Southeastern and Judson Community Celebrate 2026 Global Missions Week
Mary Asta Mountain | February 16, 2026
At Southeastern Seminary, Global Missions Week embodies the heart of the institution and its mission to equip students to serve the church and fulfill the Great Commission. As students step into the busyness of the spring semester, this mission-focused week exists to reorient the community around what matters most: knowing God and making him known.
This year during Global Missions Week, February 9-13, a variety of guests joined students on campus. These included missionaries and church planters from across the world and representatives from the International Mission Board (IMB) and North American Mission Board (NAMB). These guests joined students in their classes, met with them over coffee, and shared more about their work at Go Lunches following chapel on Tuesday and Thursday.
The events of the week launched with a kick-off dinner Monday night. The next morning, before the sun had risen, members of the Southeastern community gathered for a prayer walk around campus to lift up missionaries around the world and pray for the advance of the gospel.
Later that day during chapel, students heard from Senior Professor of Evangelism and Missions Chuck Lawless as he preached on the importance of prayer from Ephesians 6 and Colossians 4.
“Who’s praying for those that we sent?” Lawless asked the crowd gathered in chapel. “I suspect that if we’re really honest, we talk more about praying for those that we send than we actually pray for them.”
I suspect that if we’re really honest, we talk more about praying for those that we send than we actually pray for them.
“All of us,” Lawless argued, “are under a mandate to pray for those that we send — and not wait until we hear they’re in trouble or they’re struggling or they’re under persecution.”
Prayer is not the only thing that matters, however. The heart of the one who is praying is in many ways just as important, 
Lawless expressed: “Prayer from ungodly, disobedient lips doesn’t go very far.”
Cautioned to pray for their sent ones and to do so in personal devotion to Christ, attendees left chapel energized to join in God’s mission through prayer.
Thursday’s chapel bookended the week’s Great Commission focus with a message from Josh Powell, lead pastor at Taylors First Baptist Church in Taylors, South Carolina.
Examining Acts 28:30-31, Powell reminded students and guests that “the advancement of the kingdom of God through the proclamation of the gospel of Christ Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit, cannot be stopped.”
“The work of the devil himself cannot stop the advancement of the gospel of Christ Jesus,” Powell declared. “Just as Jesus came, suffered, died, and rose again, we also know he will return for his people. … We know that means every tribe, tongue, nation, and people will be there, and nothing is going to stop the plan of God to gather us around the throne to worship him forever.”
The work of the devil himself cannot stop the advancement of the gospel of Christ Jesus.
Powell impressed on students the priority of joining in God’s mission with confidence that he will fulfill his promises to complete his mission.
As Global Missions Week neared its close, the Southeastern community gathered for an International Worship and Prayer Night, reflecting on the promises of God and the hope of Revelation 7:9, where all nations gather before the throne of God. This hope motivates not only what students study at Southeastern but also why they study at all.
As Southeastern moves into the rest of the spring semester and 2026, we pray that the Great Commission will continue to remain at the forefront of all that we say and do, motivating both our prayers and our actions. To learn more about Southeastern’s mission and events like Global Missions Week, visit thecgcs.org.