June 7-12, 2010 marked a new adventure for me and our student ministry.  We participated in PowerPlant, a mission trip experience put on by NAMB to help church plants and teach students about church planting.  It was the first time that I had been part of this ministry.  I had heard about this ministry before but not had any friends who had actually tried it out.  After much prayer, I felt led to take our group on this adventure.

Here are some thoughts that I had from this mission trip…

• Church planting is important. I had not heard a whole lot about church planting as a ministry of local churches.  The only churches that I knew of growing up that newly started were those that consisted of a group of people who were tired of the way things were going at one church and decided to start something new (that suited their own tastes).  What I seen in Indianapolis (and been seeing a lot more of in other areas) was amazing.  There is truly an understanding that no one church can be “all things to all people.”  We got to see churches working together as teams to reach entire cities instead of them competing with one another over the same 100 sheep.
• Church planting is not the only way to reach the world. I know that the emphasis of this week was the importance of church planting, but I was reminded that if the current established churches would step up and be what God desires them to be (Great Commission and Great Commandment focused people), then the need for new fellowships wouldn’t be as needed.  (Note: new fellowships are still needed, but in some areas they wouldn’t be if the current ones stepped up.)
• Students will shine when given the chance. Okay, I had known this already, but hadn’t had much of an opportunity with this group of students to see it happen.  I was blown away at how these students took the reigns and stepped out into unknown territory.  It was encouraging to see this generation of students step up to the plate and knock it out of the park.

The past two weeks have been crazy and non-stop.  We were blessed with the birth of our second child, Samuel Taylor Stephens, on Friday, June 4th.  Three days later, I boarded a van with 7 students and 2 other adults and headed to Indianapolis for PowerPlant Mission Trip.  If you’ve been in student ministry for any time, you know that there’s not a lot of sleep that goes into those trips.  I returned from the mission trip to a house with a newborn and the sleep schedule of that.  With all that said, it has been wild for the past two weeks but I wouldn’t trade it for the world!

I am going to look to put out some posts about some things that stood out to me from our mission trip to Indianapolis with PowerPlant.  It was an amazing trip.  God did many great things.

For those who are wondering, our second son (Samuel Taylor Stephens) was born on Friday, June 4, 2010 at 9:24am.  He was 6lbs 3oz and 19″ long.

This morning I got up at about 4am to get ready and take my wife to the airport for her 6am flight.  (Not something I would recommend after doing a youth worship service the night before.) I am excited for Naomi as she teams up with some ladies from our church and goes to Nebraska to help with a Bible conference for Native American women.  I know that God is going to do some incredible things in the lives of the Native American women and in the ladies from our church as well.  Naomi is super-excited because she will get to meet a young lady who she has been praying for for the past couple of months.

I ask that you pray for a few specific items:

• safety in travel
• safety for the team while in Nebraska
• those of the women who are not believers to find a living relationship with Jesus
• the team members from our local church be forever changed by the work that God does in and through them
• for God to receive a tremendous amount of glory through this