally with humility. As we grow in compassion, consistent prayer, and a genuine concern for the good of our neighbors in Santa Ana, God shapes in us the posture required for global missions – not one of saviorhood or self-importance, but of dependence, obedience, and love. If we are unwilling to be uncomfortable, vulnerable, and proactive here where the language, culture, and rhythms are familiar, it is difficult to imagine how we will suddenly embody that same posture in an unfamiliar cross-cultural context while navigating limited language, cultural differences, and even physical exhaustion from jet lag. Faithfulness in the ordinary rhythms of local outreach lays the foundation for meaningful participation in God’s work among the nations. From that foundation, each of us is invited to take part in missions, not as mere spectators but as faithful participants.
Each of our STM team members will also engage in support raising. Support raising is not merely a practical requirement, but a deeply formative exercise in faith. As team members step out to share God’s call and the needs before them, they witness firsthand how God moves in remarkable ways, providing through unexpected people, generous hearts, and prayerful support. Support raising trains us to trust God’s timing, relinquish control, and depend more fully on Him rather than our own resources. It also invites the broader church into active participation and experiencing joy and amazement as they see God work through them to equip and enable those going to serve. In this way, support raising becomes both a spiritual discipline and a tangible reminder that missions is a shared partnership sustained by God’s faithfulness, not our own effort.
Go-ers and Send-ers
Engagement in missions is not reserved for a select group of especially gifted or “super” Christians. It is a calling given to all believers – to join in God’s work of making disciples both near and far. While not everyone is called to go overseas on missions, whether short or long term, every member of the church is invited to participate in sending through prayer, financial support, and encouragement.
As an expression of this shared calling and our desire to cultivate missions discipleship, this STM trip will offer two distinct application-based roles. For this STM trip, we are inviting individuals to apply in one of two ways: as go-ers who will travel and serve in Fukuoka, or as send-ers who will walk closely with the team through intentional prayer, preparation, and partnership before, during, and after the trip.
Both go-ers and send-ers will participate in all required trainings, meetings, and preparation leading up to the trip. Send-ers will commit to actively praying for and supporting the team while they serve in Fukuoka, and to debriefing together as one team following the trip.
Applications to join the STM team, either as a go-er or a send-er, are now open. The application timeline is as follows:
January 1st: Fukuoka STM application open
February 7th: Application deadline (no exceptions)
February 8th - 28th: Team interviews
First week of March: Team meetings begin
More information about the application process can be found on our new missions webpage www.wintersburg.org/stm.
Kids Gospel Camp
Families with children who are interested in the UTMOST Ministry’s Kids Gospel Camp in Fukuoka are warmly invited to participate. Samuel has expressed that attending the camp would be an encouragement both to the local attendees and to those serving in the ministry. Please note that participation in the Kids Gospel Camp is not covered by Wintersburg and is not part of the STM trip. Families would need to plan and fund this trip independently. This is simply an open invitation for those who wish to support and encourage the local ministry. Registration details and information will be shared in coming months.
As we move forward, my hope and prayer is to see Wintersburg on fire for the Lord in missions, both locally and globally. We have been entrusted with so much, and I can only imagine what the Lord might do through us if we are willing to take steps of faith, embrace discomfort, and surrender our lives more fully to Him. Whether through going, sending, praying or supporting, may we be a church that responds with open hands and willing hearts, trusting that God will use our obedience to accomplish far more than we could ever plan or imagine for His glory and the good of the nations.