What does a church do when 25 percent of the members decide to participate in a mission trip?
Beg God to make the trip effective and meaningful.
Temple Baptist Church, Ninety Six, averages about 100 people for Sunday morning services. Twenty-five people from the church – 25 percent of all church members – participated in a recent mission trip to Wattsburg, Penn. Participants ranged in ages from 13 to 75.
As a part of the South Carolina Baptist Convention’s Appalachian Regional Ministries partnership, the mission trip focused on assisting New Life Church, Wattsburg, in meeting a variety of needs. The Temple team prayerwalked, held a community outreach event in a city park, hosted a weekend camp for children and youth, and taught during Sunday morning services at New Life.
“The community is feeling the ripples from the outreach and the energizing of the church body at New Life,” said New Life’s pastor Andy Bartlett of the Temple team.
Bartlett says that New Life’s response to the work of the Temple team was unmatched in the years of the church, adding that visitors came to the church as a direct result of the community outreach and have continued to plug in to the church. The manager of the hotel where the Temple team stayed visited the church as a result of the group’s visit.
“The youth were fired up,” said Bartlett. “God was revealed and is moving in the hearts and minds of the youth. In 20 years, these young people will point to the week of July 24-27 as a turning point in their relationships with the Lord.
“We are now experiencing an outbreak of joy and service that has never occurred at New Life,” Bartlett continued.
Temple has seen God move among their team as well.
“Our church has definitely been impacted in a big way – the team building that took place was incredible. I have been doing trips for 20 years, and this was one of the best ever,” said Johnny McDaniel, pastor of Temple Baptist.
McDaniel says he hopes the fire that God sparked on the trip among team members does not stay in Pennsylvania, but translates back home, too.
“My prayer is that kind of servant attitude takes place here in Ninety Six also.”