Serve Trip?

So for the past month or so, Blain and I, along with some other leaders at KeyStone, have been immersed in planning for our next high school serve trip to Chicago. That's where the thoughts for this blog started. And then last week, we had dinner with Joel, the director of Sunshine Gospel Ministries, and talked about what Sunshine is doing and what role he sees in short-term serve trips from the perspective of an established ministry. To top it off, we drove to Chicago last weekend to attend Sunshine's annual benefit dinner and got caught up on all that the ministry is doing. All of this "ministry" activity has kept the wheels in my head turning, thinking about why we do short-term serve trips and what the purpose of them really is.

Clearly, going to Chicago for a weekend and serving with several different ministries/organizations does not have any long-term impact on the people we are working with. So why go if we really don't make that much of a difference (if we really make a difference at all)? Well, here are my thoughts:

1. Group Bonding: There is a reason I put this at the top of the list -- it really happens! We have seen students come together like we never expected them to; students from different schools, different backgrounds, different levels of faith (and general maturity). The bonding happens through shared experiences, whether they be serious or hilarious, important or flippant, deep or surface-level. I cannot count the number of times when, even months after a serve trip, a student would say "Remember when..." and the "remember whens" would continue for minutes on end. In fact, our core group of students this past school year were the very students who came on our fall Chicago serve trip. Hmmmm....

2. Spiritual Growth: There is a theory in education which states that in order for real learning to happen, there has to be a struggle between what you already know and believe to be true and a new encounter which does not fit in. This struggle is basically re-arranging your schema (stuff you already know and have organized in your head); as you process the new information, you have to re-arrange, re-organize, and re-understand that schema in order to "make room" for the new information. This is what we see happening on serve trips. Students have already formed ideas of what they think about God, what they think "real life" looks like, and what they expect from the city (ie: Chicago). But when they get there, things are different from their original expectations -- they see a homeless woman who isn't high and isn't drunk... what now? Where's God? What's my response? They meet a man who is passionate about serving Christ through serving his community. Where's my passion? Where's Christ in me? They have to buy dinner with a measly $2. How do real people do this? How does my faith play into this? Real spiritual growth happens when we are confronted with experiences outside our "box"... when we are allowed to question, chew, and seek Jesus in a setting that is not part of our usual routine.

3. A change in students' perspectives: A weekend serve trip opens the students' eyes to a part of the city, both the challenges and the beauty, that they have never seen before. It plants seeds in their hearts and gets them thinking about longer-term possibilities where they live, as well as future possibilities. I know that both of these things were true for me; my first serve trip was to Chicago when I was a sophomore in high school. My eyes were opened to something I had never experienced before and I felt a new, deep pull to somehow serve in an urban setting. I followed this all through high school and college-- tutoring in an urban school here in Grand Rapids, taking more short-term serve trips, volunteering for an after-school program, and working summers at Sunshine's camp. Now that I'm "grown up", all of my teaching experiences have been in urban, at-risk schools, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. A student may or may not feel that pull (some call it a "calling") to serve in an urban, low-income setting, but the seeds have been planted for current and future service, donations, support and most importantly, understanding.

4. Supporting people who are "in the trenches": Ministries like Sunshine have been around a long time, and have built substantial relationships with the people who live in their communities. They are the ones making the long-term difference in these communities and bringing positive change through their consistent relationship-building. That's really what brings change in any ministry: consistent relationships (ah, we won't go there now... maybe another post...). So when we come in, our goal really is to support existing ministries without "getting in the way" or doing our own thing. The example Joel gave us was of a group that comes to Sunshine every summer. The high school students from this church group help run Sunshine's "Summer Blast" program by being the manpower behind the program, but Sunshine's staff is still leading the program and is the up-front "face" for the neighborhood kids that attend. Another goal for us along these lines is to develop a long-term relationship with a specific ministry in Chicago. It would be so cool to have a ministry say, "Oh yeah, we have that KeyStone group coming again this year. That means we'll be able to do ______________". That gives me goosebumps!

5. Learning about the community we serve in: This is more than just "learning" numbers and statistics. It is learning the name and story of the homeless woman you gave a granola bar to. It is learning the history, needs, and triumphs of a local ministry. It is learning how others worship the same Jesus in a style different than our own ("Amen! Hallelujah!"). It is learning about yourself through these experiences. It is learning that each statistical number has a name, a face, and a story. It is learning that there are huge needs... and huge hopes. It is learning something new about the God you thought you already knew through your experiences in the community. "I never really thought about homeless people"... "I didn't know there were so many runaway kids in Chicago"... "I didn't know Lou Malnati's Pizza gives their profit to Lawndale Church" "Wow, that guy had a lot of passion for Jesus; I've never seen anything like it!" These were comments we heard from students on our first trip... I'm looking forward to more in November!

And there you have it folks -- why we take these little trips across the pond. Now that it's down on paper, maybe it won't be rattling around inside my head anymore! :)

PS: Just in case you read my 1st post and wonder how that RAFT thing works... Here it is for this post:
Reason: to inform
Audience: interested church staff, parents of high-school students, and youth leaders
Format: blog
Topic: Why we take serve trips