Mission Trip
This week as I sat in a meeting wherein a group was seeking funding for a Central American mission trip, a young adult responded to this question--
Do you intentionally mention Jesus at any point as you do your work?
Her answer stuck with me--
The truth is that the people with whom we work are more religious than we are!
Suddenly, a whole new dynamic manifested--whereas it used to be that Western missionaries took the gospel into the world, now the world is exposing Westerners to the gospel!
Most folks go on mission trips because it feels good to help someone else. It feels good building schools in a country where the lack of education feeds and fuels a maelstrom of poverty that crushes human beings. It feels good to take medical care to human beings suffering from diseases and ailments that we have pretty much rid ourselves of. It feels good to interact with someone else, showing them that they already have the ability to transform and transcend their world.
But we go having forgotten the core of why we go. This trip was going to be comprised of college students. The young adult making her pitch shared one of the first hurdles they hit as they seek to generate interest in their campus ministry--
We really can't use terms like ministry, or Christian, or faith because the students we are trying
to reach equate all of those terms with bigotry, judgmentalism, prejudice, and closed-
mindedness.
Here in Sacramento, the church has a bad rap. Jesus is admired--his followers, not so much. Hence, the power of a mission trip. The students go into the forest of Honduras and find people of faith, working together to change their world. They see a community trying to raise up the least of these among them. They see people sacrificing of themselves to make the whole community better. And then they see these people faithfully go to mass, sometimes every day. They hear the prayers offered. They see the sacrament shared. They also see others who have become part of a new Protestantism, something that often means diverging from family, neighbor, or community--something never to be taken lightly. They see what faith can be. They hear what embodied love Jesus taught. They see a difference being made.
Then, they come home.
What do they find?
Yes, we confessionally admit, they find all the things that turned them away from the church. Too many of us say things better left unsaid. But, having had their own prejudices challenged by a faithful community, they begin to look more deeply and find faithful people trying to do faithful work right here, right now.
But they need more nurture. They need more encouragement. They need a welcome home from folks who place compassion over right rules. They need to see a community committed to helping the Least of These along Folsom Boulevard. They need to see the radical hospitality of Jesus lived.
We need to ask a better question--
Have you brought Jesus home with you?
Do you intentionally mention Jesus at any point as you do your work?
Her answer stuck with me--
The truth is that the people with whom we work are more religious than we are!
Suddenly, a whole new dynamic manifested--whereas it used to be that Western missionaries took the gospel into the world, now the world is exposing Westerners to the gospel!
Most folks go on mission trips because it feels good to help someone else. It feels good building schools in a country where the lack of education feeds and fuels a maelstrom of poverty that crushes human beings. It feels good to take medical care to human beings suffering from diseases and ailments that we have pretty much rid ourselves of. It feels good to interact with someone else, showing them that they already have the ability to transform and transcend their world.
But we go having forgotten the core of why we go. This trip was going to be comprised of college students. The young adult making her pitch shared one of the first hurdles they hit as they seek to generate interest in their campus ministry--
We really can't use terms like ministry, or Christian, or faith because the students we are trying
to reach equate all of those terms with bigotry, judgmentalism, prejudice, and closed-
mindedness.
Here in Sacramento, the church has a bad rap. Jesus is admired--his followers, not so much. Hence, the power of a mission trip. The students go into the forest of Honduras and find people of faith, working together to change their world. They see a community trying to raise up the least of these among them. They see people sacrificing of themselves to make the whole community better. And then they see these people faithfully go to mass, sometimes every day. They hear the prayers offered. They see the sacrament shared. They also see others who have become part of a new Protestantism, something that often means diverging from family, neighbor, or community--something never to be taken lightly. They see what faith can be. They hear what embodied love Jesus taught. They see a difference being made.
Then, they come home.
What do they find?
Yes, we confessionally admit, they find all the things that turned them away from the church. Too many of us say things better left unsaid. But, having had their own prejudices challenged by a faithful community, they begin to look more deeply and find faithful people trying to do faithful work right here, right now.
But they need more nurture. They need more encouragement. They need a welcome home from folks who place compassion over right rules. They need to see a community committed to helping the Least of These along Folsom Boulevard. They need to see the radical hospitality of Jesus lived.
We need to ask a better question--
Have you brought Jesus home with you?
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