The Illinois District
Mission Field

Each red dot represents
1,000 people near a Nazarene church.

Each black dot represents
1,000 people not near a Nazarene church.

The Illinois District? A Mission Field? There are no… village kraals or grass huts piranhas or witchdoctors jungles or elephants But there are plenty of… unchurched people in urban and rural settings towns over 4,000 without a holiness church ethnic & racial groups: African American, Asian, Caucasian, Hispanic/Latin, Native American, etc. hard working, plain spoken, highly educated, culturally diverse people who know more about football than Jesus Christ The Church of the Nazarene on the Illinois mission field… has been active since our oldest church was organized in 1910 currently has 86 mission outposts and missionary pastors contributed over $10 million in 2007 toward having a mission presence in Illinois  So what are we going to do about the millions of souls on the Illinois mission field who do not normally attend church? Watch!    Jesus had compassion for people when He saw them.  We must have our Father’s eyes when it comes to seeing our broken world.  Our spiritual burden for people who do not know God will be increased if we can see them as Jesus does. Pray!   The Lord Jesus told His disciples, “Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest field.”  Prayer is work; meeting God in prayer takes time and energy.  Yet, nothing is done without prayer. Send!   The only reason Christianity has lasted is that people have been sent out to repeat the story of salvation.  When laity and clergy no longer share the Good News, the message dies.  Our passion is to reach people with the Gospel and prepare and send out messengers. Our Task:     To see ourselves as being sent on a mission – witnessing to the power and grace of God with the goal of persuading others to accept Jesus Christ as Lord.