It really was a huge privilege for me to be involved with both the middle and high school services yesterday, doing the sendoff for the mission teams. HUGE. I only really do announcements and various stuff like that during the services, so to be able to do a little speaking during the high school service was an awesome honor.
For middle school, the sendoff was a little confused, but our middle school pastor just rolled with it, it was cool.
For high school, it worked out just like I had in mind. I got the idea from Origins, when we all prayed for the church planters that were there. We had the students going kneel in front, their friends could come up behind them and lay hands on them, and adult leaders (Dteam, program, staff, etc) would pray for one person individually, out loud at the same time. When everyone was done, Scott closed the whole sendoff in prayer, which was a really passionate prayer.
It was important to me to communicate the idea of mission versus missions. I wanted to make sure that everyone knew that it wasn't just about a group of kids going somewhere, rather it was about each person knowing that God wants them involved in the overall mission.
If mission trips and the idea of mission is an important value in our community, if we encourage and challenge students to step out a bit, to feel the pulse in their world by going into it intentionally for the Kingdom, we have to celebrate these opportunities, demonstrate that the Body is behind them, be excited with them as they go forth.
As I wrote before, I was pretty nervous about the speaking part. It didn't help that all these people showed up - my friend K was there, a few girls from the 03 class, and practically every person that Scott has on the teaching team. Talk about an audience.
No comments:
Post a Comment