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With Campus Cross Walk
Written by: CampUs4 7/19/2010 8:55 AM
Fire in Their Bones By Ryan Bien It’s a June Tuesday afternoon, and I am driving a student LST team to the airport for their trip home after spending six weeks in Lima, Peru. One of the guys is enthusiastically talking my ear off about his future plans for going back to Peru next year. He is an art major who will graduate in a year, and he’s now dreaming of ways to combine his passion for teaching art with local ministry and regular short-term mission trips. “I wish I had gone on this trip earlier in college so I could have started all this sooner!” he says. I hear this all the time. As we ride together I offer bits of encouragement, but mostly I listen and smile, thinking, “He’s got it.” The it that I am referring to is fire in his bones—words from a well-known biblical text: His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed I cannot (Jeremiah 20:9). This scripture captures what happens to most students who go on Let’s Start Talking mission trips during their college years. Whatever their futures hold, those students now have a burning desire to continue sharing the Word and making a difference for the Kingdom. Sometimes people ask me why a campus ministry should invest the resources to send a group of students on short-term missions. Because I have the pleasure of spending the day with all the LST campus teams when they first return home, I can confidently assure you of their value in three important areas. First, the mission trip will change your students’ lives – seriously. I love watching students tell stories about their LST projects and knowing by the look in their eyes that God has used them in powerful ways that will shape the rest of their lives. This transformation often translates to more mission trips. But even if a student never goes overseas again, the student’s faith has grown. After LST experiences, students are more passionate about following Jesus and serving others in their own communities. Second, your campus ministry will be transformed as well! Occasionally, campus ministers tell me that they are so focused on developing their local ministry they just don’t see how they can add a foreign mission trip into the mix. Those words assume the two mission fields are mutually exclusive, but I can guarantee you that if you send a group of your students on a short-term mission trip, they will not only do amazing work overseas, but they will come back to your campus ministry with a desire to be more involved in your community, more equipped to share their faith, and better prepared for service and leadership roles in your ministry. Equally important is the tremendous impact the students’ work has on the people they serve overseas. Just as humanitarian aid, helping people practice English serves a significant felt need that millions of people around the world have. A man in Africa told LST that “English is the language of freedom.” Learning to speak English opens doors for education, jobs, and quality of life for families in need. Moreover, the conversations that LST students have introduce people to Jesus, people who otherwise might never hear His name. Your students form genuine friendships and then have conversations about faith and life throughout their trip. God then changes lives and brings people into an intimate relationship with Him through the seeds that the students plant. The long-term results are much more than we can imagine. The excited art major is just one of many students transformed by a short-term mission trip. This summer LST is sending 45 campus teams from 17 different universities. By serving people in need, these students are sharing Jesus and sharing themselves. These students will return to your campus ministry with fire in their bones. Isn’t this the goal of your campus ministry? Ryan Bien is Campus Team Developer with Let’s Start Talking and previously served in campus ministry at Pepperdine University. If you are interested in sending an LST team from your campus, go to www.LSTU.org or call 817-684-7578.
Fire in Their Bones
By Ryan Bien
It’s a June Tuesday afternoon, and I am driving a student LST team to the airport for their trip home after spending six weeks in Lima, Peru. One of the guys is enthusiastically talking my ear off about his future plans for going back to Peru next year. He is an art major who will graduate in a year, and he’s now dreaming of ways to combine his passion for teaching art with local ministry and regular short-term mission trips. “I wish I had gone on this trip earlier in college so I could have started all this sooner!” he says. I hear this all the time.
As we ride together I offer bits of encouragement, but mostly I listen and smile, thinking, “He’s got it.” The it that I am referring to is fire in his bones—words from a well-known biblical text:
His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed I cannot (Jeremiah 20:9).
This scripture captures what happens to most students who go on Let’s Start Talking mission trips during their college years. Whatever their futures hold, those students now have a burning desire to continue sharing the Word and making a difference for the Kingdom.
Sometimes people ask me why a campus ministry should invest the resources to send a group of students on short-term missions. Because I have the pleasure of spending the day with all the LST campus teams when they first return home, I can confidently assure you of their value in three important areas.
First, the mission trip will change your students’ lives – seriously. I love watching students tell stories about their LST projects and knowing by the look in their eyes that God has used them in powerful ways that will shape the rest of their lives. This transformation often translates to more mission trips. But even if a student never goes overseas again, the student’s faith has grown. After LST experiences, students are more passionate about following Jesus and serving others in their own communities.
Second, your campus ministry will be transformed as well! Occasionally, campus ministers tell me that they are so focused on developing their local ministry they just don’t see how they can add a foreign mission trip into the mix. Those words assume the two mission fields are mutually exclusive, but I can guarantee you that if you send a group of your students on a short-term mission trip, they will not only do amazing work overseas, but they will come back to your campus ministry with a desire to be more involved in your community, more equipped to share their faith, and better prepared for service and leadership roles in your ministry.
Equally important is the tremendous impact the students’ work has on the people they serve overseas. Just as humanitarian aid, helping people practice English serves a significant felt need that millions of people around the world have. A man in Africa told LST that “English is the language of freedom.” Learning to speak English opens doors for education, jobs, and quality of life for families in need.
Moreover, the conversations that LST students have introduce people to Jesus, people who otherwise might never hear His name. Your students form genuine friendships and then have conversations about faith and life throughout their trip. God then changes lives and brings people into an intimate relationship with Him through the seeds that the students plant. The long-term results are much more than we can imagine.
The excited art major is just one of many students transformed by a short-term mission trip. This summer LST is sending 45 campus teams from 17 different universities. By serving people in need, these students are sharing Jesus and sharing themselves. These students will return to your campus ministry with fire in their bones. Isn’t this the goal of your campus ministry?
Ryan Bien is Campus Team Developer with Let’s Start Talking and previously served in campus ministry at Pepperdine University. If you are interested in sending an LST team from your campus, go to www.LSTU.org or call 817-684-7578.
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