That Lasts For Eternity
She told me it was about students.
Jennie Thompson, a volunteer who worked at a local Christian school had asked me for the lunch hour meeting, where she opened her heart to share what at the time she called, “a really big dream.”
We couldn’t see it then, what was coming from all this. But God sure did.
The dreaming and planning began at that table and trickled into the next couple of months.
Eventually, we had to stop talking about it and take the big step towards that big dream.
We presented the idea to my director of what we collectively came to call The YES Retreat.
It would cost more than we really could afford as an organization. Flying in Missionaries, providing quality workshops and activities would not be cheap. But Jennie and I could see the end from the beginning, and what we saw was very good.
The YES Retreat would be a place for students who were sensing a call to missions to gather together and be strengthened, instructed by those who have gone before them and encouraged to re-think missions for their day and time.
Thankfully, CCWM has a board of directors bent towards praying and discerning where God is working and willing to join Him.
They said yes.
And the work began. And it was a whole lot of hard work.
I don’t think we slept that spring as we tried to cover all bases, keep things safe, train volunteers and pray students would come. In reality, we were in way over our heads. This is where God showed up.
He brought the team, the financial resources and the blessings. Local churches signed up to drop off home cooked dinners to our future missionaries, people donated materials for our activities and volunteers from local churches gave their time, heart, and energy.
If you build it, they will come, rang true as twenty-three students filled the room and helped us bring the dream into reality.
Food brought in by local churches
Some of the students and Missionaries from The YES Retreat 2022
I’ll never forget the feeling in the lodge when everyone went home, and our director looked over at me to say, “Something big happened here,” with a follow up question of, “What are we going to do now?”
God provided the answer to his important question in the form of an application on my desk. Jennie Thompson was applying to work with CCWM with her own job description, “To lead the next generation of missionaries in the in-between time from their call to the launch.”
The CCWM Board of Directors said yes again and Jennie joined our home team during a season where I was stepping into the role as Executive Director.
True to her word, Jennie launched what she called NXT GEN in September 2022.
Looking back, that was when the trouble began.
First it was a lack of support from the least likely suspects. Some, in similar ministry, whom we thought would get excited about a NXT Generation of missionaries seemed to instead offer little support, and even some obvious opposition. For awhile it felt like little pebbles in our shoes, making the run difficult.
Those were the good old days.
The attacks from our true enemy, the one who roars around like a lion seeking to kill and destroy made the pebbles a happy memory. But we couldn’t seem to quit because the Lord kept bringing students to NXT Gen, and they were on fire for His name to be glorified throughout the earth.
The following YES Retreat of 2023 was even better than the first as we saw the Lord move and work and the enemy’s plans destroyed. We had our first student from out of state join us and we began to see a bigger picture unfold. It was a victory that brought relief from some of the wounds, stresses and lack of support we had been shouldering.
SO much prayer over these names.
Arriving!
Meals brought in by local churches
Worship time is a favorite
The Yes Retreat 2023
Late night YES Retreat Shenanigans
The YES Retreat Prayer Walk (a favorite)
Jennie began to study missions with NXT Gen, each Thursday night they met for prayer, in depth Bible study and special talks given from our guest Missionaries who offered development training as well as deep spiritual insight from their lived experience on the field.
The NXT Gen group was flourishing while Jennie and I were under what felt like a non-stop collision with the enemies flaming arrows.
Why would we be surprised? Jesus told us this was what it was going to be like.
In Matthew 10 he says,
“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.”
Be on your guard; you will be handed over to the local councils and be flogged in the synagogues. On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. “
He goes on to tell us that,
“Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.”
Paul adds an explanation mark on Jesus’s words when he describes a life of ministry that doesn’t quite add up with the prosperity gospel message.
“For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like those condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human beings. We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world—right up to this moment.”
I corinthians 4:9-13
It’s as if our founding apostle and Jesus himself were all but shouting to us to not make the mistake of expecting peaceful pathways on the road to obedience.
I would stop over on a Thursday night once a month to join what Jennie termed “family diner” where she would cook for NXT Gen, and share one big table of deliciousness together.
Each month, I was amazed by the growth both in numbers as well as the growth in spirit which became simple to gauge by talking to the students over the meal. I marveled at what God was doing, for it had to be God. There was nothing super special happening at the CCWM Headquarters each week. No fun parties, no special snacks….in fact it was my suggestion for Jennie to provide water. :)
Instead, their Bibles lay sprawled across the table with note books open and actively being written in while they worked slowly through what some would consider dry and heavy studies like Blackbaby’s Experiencing God and Ripken’s the Insanity of Obedience. Yet, monthly numbers were added to NXT Gen.
Discussion after family dinner with CCWM Missionary Dr. Phil Kittelson
They began to serve together as well, organizing outreaches in our community, starting their own ministry called Elroi’s Closet providing clothing to local foster families. They spent weekends evangelizing in Chicago and raising funds for underfunded missionaries who were in hard to reach places and needed help staying.
Street Evangelism in Chicago IL
A NXT Gen student prepares clothing for Elrois Closet
Money raised to support ccwm Missionaries G&B planting churches in a closed nation
2023 brought challenges unprecedented for Jennie and unexpected for our Home Team. There were times I spent Thursday nights at home simply praying over Jennie to persevere, to not give up, to keep going.
God answered those prayers too.
Despite the challenges we began to organize a short term mission for NXT Gen to the south Gobi in Mongolia. It was time, to live out what they had been learning for the last two years about God’s global mission. The vision was to visit a small community that has no established church and to see what God would do.The cost was enormous for high school and college students, $4000 and yet one by one they are hitting that 100% funded mark. I’ll write more about this in a future post, but at the time we are preparing to take eight students this coming June 21st, 2024 to do something I’ve never done on the mission field before, to go to a place without an established church and plant a seed with the end in mind from the beginning. Something I would not have done back when I was a missionary because I had not yet learned how little a move of God had to do with his people strategizing compared to what it had to do with his people finding where God was at work and joining Him there.
One morning, while driving to O’hare to pick up one of our CCWM Missionaries coming for a visit, I began to share with Jennie how remarkable NXT Gen was to me. Its a group of students from various local churches, denominationally mixed, who are focused on one thing—Jesus and obedience to His Word. I shared with her how little I had understood about how truly potent this kind of group could be to the enemy’s plans nor did I realize at our first lunch meeting in 2021 how angry this would have made the enemy and what it would cost us.
We let that sit silently between us for a moment, both knowing exactly what it meant, before I moved on to share with her how much I longed for a youth group at the small church my husband Troy pastors but we have a lack of manpower to lead it well. I shared with her how I had asked several people to lead our small group of students but none could do it. Knowing there was a need for students to be ministered to, Troy and I were contemplating starting a youth group ourselves even though we both knew we would be adding more to our plate, which we had no capacity for.
This time it was my turn to share my big dream with her.
It was about the students.
I imagined our community center to be an excellent place for local students to gather who were not likely to attend any of our nine churches in the community. I saw the end from the beginning. The community center full of students once a week who were learning about God’s love, God’s forgiveness, God’s power to heal broken hearts and homes. The only thing missing was someone to lead it.
“Let’s ask NXT Gen to do it.” Jennie said.
I almost cried. I had never thought of that. I had been looking for one person, maybe a couple who would be able to organize, provide oversight and plan a youth group. But NXT Gen was the perfect answer.
The following Thursday, at a family dinner we presented the problem: A community without a thriving youth group, as well as our idea for some of them to step up, especially those already in college, and launch a youth group over the summer. They sat and listened intently. Jennie and I had expected one or two of them to step up and volunteer but the whole table seemed to erupt with enthusiasm. In the end we had seventeen.
This time, Jennie and I were not newbies to student ministry. We were prepared for not everyone to see the vision. We were not surprised when those we hoped to get excited about the idea were not too thrilled but instead offered critique on all the could and would go wrong. We didn’t feel as deflated after those conversations because we understood it was par for the course. Instead, we grew more excited.
The NXT Gen youth group launches Tuesday, May 28th 2024 in Marseilles IL. Several of the core leaders met Troy at the community center to pray over the room and to surrender to God all their plans and hopes and commit to be a willing participant in His plan. That night Troy told me he had not been so encouraged about the work at the community center as he was that afternoon by the group of young men who showed up to let him know they had identified God at work there and they wanted to be a part of it.
The truth is, one day this table of students, notebooks and Bibles will fade away into history….but you know what won’t fade away? Everything that God has done with them. That lasts for eternity.
