Work and Worship '12

As some of you may know I am have recently returned from an 11 day trip to New Mexico with a group from the church here in Baileyville.  While we were away we served a Native American church in Mescalero pastored by Bob Schut.  You can see his mission profile here.

We did a lot of very exciting things.  We climbed a mountain and a canyon, we worked with youth groups, we burned our mouths on spicy Mexican food, we drove around picking kids up in vans for church, we dug holes and filled them with poles, we dug up concrete and laid new concrete, we stuccoed windows, played 4-square, and we replaced a door.  But, my highlight of the week was our nightly devotional times.

During our nightly devotional times we studied the book of Colossians together.  We nearly finished--the only part we didn't cover was the final greetings section.  It was a great encouragement to see some of the older members of the church and the younger people of the church interacting with the Word together each day.  Every morning we had 1 hour that we spent in personal study during which time we read the passage 3 times and went through a study sheet that I had prepared in advance.  Then at night we discussed it together.  It was encouraging to see the fruit of the study and to see the young and the old growing together as the body of Christ.  In our time together we talked about some tough stuff and we had some time to laugh and all-in-all I thought it was a very beneficial Christ-exalting and God-glorifying experience.  

My recommendation to anyone who might consider a mission trip in the future is to make sure that you're carving significant time each day for individual and group study of the Word.  If you build the best building, and pave the biggest parking lot, and have the most fun, but don't grow in Christ you've not really accomplished all that much.  

We termed our trip a "Work and Worship Trip" instead of the typical "Mission Trip" designation.  I think we lived up the billing, praise the Lord!