The Value of Pastor PLUS Trips
If a church wants to reach its full potential as a servant body obeying Christ’s Great Commission, it cannot do it without a pastor who has God’s mission in their heart. On the other hand, no church can ever do missions well if it is merely a passion of the pastor and this same fire does not burn in the hearts of other leaders and members in the church. The idea behind the pastor plus trip is to give the pastor and at least one other church leader a chance to see the needs in a specific mission field and then together lead their church to explore whether God wants them to invest their lives and resources in serving among those specific people.
So what might the pastor and church leader(s) learn and experience on these trips?
1. God is at work long before we get there
2. What it is like to talk with somebody who has NEVER heard of Jesus Christ
3. Believers and churches that act like the New Testament believers and churches did
4. Persecution and the grace to overcome
5. The tremendous need – often the need is so much greater than the needs present where we live
6. What other believers and churches and mission organizations are already there that we can join?
7. What kind of skills and resources are needed that we have in our church and/or we can mobilize from other churches and org and individuals
8. How people can be so different yet so alike
9. How much God loves everybody – he has no favorites
10. How blessed AND self indulgent we are compared to many in the world
11. True heroes and heroines of the faith that don’t even think they are anything special
12. The joys of travel – you thought a 3 hour flight was long??
13. What God might have in mind for your congregation in another part of the world
14. That being a part of God’s mission is not mainly about what we lose or sacrifice it is about the tremendous blessings we gain by serving
15. How other churches are involved – lessons and models both good and bad
16. New tastes
17. New smells
18. New practices
19. New friends
20. New fire in your soul
by Stan Parks