300 students head out on missions, including unique opportunities in the U.S.

Janel Shoun | 

 

“Mission work” usually means service done overseas in the public mind, and indeed, Lipscomb University will send the bulk of 300 students and 113 alumni, employees and friends to 12 nations during spring break the week of March 16. But at Lipscomb, missions means serving anyone in need, no matter where they are located. So, seven mission teams are also headed out to cities within the United States for spring break.

  
Siempre Familia Iglesia de Cristo in Fort Worth
 
One team headed to Fort Worth, Texas, will take on a unique evangelistic challenge: a Church of Christ trying to rebuild itself as an Iglesia de Cristo. Seven students and four alumni and staff will serve at Siempre Familia Iglesia de Cristo, a Church of Christ in Fort Worth’s Rosemont neighborhood, established just over two months ago to serve the Hispanic community.
 
The Rosemont church building.
The Rosemont classroom before Lipscomb students transform it with a Noah's Ark mural.
In 2008, the Rosemont Church of Christ recognized that the neighborhood around the church had become largely Hispanic and that its 60 aging members could not sustain the congregation. The members voted to disband the church and give the building (including a sanctuary that seats 900) to Continent of Great Cities, a Dallas-based organization that recruits and trains missionaries for Latin America.
 
The Rosemont church became the organization’s first domestic mission project, and two families were brought to Fort Worth to establish the new Hispanic church. They began holding family events and “preview” worship services in January. The exterior of the building has been renovated and the fellowship hall remodeled to become the new meeting place for the 100 or so people now attending.
 
On this first-time mission trip, the team will paint children’s classrooms, including stenciling Bible verses in English and Spanish and painting a colorful mural of Noah’s Ark, do volunteer work at a bilingual school, and host a community block party, to which 1,000 people are invited.
 
“We are hoping the people in the community will really take notice and that it gives a positive impression of the church,” said Nancy Gonzalez (’01), a Lipscomb alumna and one of the missionaries based at the Rosemont church.
 
Missions in our own back yard
 
While still in the States, this team and the others based in Miami, New York City, Atlanta, Panama City, East Tennessee and even Nashville, may feel like they have entered another country right here at home, said Mark Jent, assistant director of missions. “It is good for us all to realize that there are not just opportunities to serve in foreign countries, but that there are plenty of missional opportunities within our own borders as well,” he said.
 
Blitz Habitat Build in East Tennessee.
Kristopher Hatchell, student missions coordinator, said a growing emphasis on domestic missions has sparked somewhat from students’ growing interest in addressing social justice problems. In addition, it is valuable to have some less expensive missions options in the current economic climate, he said.
 
“These domestic efforts hopefully convey the message to our students that missions happens and is needed right here in our own backyard just as much, if not more, sometimes as compared to others we serve around the world,” Jent said.
 
Both near and far, hundreds of Lipscomb students feel called each year to participate in missions, including the new trips this year to the Caribbean island of Nevis; Ontario, Canada; and Fort Worth.
 
“I love the relationships you build, being able to get involved with people’s lives, even for just a week,” said April Easley, a Lipscomb junior who will be on the Fort Worth trip. “It’s a nice way to spend spring break. This will be a lot of fun, but fun that God has called us to do.”
 
Lauren Jones, a freshmen, lived in the nation of Panama for two years, so she was particularly excited to join the Fort Worth trip that will be heavily involved with the Hispanic community in the U.S. “That really called to my heart,” she said.
 
Last year, close to 600 students participated in missions trips throughout the 2007-08 school year, and numbers are on track to reach that number again this year, Jent said. Twelve trips are currently planned to visit 12 nations in summer 2009.
 
 
Fun with kids in El Salvador. Gardening on the island of St. Eustatius.