I’m sitting in a motel room in Montgomery, Al. waiting to go to sleep before my trip to Panama tomorrow. Since I am retiring from full time youth pastoring, I started to wonder if this would be my last mission trip.
I think this might be my last mission trip of this kind. By this kind I mean a trip where all the kids do dramas, etc. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s a great introduction to missions, but I’d like to go deeper.
I’d like to arrange trips to a Yavapai Indian reservation, where my friend Russ serves as an official. I visited him once, with some students, and I wondered what it would be like to do more.
I’d like to serve veterans. I have no idea what that might look like, but it would be cool to host them at a retreat or something like that.
I’ve like to serve the LGBT community in some manner. To simply love on people, offer hope and meet needs.
I’d like to serve in the urban community in some way. Maybe doing a grocery service or letting students do handy man jobs.
I’d like to serve in all 50 states, doing something for people or cultures I’m not familiar with.
I guess mission has a new meaning for me. Mission isn’t a trip, it’s a lifestyle. I’d like every day to be a mission of service to someone or some group I don’t know or understand.
The purpose of every mission, to me, is to show off and grown in Christ’s love. I hope to bring some students with me on some of these trips, but some of these trips I think I’ll do for me.