Recently, I got to work with our youth during one of their periodic Mission Danville projects. This latest effort involved assisting the U.S. Postal Service in the collection canned goods and other food items for God’s Storehouse. Several of our teens went out on the mail delivery routes on Saturday morning and helped pick up the donated goods that postal patrons had left out for their letter carriers. Then, Saturday afternoon, we all gathered at the main Post Office where our teens worked on the loading dock, assisting in organizing the food items as they came in from the various routes. All of the crates of food were then loaded onto big trucks for delivery to God’s Storehouse.
I wasn’t able to be there for the whole day, but I did get to join our youth for the afternoon effort. It was a good time of fellowship & ministry as we worked together for a great cause.I am so proud of our youth and the many things they do throughout our community. For example, did you know that some weeks ago, a group of our teenagers spent the day planting potatoes that later in the year will be harvested to help feed the hungry? And did you realize that a number of our teens (as well as adults) periodically assist with serving meals through the feeding ministry at Moffett Memorial Baptist Church? These are just a couple of recent examples of Mission Danville projects.
This whole effort is to encourage our young people to be more directly engaged in hands-on ministry right here in our local community. In other words, you don’t have to go around the world to do missions. But by the same token, doing missions at home does not exempt us from taking the love of Christ to other places. Mission opportunities are everywhere. And that’s an important lesson that I feel we are communicating to our youth. (And it’s certainly one that needs to be understood, embraced and practiced by Christians of all ages.)This year in particular, we are boldly moving out in missions on a variety of levels, paralleling the levels of missions Jesus talked about in the Great Commission when He said that we were to be His witnesses “in Jerusalem, in all of Judea, in Samaria, and to the uttermost part of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)
Our Mission Danville projects are an effort to minister right here in our own local "Jerusalem"—Danville and Pittsylvania County. But, beyond our local area, this summer our teens are taking a mission trip to Baltimore, Maryland. Baltimore represents for us both our “Judea” (beyond the borders of our immediate area, in the bigger context of our country at large) and our “Samaria” (ministering to people that are not necessarily that far away but are nonetheless
different from us). The Baltimore trip will be great. 23 teens & adults will be assisting a Southern Baptist church planter as part of our North American Mission Board’s PowerPlant ministry. But that’s not all our youth are doing! 46 youth & adults (including yours truly) are going to Thessaloniki, Greece as part of our International Mission Board’s WorldChangers ministry. There, our teens will be walking in the footsteps of the Apostle Paul, who first took the Gospel to the ancient city of Thessalonica in the First Century AD. Guess what? Twenty centuries 
later, there are still people in that city and region who need Christ. The Greece trip is a wonderful ministry opportunity. And Greece for us represents taking the Gospel to “the uttermost part of the earth.”As you can see, our youth group will be practicing Acts 1:8 in full in 2007. Although our youth ministry has an exceptional history of missions involvement, this without question will be the biggest collective effort we’ve ever made. In that regard, I want to give a special word of commendation to our Interim Youth Minister, Michael Ovack. Michael—a part-time staff member while also a full-time seminary student (as well as a full-time husband and dad)—has done a truly incredible job (with God’s help) of planning and preparing for all of these mission efforts. Thanks, Michael. I don’t know that anyone fully realizes the scope of all you have accomplished in a part-time role. Not many full-timers could have pulled this off.
Next time you think youth ministry is just about fun and games, come and check out what’s going on with our Mount Hermon youth. They have a growing heart for God, a growing heart for other people and a growing heart for the world. I’m really proud to be their pastor. And I can’t wait to see all that God is going to do in their lives this summer.
Please pray for them and especially for the two big trips they will be embarking upon in the coming weeks.
Pastor Danny
