So, my youth group is going on a missions trip to downtown Vancouver... When they first announced it, people started signing up immediately, but I was kind of 'meh' about it, so I didn't...
Now, here we are, 6 months closer to the date, and I'm still feeling 'meh' about it... (Good thing I'm not going! haha)
Wanna know why?
Because we live 30 minutes away from downtown Calgary...
Why do we feel the need to go, not that Vancouver is *that far*, away to do missions?
A couple weeks ago, my youth group went and served at a ministry downtown called the 'Jesus Loves You Society". Pretty much what we did, we helped serve a turkey dinner to families, we brought 50 presents that we had collected from the church community, we talked with the moms, played with the kids and then helped clean up and then went home...
Do you think we made a difference?
To the kids we gave christmas presents to, who possibly wouldn't have gotten much else that year... Do you think we made a difference? To the mom's who have a hard time providing for their families, and saw us playing with their kids... Do you think we made a difference?
I think we did, and I think we could make a bigger difference by going every week, getting to know the kids that go there all the time... Building relationships with those people.
And you know what? I think my youth group that goes to Vancouver this summer will make a difference there too.
If my youth group went downtown, to the JLYS or elsewhere, once a week for the next 10, 20 or even 30 years (By then we wouldn't be the same group, but it would still be a group of teens from Mckenzie Towne Church), would we completely fill the need in our city? Would every single homeless person have a home, every lonely person have a friend, every hungry person be fed, every unsaved person get to know Jesus?
Not by a long shot.
So why do we need to fund raise and spend hundreds of dollars to take 12 people to another city just like our own, to do exactly what we could do without spending that money?
The definition of the word 'missionary' is:
a person sent by a church into an area to carry on evangelism or other activities, as educational or hospital work.
Or: Someone sent on a mission.
They didn't say how far you had to go to be a missionary. What is the difference between 'going' to Vancouver and 'going' downtown Calgary? Or 'going' to your next door neighbour? Is one more noble than the other? Does one make a bigger difference?
And, just so everyone knows, I'm not saying that going 'away' for missions trips DOESN'T make a difference, I just think that we can have an impact at home, too...
Its just something I've been thinking a lot about lately... What do you think?
Jamie the Very Worst Missionary (Who occasionally swears on her blog, but is awesome anyway!! haha) wrote a couple of posts on short term missions and the sometimes negative of them... (Please read them! They are worth reading!)
Later this year she's going to write about the positive side of short term missions trips... I can't wait to read it!
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This is so thought provoking Cai. Thanks so much for sharing your heart!
ReplyDeleteI read those posts on Jamie's blog, and they are well worth the read. She has some good things to say, and so do you! Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
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