Missions Internship: Thoughts and Lessons

Crossings

Now that I've caught you all up on Guatemala I'd like to share some thoughts I have and lessons I've learned during my internship with the Crossings Community Church Missions Department here in Oklahoma City.  It's been quite a summer!  In an earlier post I briefly described what I've been doing in my internship here, but I would like to elaborate a little more in this post.  Crossings really has some great things going on, and God is moving here!

One of the best things about this internship is being around such great leaders!  As part of the internship program, all the interns from various ministries have weekly meetings with leaders in each department of ministry in the church.  In these meetings, the church leaders explain what their ministry does, how they do it, and give us tips that they have learned from years of ministry.  The interns also all received teaching on self management, managing others, professionalism, studying the Bible, spiritual gifts, personality types, working with volunteers, etc.  And this isn't even counting what we do in our individual departments!  It's a lot to take in, and I'm still processing it all!  Good thing I took lots of notes.  The interns also got to sit in on a Ministry Staff meeting where we simply talked about the importance of spiritual discipline in ministry, the core aspects of this being Prayer, Bible Study, and Spiritual Direction: Interacting with "the flock."  In this meeting, we also shared prayer requests and prayed for each other.  I have gotten to go on a few coffee outings with the worship department and just soak up some wisdom from a few of their great leaders.  I've also had several great conversations with my boss, the missions pastor, sadly I didn't take notes during those.  I've been able to attend several mission trip prep meetings for a group going to Roatan, Honduras in October!  I just hope I can retain some of the things I've learned!  It's been a bit of an overload, but it's been great!

A few of the crazy 3rd grade boys

This summer I helped with Vacation Bible School in two different locations.  First, I led a group of 21 3rd grade boys for the VBS at the main campus of Crossings.  In total 1,150 children attended this VBS.  My job was to lead them to their different activities, sit with them and make sure they behaved during these activities, serve them snack, help them with crafts, and follow up on the lessons.  This was a crazy and exhausting week, but I really did enjoy the boys even when I felt like I was constantly telling them to stop misbehaving.  I got some hugs and even a gift card to sonic at the end, so I think they enjoyed it, too!  The teaching was great and a few of the boys had some really good comments and questions about it.  I hope I was able to help guide them closer to Jesus!

My group at Crossings Comunidad

The second VBS I helped with was with Crossings Comunidad, which is Crossing's Hispanic church.  This was very different from the VBS at the main campus.  This time I had a class of four-five 4-6 year olds.  This time I was a leader, taking them to their different activities, and a co-teacher, giving them their Bible lesson two out of the four days of VBS.  I was given a book that mostly just contained the Bible story for each day, so I got to plan visual aids, a few small games, an a couple crafts!  Overall there may have been about 50 kids.  Some spoke english, some spanish, and most were bilingual!  We had worship in both spanish and english, which I LOVED.  The kids were so sweet, and it was sad to have to say goodbye to them at the end of the week.

Some of the boys at sports camp
 found a frog

One of my buddies at sports
 camp

 On another week I helped at a Sports Camp that Crossings holds and two of their inner city partner schools in Oklahoma City.  I helped with sign-in and bracelet making, for those who either came to sports camp and didn't want to play sports or were tired of playing sports.  The kids either made bracelets with me or rotated from soccer, to kickball, to basketball, to other games like relay races and such.  After the third rotation we had a small Bible lesson to read to them before they played one more sport and went home.  A lot of the kids came from hard family situations.  With this group of kids there were many fights between them because they had to stand up for their sisters, brothers, or cousins.  You could insult these kids all you want, but you'd better not mess with their family!

One of the props we made

Get together at The Club

The things that kept me busiest in the office were planning for the Kids Bible Club, which is held for 2nd-5th grade kids at one of the inner city schools, and The Club, another Bible club for kids in 6th-11th grade that is held at Crossing's Community Center.  I've been going to meetings, looking up verses for the kids to memorize each month, finding fun ice-breaker games, organizing supplies, re-writing scripts, putting together editing weekly lesson plans, brainstorming for set ideas, among other things!  I'm pretty excited for these clubs to get going, but a little sad I won't be around to attend and help out during these clubs.  These kids are so blessed, and the missions staff and all their volunteers pour so much into these kids!  It's pretty incredible!  I got the chance to meet some of the kids from The Club last week.  We had a get together with them to catch up with them and to prepare some props for The Club! It was so fun!

Another project I've been a part of is writing a curriculum for missions education for the children's ministry at Crossings.  Every month in sunday school, the missions department takes over and teaches the kids about missions, how their church is involved in missions, and how they can be involved.  It's been fun coming up with a theme, Mission Possible, and planning fun ways to teach these kids about missions.  Each person from the curriculum writing team, including me, has been assigned 1-2 months to write the scripts for these missions weeks at sunday school.  Most of our meetings consist of the Mission Impossible theme song, invisible ink, cool sunglasses, things appearing on a zip-line to the stage, trench coats, secret agents, goofy bumper videos, Rumble the mascot of the Oklahoma City Thunder, local missions, global missions, interviews, and more!  Another instance where I get all excited about what's going to happen as I help plan for it, but I wont be around to actually see it.  I believe it will be a great year for missions education in children's ministry!

The times when I have down time in the office I spend updating my blog and reading When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, God's Love Letters to You by Dr. Larry Crabb, and Beyond the Pain by Jonathan Farrant.

I've also gotten to attend two work days at two of the inner city schools the Crossings is partnered with.  The first school work day I went to was at the beginning of my internship.  The team I was assigned to was in charge of landscaping.  We cut down TONS of dead trees and branches hanging over walkways, cleared weeds, and trimmed bushes.  There were other teams doing painting in the buildings and on the road.  A few of the students at the school helped as well.  This school is a high school, and a lot of the kids who attend have been kicked out of other schools, and this school is their last chance at getting through high school.  The kids and the Crossings team worked hard and got a lot done.  The second work day I went to was just yesterday at an elementary school.  At this school the main ministry comes in the form of teacher helpers.  Members of the congregation "adopt" a teacher and commit to praying for them and their class and coming to school twice a month.  These teachers have disclosed information to their teacher partners and asked for prayer for things they haven't told anyone else in the world.  Its such a great ministry!  But, yesterday what we did was help the teachers prepare for their first day of school, which was today!  I started the morning by helping the gym teacher write the names of each teacher in the school on basketballs, kickballs, and soccer balls.  Then I helped a teacher clean up her room, set out books, organize desks, and tape name tags to desks.  The teachers said that there was no way they could have been prepared for school if Crossings hadn't come to help.  They were so grateful.  After helping the teacher, I joined a group in the library folding flyers for the parents of the students to take home.  Most of the people who came for this work day were older, but they were so much fun!  While we folded the flyers we sang old sunday school choruses, made jokes, and had lots of laughs.  It was a great day!

I only have two more weeks here at Crossings.  It's gone by so fast!  Next weekend I will be attending the Willow Creek's Global Leadership Summit, which Crossings hosts through a live simulcast.  I'll most likely have a separate blog post about that!

As much as I've enjoyed my time here at Crossings, one of the things this internship has taught me is that I don't want to be a missions pastor.  The office experience was good, but not my calling.  There are a lot of hands on things to do, and a lot I didn't get to experience because it happens in the school year, but I don't want to have an office where I send emails and plan meetings while watching pictures of kids in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil as they come up on my picture slideshow background on my laptop.  I want to be there in those countries with those kids speaking spanish to them, teaching them about Jesus, rolling around in the dirt with them, taking care of them, sweating like crazy, taking cold showers, eating tacos, having people show up late to events, and doing ministry.  That's where I'm called.  I know it'll all happen in God's timing, but it's hard not to be impatient, and it's hard not to feel like I'm wasting my life sitting in an office or doing homework in my dorm room.  I could definitely use some prayer for patience!