Growth and Transformation through Mission

It is hard to believe that it has been eight months since Karl and I left home to embark on this year of mission in Belfast.  These past eight months have been filled with moments, happy and sad, exciting and boring, comfortable and uncomfortable, which have strengthened my faith, helped me to grow as an individual and helped me to build relationships which I will forever cherish. 

Some of these moments, the ones freshest in my memory, took place on a Whitehouse Youth mission trip.  Over Easter, I went on a mission trip with our youth group to Tremont, Illinois - a town in the states which I would never have imagined myself being in.  Never the less, the mission trip was a wonderful experience!  For ten days, I lived in community with eight youth and three youth leaders from Belfast and three young children and two youth leaders (the parents of the three children) from the United States.  By living in community, we learned how to serve one another through preparing, serving and cleaning up meals together, we gained patience as we shared two showers among the group, we learned how to go without when the hot water ran out after the first six showers, we learned to love and care for one another when we were missing home, and most importantly we used all the time we spent together to bond as brothers and sisters in Christ’s family. 

If any of you reading this have ever been part of a youth mission trip (either as a youth or a leader), you will probably agree with me in saying that the change and transformation that can happen as individuals and a youth group is amazing during a mission trip.  There is something to be said for taking a group of youth to an environment different from their home in order to allow for true growth.  Our trip was filled with awfully busy days topped off with meaningful, late night devotions.  During the course of the trip, we went Easter Caroling, prepared a Seder Meal, helped at a local food pantry, visited a women’s correctional home, cooked scones for senior citizens, took part in the local churches’ youth programs and cooked an Ulster Fry for the community…that is just the community involvement side of the trip.  We played really hard too!  We took in a baseball game, went shopping at Bass Pro Shop, had play days at the farm, visited the Abraham Lincoln Museum…the list goes on, but you get the idea.  I was extremely tired by the end of each day, but went to bed smiling about that day’s events and looking forward to tomorrow’s.  During the trip I witnessed great transformations as our eight youth grew closer to one another, served with willing hands and hearts, gained patience, explored their faith in a deeper sense than ever before and developed into young disciples. 

Not only did the youth grow and learn about themselves on the trip, I too experienced growth and learned a thing or two. A couple of days into the trip, one of the youth from Tremont loaned us his guitar for use at the cabin (our accommodation for the trip). I have been learning how to play guitar during this year, but lack the confidence to play and sing in front of people (ask Karl, I rarely play for him!). One of the other leaders on the trip is learning how to play guitar too, so he wanted to work together and try to learn some songs to play with the kids. Not long into messing around with a few songs, I found the courage to play and sing in front of the group. Another growing moment of the trip was learning how to not be in control of every situation and be OK with it. The nature of mission trips is that you have an itinerary, and the itinerary will always change – the schedule was completely out of my hands, and I had to just roll with it. Lastly, a joy of working with youth is that they are filled with contagious energy and just love to have fun. For the 10 days we were away, I had the opportunity to let my guard down and to just have fun with the group! I came home from the trip refreshed and re-energized to work with others in the church to continue nurturing our youth into disciples for the church.

Hay Ride at Farm



Clay Pigeon Shooting at Farm

Baking Scones

Lunch at Bass Pro Shop

Helping at Food Pantry

Campfire Devotion

Abraham Lincoln Museum

Mission/Nurturing Disciples

According to Google's dictionary, the word mission is defined as:

1. An important assignment carried out for political, religious, or commercial purposes, typically involving travel.
2. A group of people taking part in such an assignment

But what does mission look like?  What is classified as an important assignment?  Who is meant to take part in such assignments? 

Let's look at The Great Commission in Matthew 28:16-20. 

¹⁶ Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.

¹⁷ When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.

¹⁸ Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

Jesus tells his disciples to to go out and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey everything He has commanded.  So, if Jesus wants his to disciples to go make disciples of others, then must these new disciples go out and teach as well? 

I believe that we are all called to mission of some form.  Mission can be physical work, like building homes or installing water and electrical systems for underdeveloped countries, or it can be evangelizing to groups who have not yet heard the message of Jesus Christ.  But it can also be working in your local community to make a beautiful place for others to live in.  I like the definition of mission which I read on the Diocese of Salisbury's web page, “Nurturing disciples in order to build the church and change the world.”  This is exactly what I think mission is.  It doesn't necessarily have to be building something with your hands, getting dirty, or going to a totally foreign country which doesn't have indoor plumbing.  Mission is about nurturing our mind, bodies and spirits in order to further God's kingdom on Earth! 

Tomorrow morning, I will be leaving with 8 youth and 3 other leaders from Whitehouse Presbyterian to go on a mission trip to Tremont, Illinois.  This trip isn't the typical mission trip you hear of church groups taking in which the focus of the trip is hard physical work or community service.  The focus of our trip is nurturing the youth, as well as the leaders, and growing in our faith as we engage in conversations about our beliefs with people of a different culture.  (Not quite a different culture for me, but for the mission team!)  We aren't doing mission work which produces tangible fruit or results, but just as important we are doing mission work which produces fruit of the spirit and forms us into disciples to build God's church and change the world.