We will be out of town for the next ten days with our high school students on a trip to Southern California. We want to help them grasp a practical understanding of ministering to others by spending a week hosting a Vacation Bible School for a small church that does not have the resources, but does have this need in their community. We had a great time last year and I am looking forward to what the Lord will teach us through this opportunity this year. I’ve spent the latter half of this week helping the students gather supplies and answering many parents’ last minute questions. Keeping busy with all this, I have not yet had time to pack anything for Bobby and myself! I know I can get to that tonight and thanks to the advice of a friend I’ve been keeping a list as I think of things we’ll need to bring. We trust that God will work in our hearts and hands on this trip to proclaim His name wherever we might be.

The idea of missions is often a misrepresented concept in churches today. Most people seem to think missions means a short term or extended trip to Mexico, overseas or a third-world country. In their minds this usually involves being stretched far in terms of comfort, diet and physical strength, completing tasks that only select believers should set out to accomplish. But each believer is called to be on God’s mission, living the good news wherever we are. Some people hear that we are going to Southern California they scratch their heads, wondering why we aren’t taking our students on a “real” missions trip. We don’t have to go out of the country, state or even your neighborhood, there are lost people all around us and they are our mission. We must be faithful to proclaim Christ at all times in our day to day walk of life, right where God has put us. This is not to say that the above descriptions do not sometimes characterize many missions trips, and there is nothing wrong with missions trips to far away places. It is a great thing to spread God’s word all over the world. However, we should not keep the idea of being a missionary in this stereotypical box because every one who is born again is a missionary of the work that Christ has done in us.

“You are a chosen generation,
a royal priesthood,
a holy nation,
His own special people,
that you may proclaim the praises of Him
who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”
1 Peter 2:9