There are days when I wish my car had autopilot; I’ve driven the same roads so many times that my car should know the way. The scenery is unremarkable, and everything looks the same.

Sometimes, the subtle changes in our neighborhoods are hard to detect. But with MissionInsite, a web-based mission discovery tool, you can see the changing dynamics in the communities around your church. Every church in the conference has access to this tool at no charge.

Using Google Maps, you can search your town or city to discover what people need in your own backyard. Are there single parent households around you? Is the population of your community aging? Are new immigrants moving in? You can figure out the answers to all these questions and more with this tool.

You can test new ministry dreams out too. Before you start a daycare ministry, use MissionInsite to see how many households near your church have children that need daycare.

About two-thirds of West Virginia Conference churches are located on the map, login and see if yours is there. If it isn’t, adding your church is pretty straightforward. Just send us the street address (my email address is at the end of this column), or send us the coordinates (All you need is a GPS; it will give you the latitude and longitude of your church’s location). If you find that your church isn’t quite in the right location, give us a call and we can put it in the right spot.

We need your help to get the map right. And your community needs you to use this tool for your mission discovery possibilities. Special thanks to the folks at the United Methodist Foundation of West Virginia for funding the first year of our Missioninsite contract to make this tool available to every church in the conference!

Rev. Amy Shanholtzer is the director of evangelism and congregational development for the West Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church. Reach her at amyshanholtzer@gmail.com; or call her at 800-788-3746, ext. 26.