A sense of mission

When I first began at Word of Peace I had one goal, well I had many goals, but I really had one overarching goal for the ministry I was planning on doing in Rogers, MN, and that was creating a sense of service and mission. I have now been here for 4 and a half years and I think I am finally getting to the point where I can feel a little satisfied that I have accomplished my goal.

Last year we sent 51 youth and 9 adults on the first ever Word of Peace Student Ministries mission trip week. It was amazing and truly life changing for most of the youth that went. This next summer we are planning on going again, and I have already reserved the spots and are anxiously waiting the registrations to come in.

But for some reason this year seems a little strange, last year we accomplished so much and were focused solely on mission trips for what seemed like the entire year. This year we postponed the mission trip registration and chose our location and opened the registration a full 3 months later this year so as to not loose focus on the service we can do here, at home.

The question is...did it work? Have the youth of this congregation taken the experiences they had last summer and put them into practice in their daily lives? I'm not totally convinced yet?

I'm not entirely sure that youth know how to take what they have learned and put it into practice without a little bit of help. As a matter of fact I'm not sure how to give them the tools to do just that. How do you ingrain the the heads of youth today the idea of helping and serving wherever and whenever you can?

The idea of summer mission trips is awesome and I will continue to do them as long as there is a need for it, but I didn't set out to have one week out of the year devoted to service and the other 51 a wash! If I could turn that around and have 51 of the 52 weeks devoted to service with a week to recoup....that would be something!

But we must not forget that we have to start some where. For me it took almost four years of preparation and struggle to help youth understand that there is more out there than just doing things that benefit only number one. The idea of serving people you don't know is a noble cause and is something we should all do, but serving those you neglect every day, people like your friends and family, is even closer to what my goal for service is.

I am NOT going to plan 51 weeks of mission trips a year! I will however continue to encourage and diligently work towards having an equal understanding that we are called to love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and one of the best ways to show that is by serving those around us, whenever and wherever we are. That way we can see that loving and serving our neighbor doesn't take vans, chaperons, thousands of dollars, and some far of location. We leave so we can come back and do likewise.

Blessings,

dain