Take a second to zoom out from your daily view of life. If you step back, you may see your family, friends, and nearby neighbors. Step back again and the people at your work or school, church or clubs, may come into focus. Stepping back farther still, you might visualize people living in other parts of this country or around the world. 
 
As we look at our world in this way – locally, regionally, and globally – we can see that prayer is needed all around us. While you may already know how to pray for those closest to you, you might be unsure of how to pray for people who are farther away. Each month, Parkside Church publishes a Missions Prayer Calendar that features daily prayer requests from a Parkside-supported missionary or organization, as well as information about different countries throughout the world and how you can pray for the people there.
 
For one Parkside elder and his wife, using the monthly Mission Prayer Calendar helps them shape their prayers in a focused, specific, and meaningful way which gives them a great sense of partnership with Parkside’s missionaries and supported organizations. They realize that these are real people with real lives who have the same concerns and circumstances that we have. They just live in another part of the world. Keeping up with the Missions Prayer Calendar also helps them connect with our missionaries when they are home giving them topics of conversation based on the specific needs for which they have been praying. 

In asking how we can reach the world for Christ, Pastor Jeff Mills emphasizes that “by reading through the Bible, growing in relationship with Christ, and praying, we get to know Jesus better and better and can have as much impact [as those in the field] through our prayers, maybe even more because it’s [empowered] by the Holy Spirit.” 
 
As Parkside seeks to see unbelieving people become committed followers of Jesus Christ, we hope this monthly prayer calendar will be a useful tool to help you make an impact for the gospel. You may think that only those who have the desire and ability to travel to faraway places can become missionaries, but as Christians, we all have the same mission – “to make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19); and no matter where you are, you can reach the ends of the earth through your prayers.
 
The February Missions Prayer Calendar is available at all of the info racks throughout the building or online at parksidechurch.com/monthly-prayer-calendar.