tomorrow morning, i catch a 6:20am flight (again i say, a flight with this departure time is clearly a result of the fall) to atlanta, through somewhere (denver? chicago?), for my last board meeting with adventures in missions (they’re actually located in gainsville, georgia, about 90 minutes northeast of atlanta).

when i was a part-time junior high pastor in wheaton, illinois, back in the middle ages, i was a regular attendee at the local youth ministry network meetings. but i was the only junior high guy who attended. at one meeting, we were talking about youth missions, and i stated that i’d been thinking about taking my junior highers on a missions trip. the strong and unanimous word back was that missions trips should be reserved for high school ministry — that it didn’t make sense to take young teens. it didn’t sit right with me, but i left it at that for the time.

a couple years later i was working in a church in omaha, and decided i just had to try something with junior highers. this was a time (like i said, the middle ages) when pretty much no one was taking young teens on missions trips. so i looked through our denominational church directory, and found a native american congregation in northern minnesota called the mokuum indian chapel. i called up the pastor, and the rest is history. we took a dozen kids that first year, and it was both fantastic and a total nightmare. planning all the aspects of a missions trip on my own, when i had no idea what i was doing… well, it’s a miracle i didn’t start a whole new level of agression between native americans and “the white man”. but it convinced me: young teens are especially ripe for missions trips, since their natural inclination (due to the massive amounts of change in their lives) is self-focus; and a missions experience forces their hand (and heart) to notice other needs, as well as to experience what it’s like to have god use them to meet someone else’s need.

i came home and stumbled on an article, in good ol’ youth worker journal, about junior highers and missions, by some guy named seth barnes (who was writing a youth ministry and missions column in the journal at that time). i called him up and we instantly connected. seth had just recently started an organization called adventures in missions, helping facilitate short-term missions trips for youth groups (over the years, AIM has greatly expanded their ministry, and really see themselves as a discipling ministry now, not merely a short-term sending agency). we planned a trip to reynosa, mexico, for the following summer, and seth himself led our trip. the following year, we took 60 junior highers to the same place, and opened the trip up to other churches in our denom. during this time, i landed on a handful of non-negotiables about young teen missions trips, like:

all that said, i’ve seen more long-term spiritual transformation take place in a compact period of time with middle schoolers on missions trips than anything else i’ve ever done in youth ministry.

so, back to my trip tomorrow. i have an obvious allegiance to AIM, and love for seth barnes, a visionary, brilliant, humble and godly leader who continues to blow me away. AIM is now hundreds of staff, with work in dozens of nations. i’ve been on their board for 5 years, which is the max (3 year term, with up to 2 one-year extensions). so this is my last meeting. my dad joined the board a couple years ago, and has brought his considerable expertise in fund development to AIM in a way that makes me really proud. plus it’s been fun to get to see my dad a couple or three times a year!

i fly home late saturday night, and will head straight from the airport to our junior high guys overnighter at my church. oh, and my 6th grade guys small group just kicked my butt with their talking and farting last night - i might try to send a few of them on a missions trip (that i would not be on!).