Serving communities, one mission trip at a time

Houses of worship don’t let their ministry work stop at the front door. Many congregations reach outside their church walls to help people in need through mission trips across the region, nation and world, in addition to local efforts.

Area church leaders said youth and adult participants are able to experience new cultures and improve people’s lives through service projects during these journeys, while also sharing Christ with the native population.

“In Matthew 28, Jesus tells his disciples to go and make more disciples. We call that ‘the Great Commission,’” said Lisa Call, missions minister at Ingleside Baptist Church in Macon. “Knowing that we’re part of doing that and expanding the church and being obedient to God, there’s a lot of joy in that. It’s our privilege to go and be ambassadors of Christ. When we go to places where not as many people know about Jesus, that’s our goal, to tell others about him and the hope that he offers.”

The teams step outside their comfort zone and lend a hand wherever needed at their destinations. Leaders said they have ministered to communities, run vacation Bible schools, taught English, conducted spiritual surveys and prayer walks, repaired and constructed buildings, worked with the homeless, served at soup kitchens, stocked food pantries, cleaned up parks and more.

Ingleside Baptist

Ingleside Baptist Church goes on about 15 mission trips a year, sending teams to locations they have formed partnerships with through the North American Mission Board and International Mission Board. In 2015, 202 church members participated in national and international trips, Call said.

“We have partnerships based on where the greatest need is. We have a desire to go where the number of Christians is very small so we can help build the church,” she said.

They go to Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Peru, Haiti, Indonesia, China, Russia and Nepal nearly every year, with mainly adults on the overseas trips. Groups recently returned from Nepal, Israel and Canada, and trips to Brazil, Bulgaria and north Georgia are planned for this summer.

Middle school students have the opportunity to visit New Orleans each year, and the high-schoolers generally do one national and international excursion annually, with the 2016 trips being New York and Haiti. Most of Ingleside’s trips are seven to 10 days and have between four and eight participants, but the New Orleans trips sometimes draw as many as 30 youth and chaperones.

“We have kind of a culture of going on mission trips in our church,” Call said. “(Members) hear teams that come back and tell their stories, and they know it’s a very impactful thing.”

Lawrence Drive Baptist

Lawrence Drive Baptist Church plans at least two trips a year, but sometimes three or four, said Senior Pastor Brad Marchman. Its longest partnership is with Nehemiah Vision Ministries in Haiti, which runs a school, a church, a clinic and an orphanage. Members from the Macon church have traveled there about 16 times in the past six years to help with recovery efforts from the 2010 earthquake. About 17 members are going this July, with the majority being youth for this particular trip.

Teams have gone to Honduras for the past couple of years, where they minister to children at an orphanage and work on other vital projects. A trip is also being planned to Brno, Czech Republic, where Lawrence Drive’s former music minister is now a missionary.

“It just breaks your heart and it touches your heart to know there’s so much need in the world,” Marchman said. “It changes (the participant’s) perspective. This is what God has called us to do, whether it’s in Haiti or the Czech Republic or Macon.”

Attendees often tell Marchman that the experience was as much a blessing to them as it was to the residents of the area. They also realize that if God can use their gifts in places such as Haiti, he has a need for them locally and nationally as well. Special bonds are formed between the participants as they navigate new cultures and sometimes difficult conditions.

In the United States, Lawrence Drive just started financially supporting a new church in Los Angeles. Marchman said a group of adults will travel there in the fall, where they’ll reach out to neighborhoods and help with the church’s needs. The youth do a weeklong church camp with a mission focus each year and just went to Greenville, South Carolina.

Church members sometimes participate in mission trips with the Mid-State Baptist Association as well. The group’s multi-church teams often rebuild churches or provide assistance in areas where natural disasters have struck.

Perry Presbyterian

Assistant Pastor Glenn Jakes said mission trips are in the DNA of Perry Presbyterian Church. His church goes on a regional trip every summer and an international trip every other year, in addition to sending teams to help with natural disasters.

“Our missions ministry really grows out of the understanding that we’re supposed to be the hands and feet of Jesus,” Jakes said. “That’s the foundation and the motivation factor behind what we do.”

Overseas, members have been to Belize and Jamaica in recent years, and they’re in the planning stages for the 2017 trip. Nationally, they have traveled across Georgia and to Mississippi, North Carolina and West Virginia.

Every summer, students go on a weeklong “Soul 2 Soul” trip, where they assist other churches in building projects and children’s outreach programs. Twenty went north to Dalton earlier in June for this year’s trip. The youth also do short community projects in Perry and Warner Robins throughout the summer.

Most students will have been on eight to 10 local, regional and international mission trips by the time they graduate high school. By participating in these excursions at a young age, the youth can see themselves as part of the church today rather than tomorrow, Jakes said.

The goals of these mission experiences are to give church members the opportunity to minister to others, connect with people who they wouldn’t have the chance to otherwise, and see the church as a larger whole.

Northway Church

Northway Church in Macon was formed by Vineville Baptist in 1998 as a missions church, and that work has remained a major focus. The church’s partnerships take members on regional, national and international trips annually, said Connections Pastor Phil Anderson.

“(The mission trip) becomes such a catalyst for spiritual growth,” Anderson said. “When a person goes and puts themselves out there in a situation they’ve never faced before to do something for God, God has a way of just blessing that effort and that ministry, and God does something totally unexpected. The individual comes back changed as a result.”

In mid-June each year, teams stop in Rabun Gap for a week to lead vacation Bible school at small country churches and reach out to the surrounding communities. Attendees are upcoming ninth-graders and older, and since the trip is close to home, it’s good training for other mission experiences, Anderson said.

Members have been going to Haiti once or twice a year for the past five years to provide medical care and to do construction work. The missionary they connect with there is a Mercer University graduate and former Northway member who started his own mission after the 2010 earthquake.

The church also has a new partnership with a church in Arkansas and will return for the second mission trip this July.

“When you go and serve somebody, whether it’s working on their house or giving them food, it’s earning the right to be heard so then they are more willing to listen to the message that we want to share, which is the salvation that comes through Jesus Christ,” Anderson said.

Mount Calvary Lutheran

Members of Mount Calvary Lutheran Church in Warner Robins have been to Nicaragua, Ecuador and Honduras in the past, and a small group will journey to Ponce, Puerto Rico, this October to help with a couple’s new mission there, Pastor David Brighton said. While most of the participants for Honduras were youth, mostly adults have attended the other international trips.

Teams have been to Biloxi, Mississippi, several times since Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. The church that Mount Calvary partners with is led by Pastor Eric Hollar, who was once a student intern under Brighton. While the Biloxi church wasn’t hit by the storm, it provided assistance to the community, and Mount Calvary’s team helped repair Hollar’s damaged home.

“This is what we’re all about: connecting people through Jesus, to one another and to serve the world. As we trust in him, we’re part of his family. We just follow Jesus’ example,” Brighton said.

The church’s youth group trips operate on a three-year rotation, with weeklong national mission trips for two years and a national Lutheran youth gathering the third. Brighton said they have been to Jacksonville, Cincinnati and Nashville, where they slept on church floors at night and headed out to do service projects in the morning. Fifteen to 20 students in eighth through 12th grades normally attend the mission trips, and 27 are signed up for the youth gathering this summer.

“The purpose each time is to give our youth an opportunity to see the importance of serving others,” Brighton said. “We want them to know Jesus and trust in him as their savior and live as his disciples in the world. These mission trips help them to really get a sampling of that.”

Covering the costs

Participants mostly pay their own way for mission trips, which can cost more than $1,000 if they’re abroad, but some financial assistance is available. Call said participants at Ingleside are encouraged to ask for donations from family and friends, and scholarships are offered to first-time mission trip attendees.

Marchman said Lawrence Drive members can donate to the Mission Impact Fund, which helps supplement some of their trips. They have hosted dinner theaters and silent auctions to raise money as well. Mount Calvary has hosted fundraisers such as Easter breakfasts and sandwich sales for Super Bowl Sunday to help youth with their trip costs, and members will sponsor them, Brighton said.

Jakes said Perry Presbyterian’s congregants often financially support those who want to attend but have limited incomes. Northway Church tries to include mission trip scholarship funds in their budget, so that a portion of the cost is covered, Anderson said.

This story was originally published June 23, 2016 at 4:29 PM with the headline "Serving communities, one mission trip at a time."