Living As a Mission

I'm having a LOT of thoughts lately.

So many in fact, that I'm going to try and write some down. Hopefully others will feel encouraged, assured, challenged and surprised by what they might find here.

I used to live IN a mission. Not the Spanish missions that founded much of the west coast, but a homeless shelter mission. I have much to say about that - now is not the time.
After my years there, I became a youth pastor and excelled in leadership and experience. I was involved locally, regionally, nationally and, in some ways, even globally with helping to bring a message of reaching the lost and discipling the young into leaders who would do the same. You could say my days in the local church were days of living ON a mission. I was passionate, innovative, driven and often successful. I have much to say about that - now is not the time.

Years and years of prompting others to live outside of themselves and to reach their community brought much fruit - and often much opposition as well. It's not easy truly reaching broken people when you are so busy running church services. I have much to say about that - now is not the time.

About 7 months ago, I left it all behind.  I walked away from family, friends, a successful church ministry and deep, deep relationships that were everything I knew for the last 15 years. I moved 350 miles away and took the role as youth outreach director for the very same mission I used to live in.

It was just last week that something profound hit me. I was driving home from organizing a clothing closet for low-income students at a high school, thinking about a group of college students who spent their afternoon helping kids and teens in a homeless shelter do their homework, and smiling while pondering the blessing we received earlier that day of a 30 foot trailer to help with lodging at our summer camp, when suddenly I thought, This all seems so familiar. It feels like a day on one of our missions trips we used to do at church. The thought was then followed by, And so did yesterday, and the day before, and the day before, and the day before.

Then it hit me. Some of my FAVORITE times in my ministry at the local church were when we would minister OUTSIDE the church walls—on the streets of Seattle, at low-income apartment complexes, at a summer camp for at-risk kids. Don't get me wrong - I loved worshiping and preaching as well. But weren't those things always geared towards prompting people to go outside of where we worship and reach the lost and make disciples? It was when our group was DOING what we were PREACHING about, that it seemed to all make sense. Those were the times we were most ALIVE.

And now, I am living that every day - every. single. day.

My eyes are SO open. My heart is SO broken, yet SO joyful. My time is SO well spent. My spirit is SO full. Nothing about my life and ministry feels like a "trip" or a "project" or a "service." It truly feels like I am existing with a new clarity of what it means to BE the church. To BE the body of Christ.

I'm no longer living IN a mission, though my office is there. I'm no longer living ON a mission, though there are many trips and projects happening.

I have settled on the fact that I am now living AS a mission—the heart of Christ, no longer limited to a Sunday in a building, a weeklong experience, or a specific community of people, but rather, free to flow and be wherever hope is needed and lives are lost.

-Ryan Brown, Youth Outreach Director

You can help the heart of Christ flow freely and provide hope to children in need. Send a kid to camp this summer.