The benefit of doing service projects in your home community

I’ll never forget that moment when one of my youth group students went around the house we were painting, a common short-term mission trip service project, and began to work on the west side wall. He came back quickly with a look his face like he had seen a huge lizard or snake.  He found me and quietly said, “You need to come see this.”

We went around the corner to the house wall and he pressed gently on the side saying, ‘This siding on the west wall is …. duct tape.” Surprised, I too pressed against it and felt multiple lays of duct tape stretched across the studs. Someone had added some roof top coating and then painted over it, but the paper-thin shield and the insulation behind it would hardly be an effective barrier in winter.

This experience of seeing a teenager encounter deep poverty for the first time might seem common to those who lead short-term mission trips.  What made this so significant (and shocking to the teen) was that it took place less than a mile from his house. Our group hadn’t traveled to another country or an abandoned neighborhood in some city.  We had hopped in a van for a 3-minute ride to what looked like a suburban setting much like the one my students lived in.  Except the realities for folks here were very different.

I sent the teen inside to just get to know the stories of the family members inside. I knew he needed to discover the realities of his community and perhaps participate more deeply with our church to find ways to help at home. The family were delightful people and their story of difficulties was heart-wrenching – full of serious and debilitating injuries and difficult circumstances. There was hope as one adult child had come back to assist, but at deep sacrifice to her own occupational aspirations.

Dave Livermore and I co-authored What Can We Do?, a book that prepares youth leaders for the way their worlds will change in the coming years and how they can navigate those changes. The communities where we lead in youth ministry are changing. Our youth are interacting with a global world now, their economic futures are shaped by a larger global market. Our communities are welcoming new youth every month who don’t share a similar heritage to the youth in our youth groups. And some of our teens come from homes that may have a west wall that needs siding instead of duct tape. We don’t often notice what’s going on… even in our own communities.

Dave and I wrote that on mission trips and service projeccts, we try to get our students talking with and learning from the people we’re visiting and serving. Three things happen:

We often learn a way of seeing the world that differs from our own. 
We observe the world’s issues, problems, and hopes first-hand. 
We can become more aware of how our culture shapes our own pursuit of faith.  

What if we could also with students in our home community.

Read through those three points again and imagine what they might learn.  Do they know how many people in your area live at the poverty line or below?  How many people have immigrated into your area in the last six months?  What is the economic future of the youth at your local high schools? What social divisions in your area exist and, based on the Gospels (i.e. tax collectors, Samaritans, lepers), how do they think Jesus would’ve navigated those with his disciples?

By its very origin, youth ministry as we know it to be currently, is missional.  Let’s not relegate that to a trip a year and walk around those who are hurting and in need in our own community.  It’s why I’m involved in a ministry to homeless families here in South Bend.  And, if you’re going to be at either of the National Youth Workers Conventions this fall in San Diego or Nashville, be sure to attend the Sunday 11 a.m. Theological forums, led by Andrew Root, where we’ll discuss “Short-Term Mission Trips, Youth Ministry, and Eschatology.”

I would love to hear stories from you of similar moments of discovery you’ve had within your own community. And it’s definitely worth considering how to get your students serving within your home community.

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