Thinking into the unknown

I am in the midst of preparing to go on a pretty amazing mission trip this July 10-15 with my church and another church. We are going to Orting, WA (right below Seattle) to help a church plant reach their community. I didn't know a whole lot about Orting (in fact, I knew nothing) until we started this whole process, but Orting lies in a county that is considered to be one of the most "unchurched" counties in the United States.

Based on the information that we have gotten from the pastor of River Chase Church that we are partnering with, we will have our work cut out for us. We really don't know what to expect and we are pretty sure that the traditional view of church is a foreign idea out there.

As a result, we have been forced to think beyond what we know and even to venture into the unknown a little bit. During our brainstorming sessions in our training meetings, it's inevitable that our ideas will model what we know about how we worship and approach God, but we've been forced to think and dream beyond that. For instance, going to church and singing praise and worship songs are like breathing to many of us. However, the culture of Orting is unfamiliar with these things and the residents would look upon us almost as aliens with those kinds of concepts. Such questions as, "Where do you go to church?" are not going to really work there.

As part of our training, we've had to learn how to define our faith so that we understand exactly what we believe and then we've been trained on how to defend our faith. We do this not to pick fights or start arguments, but to honestly answer questions about our Jesus that we anticipate being asked once we engage these people in conversation. It's an exciting challenge - even a bit scary - but I am confident that God is going to use our people to engage a culture that up until now has been in the dark about who Jesus truly is.