Final Thoughts about Charleston

A couple of days have passed since the High School Mission Team that went to Charleston returned. I have continued to pray through and think about what kind of impact the trip had on our students and the residents of North Charleston. The week was filled with ministry to young and old alike. We did a block party the first evening that has already spread some seeds for ministry. The young woman, Sarah, who owns a Jump Castle business was really excited to know that a group from Georgia was coming to Charleston to do ministry. God had already been working in her heart to give her a desire to use her business to go in and help minister to people living in multi-housing communities like Horizon Village. She and I talked for 30 minutes on the phone about the possibilities and what a ministry like that might look like. She also talked to Charleston Outreach, the organization that was helping us about the future of ministry for Sarah’s jump castle business. I look forward to hearing reports from Charleston Outreach.

In addition to that new prospect of ministry I cannot get over the way I saw God working in the lives of our students, not just with the mission work but with each other. Many of them were stretched to love each other in new ways despite being tired, individual sin, and the stress of focusing on ministering as a unified group. They saw firsthand the gospel at work not necessarily in the lives at Horizon Village but in their own lives and in each others. Any time you have a small group that goes on a trip you have the potential for tempers to rise and for tension to be thick but it is during these unloveable moments in our lives that we truly embody the gospel of grace, as we love others “even while they are yet sinners” just as Christ does. Watching them as a group huddled in a hotel room serve one another communion was overwhelming. To me that was a perfect picture of how the body of Christ, the church, should be at all times, humble, servant minded, having the “mind of Christ dwell richly in you.” I simply cannot shake the fact that this may be the greatest lesson our group learned last week. Thanks for all your prayers and encouragement