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Showing and Telling the Gospel of Jesus’ love and life through
Short-term Mission Trips beyond Georgia.
By Rev. Gerald Demarest,
Guyton
Christian Church
 Each
local congregation exists to facilitate each member’s charge to be
fulfilling the Great Commission as they are growing in doing the Great
Commandment. To the extent that a Christian is progressively loving the
Lord with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength and their neighbor
as themselves. Likewise, a person cannot help but be revitalized in
their own Christian walk as they are involved in sharing the faith with
others.
The denominational vision of
congregational vitality also comes to fruition when the gospel is shared
“from our doorsteps to the ends of the earth”. The dynamics needed to
revitalize local congregations in supporting new church starts are
consistent with those that take place when a congregation focuses energy
and resources to ministry beyond themselves and their own setting
through short-term mission trips.
A by-product of involvement in
short-term mission trips is the eventual growth of the local
congregation. When persons seeking an active congregation discover a
church that has been involved in mission work, the person will realize
the church is probably healthy and are drawn by that evangelistic beacon
to join in God’s work in the world through that church. The impact on
the persons who make up the ambassadors of the sending congregation is
also life changing. Team members often come back and demonstrate
residual fervor in local congregational ministries. The people on the
team who helped to send or equip the ambassadors hear encouraging
reports that help them, the senders, realize they are vitally
involved in reaching others with God’s love.
How to go about doing short-term
mission trip? Our opportunity to join in with what God is doing
God’s world is to set the sails and expect the wind of the Spirit to
pull us in the direction and with the energy needed to accomplish the
journey. The role of the church leader is to cast the vision so the
people can catch the vision of what could be. Being sensitive to God is
not only the key, but is the fun of being in relationship with a dynamic
personal God on the journey with us, without whom the ministry could not
be done anyway.
What should be the mission behind the
trip? Once God has willing vessels to work through, God can show and
direct specific ministries based on the needs (obvious and otherwise)
among the people and giftings (both natural and supernatural) within the
ministry ambassador team and sending churches. What comes your way, what
are the networks that emerge that facilitate a mission opportunity, and
noticing how God could kneed together opportunities and possibilities is
a good approach to discerning a specific mission that becomes the core
of an outreach.
When to be involved in a short-term
mission trip? God works in the church and in people’s lives
seasonally. “To everything there is a season and a purpose under
heaven,” says Ecclesiastes, so perceiving those seasons is part of the
process. Being sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit while
projecting plans for ministry is the ongoing dynamic of discovering when
to engage in an outreach.
Where do we do short-term mission
trips? The answer is somewhere beyond where you live, i.e. Georgia.
“To the uttermost parts of the earth” look different to a person based
on where they live to begin with. Two keys to consider in the process
are to be aware of opportunities past and present, and to recognize a
God-given burden of a particular people group or location. The Disciples
of Christ have several opportunities for short-term mission trips that
can be discovered on the General church web page. A region-wide mission
trip led by a Guyton Christian Church team during the summer of 2005 is
a growing possibility.
Who is on a short-term mission team?
Those who God raises up and who will respond to be on a team are on a
mission outreach. Many make an outreach possible by under girding the
few who serve as the hands and feet on their behalf. The finger that
touches someone moves because of a long string of muscles up the arm
that makes the action possible. Both the finger and the muscles are
changed by the mutually beneficial experience of love between those from
here and those to whom they are sent. |
