Pastor to Pastor: A Life-Changing Experience

By Wally Stephenson

In my 29 years as a pastor, I preached missions, prayed for missions, and promoted missions.

Then, in 1990 I went to Dominica.

I found the old adage to be true: you have to be there - to see, hear, smell, and feel a different culture - before missions really becomes part of you. That missions trip changed my ministry.

A year later I resigned from my church and went, first as a short-term, then later as a full-time, ABWE church-planting missionary.

Not every pastor who visits the mission field will go into full-time missions, of course, but missions trips are eye openers into the lives of missionaries and national workers. When Ondrej Franka, a church planter in Serbia, needed a building for his crowded church of 250 people, Pastor Stephen Todd challenged his people: "We've already prayed; we've given toward this project. Now, I think it's time we go."

Pastor Todd reflects on his 2002 and 2003 trips to help build this church in Backi Petrovac, Serbia: I was scared silly. I had no experience in carpentry. In my church, I'm in charge; on the trip, I was a grunt, a "go-fer." I just did what I was told, which included pounding 20,000 nails as we made trusses by hand. At home, I can handle things. I have talents, resources, and people I can contact when needed. In Serbia, I didn't have a clue what was going on.

Even when I preached, it was through an interpreter. He may have been preaching from Ephesians when I was in Romans for all I know. In a good church like mine, I am in a protected environment. I woke up to the fact that it is all about trusting God. Shouldn't our lives show that all the time? The trips changed my spiritual focus.

Missions trips allow pastors and their teams to share in their missionaries' daily lives. Letters and email come alive. Team members can picture where their missionaries live, what they do, where they get their food, and the people they live and work among. This broadens and changes both the pastor's and the church's prayer life.

Actually going on a missions trip helps a pastor understand the joys and the challenges his missionaries face. He is then better able to counsel and give advice as requested. He sees more clearly God's heart for the nations and becomes more active in spreading the Good News both locally and globally.