The following is part of CBF Global Missions coordinator Rob Nash’s remarks Thursday during the mission communities session of the CBF General Assembly. Check out the video about CBF’s eight mission communities or join the communities on Facebook.

Welcome! I’m Rob Nash, CBF’s Global Missions coordinator, and I want to welcome you to a time of collaboration and community as we consider together how to nurture and facilitate God’s mission in the world. God has put us here at a most interesting moment and gifted all of us in unique ways to respond to the challenges and opportunities that are ours.

I do not use the word “challenges” lightly. The challenges that we face are enormous — a billion people living on a dollar a day or less, 2 billion who have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, millions displaced as the result of terrific wars and genocide, a lack of adequate healthcare and nutrition globally, a significant portion of the world’s resources being consumed by a relatively small segment of the world’s population, huge natural and unnatural disasters ranging from tornadoes to earthquakes to tsunamis to nuclear disasters, a lack of adequate education in many parts of the world, and the significant global movement of refugees whose lives have been uprooted — just to name a few. I think it is safe to say that the challenges have never been greater…

… but neither have the opportunities and possibilities. Neither have the energies and passions of God’s people. The only question for us is “How do we do this well?” How do we ensure that our energies and passions are utilized in God’s kingdom to the greatest benefit of humanity? This is the question for our generation — the opportunities and possibilities are as endless as the challenges. What is God saying to us in such a day about how we work together to enable the kingdoms of this world to become the kingdom of our Lord.

We don’t have anything approaching the final answer. But we do want to ask you to consider something today. A new way of collaboration — an opportunity to sit at the table with each other in partnership together in a way that moves us beyond our own individual or church orbits and into the grand and sweeping vision of God for the world.