From October 19 to 26, a group of five people from the leadership and settlement teams at LifeSpring will be traveling to Greece for a mission trip. This past Sunday, I had an opportunity to update the church family about how the preparations for the trip are going now that we’re a few weeks out from the date.
First of all, on behalf of the whole mission team, I want to thank the LifeSpring family for your support for our trip. I’m glad to announce that we’ve reached and exceeded our fundraising goal! Thank you to so many of you who supported us, and continue to support us through your encouragement and prayer.
We also now have our fasting schedule ready, with the link to the schedule available in our email announcements. When mission teams from LifeSpring travel, we ask the family back home to keep us in prayer through a fasting chain. If you are able, we would be blessed to have you support us through fasting and prayer that includes the week leading up to our trip as well as the week after we return.
As I was thinking about our mission trip this week, a passage came to mind from Ephesians 4:14-16. In the NIV version, Ephesians 4 is titled, “Unity and Maturity in the Body of Christ.” The passage says,
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
One of the things I like about this passage is the anatomy metaphors. As you know, in the New Testament one of the most common ways the church is described is as being the “body of Christ.” In verse 15, Christ is described as the head of the body. Our role is to speak the truth in love, and in doing so we will grow to become Christ’s mature body. It’s interesting–Jesus is the head, and in this passage, we are the body. That means we are to be the hands and feet of Jesus, doing exactly what our head–Christ–tells us to do.
What is the body to do? In verse 16, it says that each part is to do its work. And as each part does the work it was designed to do, the body grows and builds itself up in love.
But this body is joined and held together by “every supporting ligament.” In order for the body to do what it needs to do, it needs every supporting ligament to do its work properly.
I like to use an analogy from baseball to describe this. Many of you are probably familiar with seeing a home run being hit by a batter in baseball. What we normally notice is the bat flying through the air, making contact with the ball, and sending it out powerfully for a home run. But if you think about it, the bat in and of itself actually can’t do anything. A bat can’t do anything in isolation. In fact, the bat is just an extension of the baseball player hitting the ball. The power to drive that ball out for a home run doesn’t come from the bat at all.
It actually starts from the ground up. It’s from the positioning of the batter’s feet. It’s from the way they shift their weight and turn their body that creates the power to drive the ball out. While the bat is the thing that is hitting the ball, the bat is not where the power is coming from. It is the full movement and engagement of the batter’s body that is creating the force to hit the ball for a home run.
I see our mission trip to Greece in the same way. Yes, it is our team of five that is going out. But I see our team like the hands of a body. Hands by themselves can’t do much. You’ll notice that if you keep the rest of your body still, your hands by themselves are a bit useless. But it’s when those hands are connected to a body–to forearms, shoulders, chest, core, legs–that the hands can really do something significant. It’s only when the whole body is engaged that the hands can reach out to help others.
LifeSpring, you are that body of Christ. You are all the “supporting ligaments” in verse 16 that allow the whole body to do what it was designed to do. As our team of five goes out, we go as the hands of LifeSpring. But it is the rest of the body, working together with the hands, that allows us to accomplish the work. It is only with the whole body working together that the hands can extend out to help others. Every ligament, every muscle, every tendon is important to this work and to the functioning of the body.
LifeSpring, your involvement counts. Your prayers matter. Your support makes all the difference in the world. As our team goes out later this month, it is like the whole body of Christ–joined and held together by every supporting ligament–that is reaching out to embrace those in need.