Pastor Virgil Amundson and missionaries .

I had a great time this week at the Shell Lake Full Gospel Church Annual Missions Conference.

I have noticed that when local churches get a vision to do something for God, and then faithful and steadfastly walk out that vision, awesome things take place.

The church in Shell Lake is great example of this. For the last 24 years, the church has held an annual missions conference. Missionaries, pastors, and believers join together to pray, seek the Lord, and to help support missions around the world.

Last year was a time of great fear and financial stress in the US and around the world, but the conference raised 30 percent more than any previous years to take the Gospel to a lost and needy world. In fact the church invested about 1/2 million in missions in 2009. The amazing thing is that Shell Lake is a town of about 1,000 people.

Not only that, it was a great year of growth for the church, and more people received Christ in the church than in any year of their history. Their theme for the year was the cross of Christ.

The conference was a great inspiration to me.