No material things?!

During my long car rides home from Salem to Blaine, I listen to a fairly wide selection of music.  Feeling really bored with all my current additions to my ipod, I decided to go back to the good old days.  You know, to see what the 14 or 16 year-old Jill liked to listen to.  I was listening to the song Good Life by Audio Adrenaline when I heard these lyrics:

            “What good would it be

            if you had everything

            but what you didn’t have

            was the only thing you need.”

Hmm.  I don’t recall the 14 year-old Jill making much of a connection with those lyrics.  In fact, I don’t remember the pre-teen me ever really hearing them.  But as I heard them as the current 22 year-old Jill that I am, I found new meaning. 

From the time I became a Christian to the age of 21, my idea of a mission trip was probably similar to most other people’s idea of a mission trip: building houses, making wells for villages to get clean water, and bringing shoes to children in Africa.  Right?  Maybe not completely right. 

Mission trips, in my mind, were about building and bringing people things… material things.  Giving people more comfort.  More material comfort.  Bringing people joy.  Material joy. 

When I was invited to take part in a mission trip this past summer, I was confused why Reign Ministries did not send out mission trips that built houses, brought clean water, and gave comfort to the hurting people of these foreign countries.  What kind of a mission trip was this?  No material things?!  Nope, no material things.  Reign Ministries goes out with a specific purpose: to bring people to Christ. 

What good would a house be if the people living in it never came to know salvation?  What good would clean water be without eternal life?  Doing acts of service like this is a great thing that makes a tremendous impact on the lives of those people, and can be a segue into sharing the gospel.  But the key is to keep the focus on the eternal. 

So maybe mission trips aren’t about building “things.”  Maybe mission trips actually have nothing to do with life on earth.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” Matthew 6:19-20. 

As I spent my summer preparing for the mission trip and going to dozens of villages in Costa Rica, my idea of a mission trip changed drastically.  Mission trips are about changing lives eternally, not about giving a material change.  It’s not bad to build houses for people who don’t have them, or give a couple of poor Costa Rican girls your candy, but the focus should be on the eternal.  Like the wise lyrics of Audio Adrenaline reminded me, what good is it to have everything but to not have the only thing you need?

So what about life back in the states?  A lot of people here have pretty much all they could ever want… what many of them lack is the only thing they really need.  We don’t have to worry about building houses for our neighbors who have 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, and beautiful backyards.  What we do have to worry about is the eternal.  “Missions” are everywhere.  People everywhere are missing the thing they really need.  You can be a missionary, too.  Build relationships with people, pray for them, share your eternal hope with them.  Help them find the one thing they really need.  

If you’re at all interested in Reign Ministries, I would encourage you to visit their site (and download an application for a mission trip!)  http://reignministries.org/