Our group of 30 leaves tonight for our next missions trip, this time to Costa Rica. And we can’t wait!
On last year’s missions trip to Mexicali, I had a moment of clarity in a Port-O-Potty in the middle of the night. TMI? It was towards the end of an amazing week. Moments of quiet on any missions trip are rare. It’s all about serving and community. So I found myself in the john late at night reflecting on the week. I realized that one of the major callings in my life is to share the adventure of following Jesus with students. I wasn’t realizing it for the first time (that would be strange for a long-time youth pastor), it was more like getting back to the reason why I do this: providing opportunities and environments for students to experience Jesus. And then talking about the Gospel. My personal opinion is that this is most effectively accomplished by giving students the opportunity to step outside their regular routines by getting away. There’s something about getting away from the crazy schedules and pressing demands that allow all of us to see our lives and God a little bit more clearly.
It’s all about experiential learning
When students serve others outside their usual environment, it’s like a light switch flicks on. Everyone understands serving. I’ve never met anyone that denies the significance of serving others and giving back. However, many people, students included, don’t immediately connect this belief with the way God’s created us. He’s actually wired us to live in community and serve one another in love. We live out God’s love for us by extending his love to others in service. But often there’s not enough time back home to get in touch with this. Sure, there’s the occasional service project and ways that we can help around the house but often we learn these habits because we need mandatory community service hours for school or have a list of chores. Definitely not a bad way to learn good habits at all. We’ll have a chores list for our son when he’s older. But sometimes I feel like this is coming at it from the wrong way around.
True service is a response to God’s love
Missions trips are amazing experiences on so many levels because we get to serve alongside students and then process the experience while in the midst of it. We can ask: How did that feel? What did you experience? Where is God in all this? How could this experience affect the way you live back home? We’re able to help students get in touch with the way God loves them and the people they’re serving. When people experience God’s love in real and tangible ways, the only response is to serve…and service is worship.
Service IS Worship: Responding to all of who God is with all of who we are
Isaiah was known to rant a bit. But, man, they’re great rants. In Isaiah 1, he gives the nation of Israel a picture of what it means to worship the one, true God. And it had nothing to do with a great band, a slick presentation, or power point (or even propresenter). Isaiah’s picture of worship looks like, “Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.” Turns out, worship looks a lot like service. When students serve on a missions trip, they’re actually worshiping God even if they don’t realize it in the moment. We have the opportunity as youth leaders to connect the dots between the way God’s created us to serve others AND worship him. And we’re meant to do these things out of grateful response to his love for us.
According to Isaiah, true worship means:
…to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke. Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter– when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. “If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings. – Isaiah 58
Did you catch that? Worship is service, service is worship. It’s God’s way of revealing his Kingdom in our world and when we connect with that purpose we’re connecting with a very deep part of the way God’s created us.The result, or more precisely, God’s promise is restoration, healing, guidance, reconciliation, and peace. Service and worship are how God’s creation brings God’s Kingdom into the here and now.
This is the message we get to share with students as they serve! You’re not just making crafts with little kids or picking up trash or putting up drywall. You’re serving. Which means, you’re worshiping. A God-designed purpose for you.
I’m already so proud of our kids for taking the leap. I can’t wait to see how God works, they way he meets each and every one of them right where they are.
If all goes well with my cell phone connection, my next post will be from Costa Rica. Until then, thanks for praying…
January 16th, 2012 at 7:05 am
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