I went on my first mission trip when I was 12. Our church youth choir went to South Dakota to help with a new church plant (though I don’t think we called it that then). I loved the trip. I loved riding in the bus, hanging out with my friends for 2 weeks, being away from home, and just being with our youth group. I was 12. I wasn’t in love with the idea of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth, but my church was.

That was the first of 6 youth mission trips I went on while I was growing up and it set the stage for my love of mission work. As a pastor I always said I wasn’t called to be a vocational missionary but I was called to pastor a mission minded and mission active church. That all began when I was 12.

Mission trips transformed my life and I believe they transform the church. There is no better experience as a believer than to be in an unfamiliar place, doing unfamiliar things, eating unfamiliar food and being generally uncomfortable with everything around you for the sake of the gospel. It is in those moments you learn to trust the Lord and you see Him move through your life.