In the world of karate, if a person attains to the level of the black belt, he is viewed by average people on the street has having attained the highest rank. They think the black belt is now the expert. Most people do not realize that, as one begins with a white belt and moves up through the other various belt colors, the attaining of a first degree black belt merely means he has now learned all of the fundamentals of the art. While he is now qualified to teach others, he must still continue to fine tune his skills and earn higher degrees of the black belt if he ever hopes to become a master or grand master of the art. To the grand master, the first degree black belt is now equipped to really learn, if he is willing to commit himself to the path before him.
If a young person begins with a Level 1 trip the summer after eighth grade and goes every summer after grades nine through twelve, most likely that person will have ministered on three Level 3 trips. With those and the Level 2 trip, he will have done evangelism in a cross-cultural context four times. Since no two Level 3 trips are the same, he will have experienced a variety of ways of doing evangelistic outreaches. He will have helped organize and execute VBS and outreach programs. He may have led Bible studies and even preached a sermon in a church through a translator. Most importantly, he will have seen God use him to lead others to Christ.
The summer missionary with Level 3 experience may have just finished his sophomore year of high school yet will have already ministered successfully at a level most adults have never been involved in. Such a 15 or 16-year-old has not only been trained how to do personal evangelism, not to mention the VBS and outreach programs, but has numerous hours of witnessing one-on-one to people and seeing some respond to that personal invitation to trust Christ.
This is only what they have done on the mission trips. Let us not forget the amount of personal Bible study and other reading the summer missionary does to prepare to serve. Time alone with God’s Word is crucial to discipleship. As can be seen from the listed preparation work in Chapter 5, one who has gone through three years of summer missions training has spent a lot of time in God’s Word.
We haven’t even talked about what ongoing ministry the summer missionaries had when they returned back to their Jerusalem. Youth summer missionaries were pointed back to their schools as their Jerusalem mission field. Some started once-a-week prayer groups at their schools. One year, one school had a daily prayer group meeting. Some got a Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter started at their school. Some started their own home Bible study with other youth. Some led in youth outreach events and were involved in the church-wide outreach ministries. Some were active personal witnesses to Christ in their schools. Some recent high school graduates started a campus ministry at the local junior college.
Get the picture? The summer mission discipleship program is not just about summer missions. An Acts 1:8 disciple ministers in Jerusalem as well as to the remotest parts of the world.
As a result of the youth reaching other youth, during a ten-year period, while the church worship service attendance increased by twenty percent, the high school youth group tripled in size (a 200% increase).
To apply the karate illustration to summer missions, I would say that after completing Level 3, the disciple may not be a black belt because he may not be ready to teach others. But he is at least a brown.
However, some are ready to teach others. Some are ready to go beyond Level 3.
Going Beyond In Poland
Piotr Wiazowski is an evangelist in Poland. After hearing about the multi-level summer mission discipleship program, he wanted to know if my young people could come to Poland and teach Polish youth how to do personal evangelism. He wanted my youth to take Polish youth on the streets and show them how to share their testimonies and the gospel. Piotr’s frustration was that communism had conditioned the adult Christians in Poland not to speak openly about Christ. Even though Poland was free from the yoke of communism, Christians still were not sharing their faith openly. Then the young Christians were now following the example of the adults.
Piotr pleaded, “We need young people who are bold with the gospel to show Polish young people how to reach their own people with the gospel. They need to see that God wants to use young people to reach Poland for Christ. Mike, you come!”
Piotr’s plan was to hold a ten-day “English and Evangelism” youth camp. He admitted learning more English from Americans would be the biggest draw, but once we had them at camp, we would train them in evangelism too. So, the team needed to be ready to teach English as well as evangelism. He also pointed out that “youth” in Poland meant anyone under thirty who was not married. The older our team members would be, the better for credibility in teaching the Polish youth.
This was a call to go beyond a Level 3 trip. Not only did I need people who had the confidence and ability to do personal evangelism, I also needed them to have the ability to teach, be a model to, and supervise others in evangelism training. Plus, they needed to be able to teach conversational English lessons. Since it would be in a camp atmosphere, there would also be morning and evening chapel times. The team would be responsible for those times of worship and teaching as well.
If you look back to the Summer Missions Smorgasbord in Chapters Two and Three, you will see that Levels 1 and 2 are Service/Ministry Trips and Level 3 is a Ministry Trip. The final three types of trips on the smorgasbord are beyond Level 3: Special Skills Trip; Missionary Training Trip; and, Walk In The Missionary’s Shoes Trip. This type of trip Piotr Wiazowski called for is a Special Skills Trip.
Obviously, I needed people with Level 3 experience. However, Level 3 experience alone would not automatically qualify them. They needed to be proven leaders as well. Each team member needed to be capable of the teaching responsibilities as well as leading the charge on the streets. Some also needed to be capable of leading praise and worship. Therefore, just having Level 3 experience alone might not be enough to qualify. Those chosen to go would have to have demonstrated the skills needed for this trip kind of trip. Thus the trip would be a Special Skills Trip, going beyond Level 3.
Along with my wife and I, there were twelve other high school and college students, from ages 15 to 23. Two of them, who started out at Level 2, only had two trips under their belts. Seven of them had three previous trips. One had four. One had five. Another had nine previous trips. It was a nice blend of experience, ministry skills, and age range to minister to the Polish youth.
The Polish “youth” that attended the camp were anywhere from 15 to 27 with 19 being the average age. We only had two on the team over 19. So most of the Polish youth were older than most of the American youth, which caused the Poles to be somewhat skeptical that the young Americans would teach them anything.
Intermediate level English lessons were taught in small groups, which helped build relationships and credibility before we introduced the evangelism lessons on the fourth day. Chapel times were always exciting as we sang songs in English some in Polish, and some with both languages being sung at the same time. “Amazing Grace” took on a whole new beauty as the multi-syllabic Polish words were sung simultaneously with our one and two syllable English words.
Because not all of the Poles were proficient in English, Piotr was the translator for the chapel messages. The biblical groundwork for the call to evangelism was presented in chapel before the individual training began. Like many evangelism training classes in churches across America, the Polish youth were quite attentive, cooperative, and would practice witnessing with each other. Little did they know that before the camp was completed, we were taking them out on the streets to do some real evangelism.
It was quite amusing, actually, when I announced at the end of the chapel message that we were through talking about evangelism in the camp. “Tomorrow, we are walking into town and talking to real people who need to hear the gospel.” I got the same response if you had announced that in you local church evangelism class. Mouths dropped open. People looked at each other like, “Is he serious?”
Once they realized I was quite serious, the closing small group prayer time for God to use each other the next day, was quite serious as well. I didn’t need to understand Polish to hear the anxiety and pleading before God for each other regarding the next day’s ministry.
Just as would be the case if the leader of your local church’s evangelism class made such an announcement, there were those in the camp that found ways to disappear after the walk to the little nearby town of Lwowek. Yet, the majority stayed the course. The first day out, the Americans would do the talking, having one of the English-speaking Polish youth translate. The main job for the Poles the first day was to observe the Americans and to be ready to join in any time they felt like it.
The out-of-the-classroom and on-the-job training format was the old tried and true training method of: You watch me do it. We do it together. I watch you do it.
Day 1 - The Poles watch the Americans do evangelism by engaging people in
conversation that would hopefully lead to the opportunity to share their testimonies and the gospel.
Day 2 – The Poles and Americans team together in the sharing of testimonies and
the gospel.
Day 3 – The Poles do all the talking with the Americans watching.
At least that was how we presented it to the group of first time-evangelists before we started. Experience has shown that most people, after watching how it goes a couple of times, realize it’s not that hard of a thing to do and are ready to step out in faith and try sharing. This is exactly what happened by the end of the first day out. In most of the teams, the Americans were no longer saying anything. They just prayed for their Polish brothers and sisters in Christ as they were being a public witness for Christ for the first time in their lives.
They didn’t have anyone ready to receive Christ that first day out. But that didn’t dampen their spirits. They still experienced God using them to be a witness for Him. The praise and prayer time in chapel that night took on a whole new air.
The second day, the Poles were more confident and ready to build upon what they learned yesterday. The Americans said very little. The Poles discovered many of the same objections and questions were repeatedly brought up by the people they talk to. With each witnessing situation, they sharpened their ability to respond to those objections and questions. Again, no one wanted to respond to the gospel. This was discouraging for some. The next day would be their last day on the streets. Prayer was more fervent that night in chapel.
The third day, the Poles pretty much forgot about the Americans. They didn’t need them any more. Since no one was translating the talks on the street into English, the Americans eventually moved away from the teams and let them continue witnessing on their own. For the Americans, it was a joy to see their Polish friends transformed over the course of a few days from having no idea how to witness to becoming bold witnesses for Christ. It was a joy to see that God had used them to equip others to be a witness.
It was also a thrill to see the excitement on the two Polish young ladies as they reported that one of the college students they witnessed to had trusted Christ as her Savior. “And she prayed right there in front of her friend who rejected the gospel!” Ah, they rejoiced with the angels in heaven.
When we returned to camp in the evening, we had a celebration dinner in place of chapel. I had noticed that the “old man” of the camp, a 27-year-old law student, came in late and was his usual grim-faced self. He never warmed up to the team and seemed to drag his feet on these treks to town to witness.
After the meal, there was a time of praise for all that they had experienced this week. It was a lot of fun and there was much to praise God for. When the grim-faced law student stood to speak, there was a little tension in the air as he obviously wrestled with what to say. His opening words didn’t help relief the tension any.
He spoke in English. “When I arrived at this camp and saw you young Americans were going to be the teachers, I wasn’t happy. I thought, ‘What can they teach me?’ And I know I haven’t been very friendly. Then, when Pastor Mike said we were going to do evangelism on the streets of Lwowek, I thought, ‘What a waste of time.’ As we went out each day, I thought, ‘It will do no good. No one will listen. People do not want to hear about Jesus.’”
This really had people shifting around uncomfortably. For, he was still as stone-faced as ever. He continued. “Today was our last day and I went to just get it over with.
I only talked to one man. He was about my age. He told me he has AIDS and he is getting on a train tonight to Warsaw to live in an AIDS care center until he dies. The whole afternoon we talked about life and about dying. So I talked to him about Jesus.”
At this point, he was still grim, but his eyes began to tear up. “He knew because of his sinful life he gotten AIDS and that he doesn’t deserve heaven. But I was able to share the good news that there is forgiveness in Christ. And that through Him, he can have a home in heaven waiting for him. And to my surprise, right there on the park bench, that man dying of AIDS prayed to receive forgiveness through Christ. He had tears in his eyes as he thanked me and said he had to go catch his train.”
Tears trickled down his own face now. “I was wrong. People will listen if we will just go out and talk to them about Jesus.” He purposefully looked around the room at the Americans. “I was wrong about you young Americans, too. Thank you for coming and teaching us how to be a witness for Jesus. Thank you for taking us out and showing us how to do it. When I leave this camp, I will keep talking to others about Jesus. Thank you for coming to Poland.” He sat back down, wiping his face.
Again, we rejoiced with the angels.
The Poland trip went beyond Level 3. Such trips are hard to come by. The typical summer mission organization does not offer trips like that. It is up to the team leader to create the trip from scratch. The leader must do all the coordinating with the host on the field to design the trip. This includes planning for ministry as well as the travel arrangements in-country and the accommodations for the team.
Since I have no “Beyond Level 3 Discipleship Goals, discipleship goals had to be defined for that special trip. Simply put, there was one primary discipleship goal: Train the disciple already trained and experienced in evangelism to be able to train and lead others in evangelism. The secondary goals would be similar to those of Level 3.
Since only a few team members would be involved in leading worship at chapel, it was not a team discipleship goal. While I did most of the chapel speaking, a few of our young men also took their turns at speaking. Thus, leading worship and speaking offered some additional ministry opportunities for some individuals to seize, which is Level 3’s first primary discipleship goal. Going beyond one level always assumes the disciple can still fulfill any lower level’s discipleship goals if the opportunity so presents itself on the field. Since the chapel ministry would be Level 3 type of ministry, it was not a primary goal for going beyond Level 3.
While we prepared well for teaching the English lessons, they had little to do with making a disciple. The English lessons, like sports, medical skills, and even construction work, were merely another tool to win credibility and/or open doors for ministry.
As with any of the lower level trips, the success of the discipleship effort depends greatly on the team leader’s commitment to do the work needed to accomplish the trip’s discipleship and ministry goals. Any trip, even the Poland trip, could easily slide into becoming a Youth Trip on the Summer Missions Smorgasbord. All the leader must do is give minimal attention to preparing the team to execute the ministry on the field and give greater attention to ways the team can have a fun-filled time at summer camp in Poland.
Going beyond Level 3 is not just a greater challenge and more work for the team members. It is also a much bigger work load for the team leader. Look at the Poland trip. Teaching a team how to do effective evangelism is already a challenge for most team leaders. It is a greater challenge to teach the team how to teach others in how to do effective evangelism. However, it still easier than it sounds when your team is made up of proven evangelists. The greater challenge for me was to track down intermediate English lessons and teach the team how to teach them.
Let me give another example of a trip that went beyond Level 3.
Going Beyond in Mexico
Some years ago, I agreed to be a project leader for a summer mission organization for a week in the mountains of Mexico. One of the stipulations for my agreeing to lead the project was that I could bring my own project leadership team with me. For you veteran summer mission leaders, you are probably familiar with the typical summer mission project leadership structure. There is one person whom is leading the project for the summer mission agency. This person may be a full-time staff member with the agency, a summer staff member, or just a volunteer summer mission veteran who is a pastor or some kind or a layman.
The project leader is the one who gives each of the summer teams their assigned work or ministries for the duration of the project. He is the liaison between the teams and the nationals the team will be working with. He is the master of ceremonies when all the groups are gathered together. He is the leader of the team leader meetings. He is the answer man to all questions and the fix-it man for all the problems.
Along with the project leader, there are usually some helpers assigned by the agency to the project as well. Different agencies give these helpers all kinds of names to identify them as a team of servants who are there to work behind the scenes to ensure a smooth project for the teams. They are usually high school or college age students who have volunteered for this duty through the agency.
The project leader may or may not be familiar with his helpers. The helpers may or may not have defined responsibilities. The helpers may be humble, excited servants of the Lord ready to do anything anyone asks of them. They just as easily could be arrogant brats puffed up with the little knowledge of summer missions that they have and the little power granted to them in their role on the project. They may be more interested in being comedians and flirts with the teams than they are in setting an example of how to serve on the field. They could be discouraged grumblers who are disappointed with the agency, the project leader, other helpers, their assigned role on the field, or life in general. Or, you could have a mixed bag of all of the above. Usually, you see the mixed bag.
The project leader has enough concerns with the church groups that are coming to the field without discovering once he arrives on the field that his “helpers” are a whole new set of challenges. If I, as a pastor whose summer mission ministry is committed to discipleship, was going to take time away from the church and tackle the challenge of being a project leader, I needed to utilize this ministry opportunity for further discipleship of those in our program.
There would be 65 people from six churches on the project. That meant we would oversee the ministry of six different teams with their own unique personalities, ministry experiences, and levels of spiritual maturity. The discipleship goal for this trip was simple: Give the disciples the opportunity to lead a summer mission project.
Yes, you are reading that correctly. The disciples would lead the project. My helpers were really going to be the leaders. I would train them to lead, and they would lead the project.
This was definitely beyond Level 3 ministry.
Six college students with three to five mission trips behind them were chosen to go with my wife and I to Mexico. I would still be the figurehead project leader and the master of ceremonies, but the leadership team would make it all work. I was the general in the war room. My wife was my advisor. (She nearly has as much summer missions experience as I do, leading many teams with me and some without me!) The six “helpers” were the officers on the field executing the campaign.
While leadership responsibilities tend to overlap, each college student was given a coordinating responsibility on the project. Each of the six teams would be serving in a different mountain village. The Ministry Coordinator planned out each team’s day-to-day schedule and communicated it to the team leaders and to the rest of the leadership team. The Construction Coordinator made sure the team leaders knew what to do, how to do it, and that they departed each day with the necessary materials and tools.
The Logistics Coordinator oversaw transportation of all the teams to and from their sights and was the “gopher” for lunches, water, and forgotten materials or tools. Logistics also oversaw the early morning lunch-making and evening clean-up crews that “volunteered” from the summer teams. The Evangelism Coordinator worked with teams to make sure they were prepared for their door-to-door evangelism. This was new for many team leaders. The Evangelism Coordinator would go out with them and show them the ropes.
The Vacation Bible School Coordinator met each night with the VBS leaders of each team to make sure they would be ready to go the next day. Often there is a lot of adjusting to conditions and circumstances that can fluster a VBS leader who has never been to the foreign mission field. During the days, the VBS Coordinator rotated around to each village’s VBS to encourage and assist if needed.
The Prayer Coordinator’s job is to keep prayer as a vital part of each team’s day. As task-oriented Americans, we can easily slide into trying to do the whole mission trip in our own power and according to our own will. We tend to forget summer mission ministry is spiritual warfare. Our own power is not sufficient. We also tend to forget that God may have a different plan for the team that what the leader planned. Prayer is not an optional activity on the mission field. The Prayer Coordinator rotated among teams not only to pray for team leaders and teams as a whole, but to suggest means to integrate prayer throughout the day. She then held the teams accountable to maintain prayer vigilance throughout each day. She also held the Project Leadership team to the same accountability. While mentioned last, the Prayer Coordinator was the most important role of the Project Leadership team.
All coordinators served double duty by assisting other coordinators. Logistics helped Construction. Prayer helped out Logistics and VBS. VBS helped out Evangelism. Everyone helped the Ministry Coordinator.
At the first team leaders meeting the first night of the project, the coordinators introduced themselves and the roles they would play. I then instructed the team leaders that if they had any problems during the week, they were to go first to the appropriate coordinator. If after meeting with the coordinator, the problem was not resolved, then they could come to me.
Since all of the coordinators were younger than the team leaders, this caused some raised eyebrows. A couple of leaders (youth pastors) offered polite challenges to this chain of command. I acknowledged they asked fair questions. For, if I were in their shoes, I would have the same concern, having seen project leaders’ helpers in action in the past. So I gave the backgrounds for each of the coordinators. Five had at least one year of Bible college. But what was more important was their missions experience.
Ministry Coordinator – Served in West Virginia and twice in Mexico.
Logistics and Construction Coordinators – Both had two previous Mexico trips and had just returned from ten days in Haiti only three days before coming on that trip. The Construction Coordinator had served in the mountains once before.
Evangelism Coordinator – Had three previous Mexico trips, one of which was right there in the mountains. He was also a leader on a team going to Canada later in the summer.
VBS Coordinator – Had served in Philadelphia, Mexico, and eight weeks in Brazil. The previous summer, he was a team leader for two months in Romania with a summer mission agency that specializes in extended youth trips.
Prayer Coordinator – Previously served in West Virginia, Mexico, six weeks in Switzerland, two months in Indonesia, and the previous summer was a “pre-teen” team leader for four weeks in Texas for a summer mission agency that specializes in extended youth trips.
“Paul had his Timothy.” I said. “These are my Timothys. Let us not look down upon their youth.”
That week in the mountains was the most demanding trip I had ever done. I still tip my hat to any who have served as project leaders. How did the Coordinators do? I never had a leader come to me because of an unresolved problem or complaint of them. I did have several ask how in the world did I get such students to minister and lead on this level.
The simple answer was: My summer missions program is a discipleship program to make an Acts 1:8 disciple.
The longer drawn out answer is this book.
When reading the coordinators backgrounds, you surely noticed a couple of them had longer trips than what a local church team typically takes. To go beyond Level 3, the disciples must eventually embark on longer trips that are beyond what the local church can provide. They must strike out on their own and go with organizations for trips of greater lengths of time in order to experience a whole new world of serving on the mission field.
The same year as the Poland trip, we had individuals take two-month-long trips to Mongolia, Japan, and Turkey. However, these are definitely beyond the scope of this chapter’s discussion. To continue down the road of making an Acts 1:8 disciple, the local church must keep looking beyond what they alone can do.
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