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Youth Mission

Posted by Blake Wilkes on

In one week the youth will begin their mission trip. We aren’t going to some far off land or some exotic place. We aren’t headed across the country to another city or a rural setting. Nope, instead we are headed to where we are now, Portland. Our hometown where we go to school, work, play, and live. In one week Portland will be our mission field and I think it will prove to be a great one.
 
It may seem odd in some ways to take a week out of our lives and just stay where we are instead of going to serve somewhere else, but why leave when there is so much opportunity here? Don’t get me wrong, this is in no way saying we shouldn’t go out on missions to other places, because trust me, the way God is moving in the youth He is going to take us places. But, for our first mission trip together as the group we are now, our hometown is an amazing place to start. Portland has so much going on these days. Just take a walk downtown and try and count how many different cultures you bump into. The mission opportunity is ripe in our own backyard. To go out into the world and spread God’s word is a lot easier when the world has come to you. But… is it going to be easy?
 
We will be serving in many different ways and places and to many different people come next week, but where I think God is going to be working the most may not be when we serve a meal to the homeless, or when we are cleaning up a park, and it may not even be when we are handing out water and snow cones at Multnomah Days. I think it’s going to be in the relationships we have right here within the Ignite Student Ministry.
 
Back in college I had the opportunity to meet and hear author Greg Mortenson talk on his book Three Cups of Tea. The book chronicles his humanitarian efforts to a region of Afghanistan and Pakistan. But there was one thing he said that has always stuck with me. While he was over there he was invited to have a cup of tea with these people and he said, “The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger. The second time you take tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share a cup of tea, you become family.”

In one week, we, as Ignite Student Ministry will be taking up residency in the student center for four days. We will eat, work, live and grow together. In many ways we will be sharing three cups of tea with one another. It’s been my experience that there is no better way to really get to know someone, especially students, then to eat, laugh, work and live with one another especially when you are in cramped and close quarters. In many ways we will be a living snap shot of the early church in Acts 2. This is where I think God is going to work the most in the coming week.
 
Maybe I’m bragging a little bit, but the students up there in the student center…well, they have a unique fire burning within them for Christ. A fire that I think in this coming week is going to be burning that much brighter, that much stronger, and one that is going to take each one of those students to amazing places. I can’t wait to see where those places are!
 
There is something I need from all of you. PRAYER! These are your students Greater Portland Bible Church. Students that have grown up here, that have moved here, and who call this church their home. Now we are sending them out - so pray! Pray that God would continue to grow the fire with in them, pray that their bonds with one another would grow stronger, and pray that our students would continue to grow into the godly men and women that will someday be leading the church themselves when our time has passed. That is the day I can’t wait to see and the foundation for that day is being laid now. 

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