Students head to Panama City Beach for a different kind of mission

Approximately 500,000 college students are expected to spend their Spring Break at Panama City Beach this year, according to Dave Clayton, campus minister at Lipscomb.

"When we were thinking about this trip, we felt there was a real need to reach out to college students who were clearly searching for something, and spring break is typically one of those times of searching for students across the country," Clayton said.

The Lipscomb group has been meeting for 5 1/2 months to discuss what it means to live out the story of Christ and what that looks like in this day and age. They have spent time in Nashville attempting to develop relationships with people that are typically outside of the Lipscomb Community.

"The response has been great," Clayton said. "We have been able to develop many great friendships with people we meet around town. The friendships are a blessing to our lives as we get to know our new friends more and more. We are constantly reminded of how much God is already working in peoples lives, whether they have acknowledged that or not."

Clayton hopes that this experience is only the beginning for this group of students. While many mission trips are the climax of a person's experience, he looks at this more as learning a way of life.

"Through this experience and developing these friendships, I hope that each of the students participating begin to realize that this is a way of life. So, when they get back, not only will they continue to live out this story with people they meet, but that they will also live it out with the friends they already have," Clayton said. "The point of this mission is to redefine the bounds in which we do ministry. This idea of developing relationships and showing Christ's love to every person we meet is to be applied at every moment of our own lives, even if the situation we find ourselves in is slightly foreign to us. I hope that this trip is only the beginning."