Not only is this my personal testimony of our mission trip to San Diego, CA…but this is also my thoughts about the 3 mission trips we took over the summer (we took about 85 students in all on mission). I wanted a strong wrap-up for our students to understand why did all of the mission trips, what all we accomplished, and how we can use them for our student ministry here locally. So I took a few extra minutes right after all of our students talked about their testimonies, and I challenged them from the book of Acts about how to be a church student ministry who is passionate about Christ, who is equipped with the gospel, and who is willing to live a radical life to reach the lost.
With every mission trip, we like to share testimonies on that next Sunday morning during our small group time. We ask all of our students to stay in our student building for that hour to hear all about what God did through the mission trip for the glory of Jesus. This was our big-advanced mission trip only offered to our juinors, seniors, and 2009 graduates who qualified. We share testimonies like this for several reasons. First of all, Revelation 12:11 says that Satan is overcome by the blood of Jesus Christ and by the word of the testimonies of believers. We encourage all of our students to share testimonies specifically about what was done for and through Jesus Christ. We want Satan to be constantly overcome in our student ministry! Secondly, we share testimonies so the other students can hear what God is doing to use and to change our students who went on the trips. We don’t want to leave the passion for missions on the trip, but we want to bring it home. We don’t want to be trip-missionaries, we want to be real missionaries who live for Jesus 24-7. So we do it to be held accountable, to spread the passion, and to equip our students to live for Jesus here at home. I hope you enjoy the mp3!
Jacob is one of our past CBSM students who has graduated out of the student ministry and is studying to be a youth pastor while at the University of Mobile. He is one of our student’s favorite guest speakers whenever he returns and is able to preach during our student worship service. This time, me and 18 of our students were out of town (along with Jacob’s parents) to San Diego, CA for a mission trip, so Jacob filled in and preached. It was also on the day before he left for a mission trip to Wales. Jacob understands how Scripture is in light of Christ and how to apply all of Scripture to daily life. I’d definitely encourage you to listen to his mp3.
I can remember my basketball coach looking up and down our line of players during practice, and the longer he waited the more my heart would thump in my chest. This was when I was a junior in high school, and so many players on our team were dead even except for the top four. Our coach would scan our lined-up team back and fourth for the fifth starter. At every single practice he would hang his head, breathe a deep sigh, and say, “Chip, I guess.” That was my nickname on the basketball team. Depressing!
1 Samuel 16 – 27 is one of the most popular known and preached stories in all the Bible: David and Goliath. I’m afraid that is hardly ever taught correctly, though. I hear it mostly in terms of overcoming the giants in your life, finding courage within you, the little boy who could, and how to face your giants. This story is not about being a David. Instead, this story is all about how we’re weak and scared and how much we need Jesus. Continue reading →
This was our relaxation and enjoying San Diego day. We shoved off from the hotel in our rentals at about 9am, and headed for Mission Beach. Mission Beach has the rollercoaster, man-made wave machine, boardwalk, rollerbladers, shops, and restaurants right on the beach. We were out there between 10am – 2pm just laying out, freezing to death in the Pacific, body-surfing, boogie-boarding, some surfed for real, shopped, ate, rode some rides, etc. It was such a rewarding day that we thank God for.
We then went back to the hotel, got cleaned up, and met our friend George Mitrovich (who we met on the plane) at El Indio: one of the most popular Mexican restaurants in San Diego. The owner was his friend, so he treated us to a free Mexican buffet style supper. Continue reading →
Thursday was considered as one of the best day of our lives for many of us. After going to the Powerplant Conference sessions on church planting, Thursday was going to be a strategy project to bring it all together. Since we knew the conference speakers well, I passed it by them and decided to do our own optional church planting strategy project at our hotel. So we slept a little later than normal, we ate a little breakfast, and about 10 of our students decided to take on this project as a challenge. I briefly walked them through my understanding of church planting, and then explained their project. By the way, the rest either just slept in or took the morning easy. The project was to define a biblical local church, identify who is truly a part of a local church, explain the purpose of their proposed church to plant, develop a mission statement for their church plant, and design a strategy for their proposed church plant. Their strategy was to include in what city their church would be, where their church would meet for worship, who would be the leaders of the church, who else would be on their planting team, what ministries would be within their church, what their church would be like culturally, etc. I was impressed. They did a great job working in teams of 3 to complete this project. I would so be a member in their churches. Continue reading →
If I was living in the 90′s, I’d say that Wednesday was totally wicked! Of course in the 90′s, wicked would be a good thing. We got up, got grub (breakfast), and got out by 9am. We went to one more confession session on church planting for our students which really hammered on who are the people in our lives right now that God has given us the opportunity to reach. Continue reading →
Tuesday has totally been the best so far. We got up, ate the so-s0 continental breakfast at the hotel, and got out by 9am again. We went to another PowerPlant conference session on church planting and evangelism for students.
We then went over to Sally’s for lunch. We’ve grown to love this woman, and her food is just redonkulous! Today she cooked us pork, mexican rice, beans, salsa, guacamole, and tortillas (flower and corn). We were so ready for a siesta after our fiesta.
We then went over to the park at about noon to start setting up for our Olympic Events which was our method to building relationships and presenting the gospel to the children of San Diego. Last year they had a high of 75 kids show up at the park to be a part of this event. Today was the first day of the even this year, and we had over 150! We broke the kids into 7 different teams (a kindergarten team – a 6th grade team). The teams competed in individual sports today like the 100 yard dash, the tennis ball throw, the long jump, etc. There were a couple small opportunities to share the gospel, but because of the extremely unchurched area, its very difficult to get into a full-gospel presentation when 95% of the city is completely unchurched (no knowledge of the gospel). So we started small, capitalized on our opportunities, and shared little bits and pieces when we could. We will expound more on the gospel as the days go by. Their team then fed us, and we went back to our hotel for just a few minutes.
We then drove our students out to Coronado Island which is an absolutely gorgeous drive passing over a huge bridge which gave us the ability to see the skyline of San Diego in the sunset (the drive out) and in the night (the drive back). Our students went nuts over the beach. They ran out of the car like little kids running up to grandma and grandpa’s house. Some of them got in, some of them drew in the sand, and all of them enjoyed just hanging out and taking pictures together. We then went to one of the little shops on the strip there, and everyone got some ice cream and hung out some more. We then headed back to the hotel where we prayed together for about a half hour, and then we sent them to bed.
Pray for tomorrow as we seek to learn more about having a heart for church planting and evangelism at the PowerPlant Conference.
Pray for tomorrow as we get deeper in the gospel with the Cali kids.
Pray for tomorrow as we hit the beach again, but this time with one of the church plant’s youth ministries. We want to be a blessing to them!
We had a super Monday. We slept in a little, ate breakfast, and left the hotel at 9am. We headed on over to Midway Baptist Church for the “Powerplant” conference for teenagers on church planting and evangelism. I love that our students have this opportunity to hear about church planting since we hardly ever talk about it or hear about it. My prayer is that God raises church planters out of our group, wives of church planters, individuals who will be willing to join a church plant someday and help them reach people for Christ. I want them to have a hear for their city and see Christ glorified in their city. We sat in two sessions taught by two church planting pastors in the San Diego area.
We then left and went to our lunch paradise. A lady in the church plant we’re working for is feeding us all week. She has this paradise-like backyard where we all just chill out and stuff our faces. She had baked chicken, rice, and beans. It was crazy delicious! Continue reading →
We had the honor on Sunday of leading the whole church service at the church plant we work with. I was really thankful that we got that opportunity as its something very special to be able to lead worship and preaching in a Sunday morning worship service for an entire local church. So our praise band and I left at about 8am to practice for the service this morning. This is definitely a church that thrives on prepartion. We got there and started practicing for the church service, then we went to their youth Sunday school, then prayed as a part of their prayer meeting, etc. The service then started at 10:30am with our praise band rocking out some serious worship tunes towards Christ. After about 3 songs, I got up and preached on what it means to be created in the image of God, how that image in us was affedcted by sin, and how we can be restored in the image of God specifically through Christ (Gen 1, Gen 3, Col 1, Col 3). Continue reading →
Chip Summer Missions Wrap-Up (mp3)
