What every man needs to know about missions
Will Rodes
You weren’t born just to pay bills, grow old, and die. You weren’t just born to get saved, live in suburbia, and die.
Life is supposed to be an adventure. There’s no adventure in your apartment, at least not one that Jesus is going to call you to.
What did Jesus call the disciples to do? He called them to lay down the familiar, what they did every day, to take a chance, travel somewhere new, and follow Him. It cost them money, it cost them time with friends and family, and it meant finding themselves in lots of unusual circumstances. What did they get in return? They got the adventure of a lifetime!
The Big Misconception About Mission Trips
In Acts 1:8, Jesus tells the believers, “... you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” This was clearly a directive to not sit stagnantly in the same place and wait for adventure to happen to them.
In today’s world, one of the biggest adventures a man can have is a mission trip. Going on a mission trip gives us the chance to step out of our day-to-day routine and into another culture — a place where it is often easier to hear God’s voice.
Going on a mission trip gives us the chance to step out of our day-to-day routine and into another culture — a place where it is often easier to hear God’s voice.
In Western societies, foreign mission trips have gotten a bad wrap among men. Just the phrase “mission trip” brings to mind ladies holding cute kids. While that does happen, and while mission trips are full of godly, good-looking (Genesis 1:27), single women, mission trips offer men so much more than an opportunity to play with kids or travel the world with attractive women.
An opportunity for adventure awaits — an adventure that feeds our souls and helps us understand why we were made.
You Were Made for Adventure
In the book Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul, John Eldredge writes: “Deep in his heart, every man longs for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue.”
As men, there’s something in mission trips that taps into that desire deep in our heart and satisfies the hunger we were created for. It might be using your hands to build something alongside other men. It might be trying new foods or learning a few words of another language. Maybe, it is riding on top of a safari van through the African bush looking for wild animals or riding motorbikes through the Cambodian countryside seeing how another part of the world lives.
At the end of the day, the difference between a mission trip and a foreign vacation is that a mission trip is an adventure God has called you to. Nothing tastes better than the adventure God has for you. And we can only experience it when we step out of our comfort zone and into the growth zone. That is where Jesus wants us to be.
Nothing tastes better than the adventure God has for you.
Before Jesus returned to heaven, His parting words to His followers were, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20).
We’re not called to be satisfied with the status quo of what the world deems OK. We’re not called to be passive viewers of the world, watching life pass by on a screen as we scroll from post to post. We are called to be men on a mission, learning from Jesus and sharing His message with the world.
Let’s not be a group of men that watches the days, weeks, and months tick down until it’s too late. Let’s grab the bull by the horns. I promise the ride will be worth it!
If you feel Jesus calling you on an adventure, then say yes and apply for a NewSpring mission trip today.