I don't know Ed

While reading an article that leads me to believe that he's a conservative SBC individual I read these words:

...missional churches seek to engage their immediate cultures as well as the ethne of the world. Giving to missions or going on short-term mission trips—as important as these are—do not fulfill our missional calling, nor does focusing exclusively on the church and its community while ignoring the rest of the world.

-Ed Stetzer

I don't know Ed... but I believe he has identified a central truth of what it means to follow Jesus. The Church, indeed each follower, needs to find and maintain the balance between local and global missions that God has called her/him to. To value and serve one at the expense of the other is to misunderstand the Heart of God. To value and serve neither is to misrepresent God's heart entirely.