SO THAT Missions Podcast | FBC Boerne
So that...God's ways may be known on Earth.
"So That" is an FBC Boerne podcast focused on what God is doing around the world with missions and through FBC Missions partners.
SO THAT Missions Podcast | FBC Boerne
Episode 55: Pastor Garrett Discusses the Transformative Impact of Mission Trips
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What does it take to transform the lives of our youth and leaders through mission trips? In this episode, you're about to find out. Join us as Pastor Chad and Pastor Garrett unravel the profound impact of mission trips on young people at FBC. Listen to Garrett’s journey from his early days in part-time ministry at the age of 19 to becoming a full-time youth pastor. His first international mission trip to Mexico was nothing short of transformative, shaping not only his faith but also his leadership in unexpected ways. We discuss how these trips create a ripple effect, fostering community and spiritual growth among youth and leaders alike.
Discover the heartwarming and challenging experience of a young leader active in youth ministry as he embark on two mission trips to Mexico. With personal anecdotes, we reveal the unexpected joys and trials he encountered, and how these moments redefined his understanding of contentment and joy beyond material wealth. As we reflect on these stories, we underscore the importance of immersing young students in mission-oriented settings. Such experiences often become pivotal, “Ebenezer” moments that illuminate their faith journey and remind them of a deeper purpose. This episode is packed with insights on nurturing these impactful encounters and guiding youth along their spiritual paths.
Visit our website at www.fbcboerne.org for more stories, information, and service times.
Hey everybody, welcome to FBC's so that Missions podcast. So glad you joined us today. Today I'm with Garrett. We're going to talk about how missions impacts our youth and students and, yeah, I'm really excited. I hope you enjoy. Hi, welcome to season four of FBC Missions so that podcast. This is an encouraging place to hear how God is working in and around us. We know that he blesses his people so that they can bless the world around them. Why is God working in our life, church and community? It's so that, through us, the world will know that he is near. Hey everybody, this is Pastor Chad. We're so glad that you joined us today on our podcast. Having my guest with me today is Pastor Garrett. He's been here at FBC longer than me, so it's super fun to have you in the room. How are you doing, garrett?
Speaker 2I'm good man. Thanks for having me. This is kind of like a lifelong dream A lifelong dream. I love this, Listen.
Speaker 1this is where dreams come true. It's what we do here in the podcasting studio. It's like 90 degrees in here today so a little warm.
Speaker 2You get a sauna action and you get to record a podcast. It's multi-use.
Speaker 1Everything that you ever wished for. Well, man, it's been a long time coming. We have, at this point, 54 episodes, which is super cool, it's insane and really has gone a lot further, faster than I ever anticipated. Lots of great stories, and I invited you to be here because I really want to include you in these stories. Like so much of what we do in FBC, missions, especially our mission trips, revolves around our students engaging our youth and young adults, and so, man, you've been really involved in that for the last several years, and so I want to just talk to you a little bit about how missions impacts our student and student life. And so let's just start. Excuse me, how long have you been here at FBC? Let's start there.
Speaker 2Yeah, so I've actually been here for a little over four years now. We graduated college in 2020, got married in 2020 and moved 300 miles away from all of our family all in the same month to come here, and so it really was a God thing, though we got to kind of create our own little life down here and make community and jump straight into full-time ministry, and it's been a blessing.
Speaker 1That's awesome. So how old are you and Christine?
Speaker 2I am 25. I'll turn 26 this year. Christine just turned 25 in June.
Speaker 1So a little bit apart, you were a youth pastor at 21?.
Speaker 2I was actually a part-time youth pastor in college at DBU Part-time, I say with air quotes, because it's just part-time pay, there's no such thing as part-time ministry, right. And so I was serving there by vocationally while I was in college. So I actually started when I was 19. And then I was 20, I turned 21. I think I was yeah, I was 21 when I got here and I was the associate youth minister first, and then, I want to say, about a year and a half, two years later, will Crum, who was over me, stepped away and took a job in Tennessee and then transitioned and now we're here.
Speaker 1So you've been doing this role youth pastoring since 2022, 2021? Something like that. I want to say it was either december of 21 or december of 22. Uh, december 22 sounds more accurate, I think. Okay, I got here in november of 2022, so you were definitely started before I got here. That's when we hired will, uh, the association yeah, so it must have been.
Speaker 2If you were, just if you were november of 22, it was december 21 yeah, yeah, I think that's right.
Speaker 1That tracks. There we go, we figured it out. There we go, we got it figured out. So tell me a little bit Before you came to FBC, had you gotten to be involved in any mission trips? Did you have any history of missions before FBC?
Speaker 2Honestly, very little Like we went to one. When I was in student ministry we did Mission Arlington, which was about 30 minutes away from our church in Dallas, red Oak, texas, and I loved it, but our church, I mean, we were not like it wasn't a, honestly, it wasn't even really the affluence of the church, for whatever reason. Our church just didn't do a ton of mission work. They had one trip to Honduras but I never went. We didn't have a ton of money growing up, so even had we had those opportunities, and then throughout school I was putting myself through school and just busy working a couple of jobs, ra, and so I never got to take advantage of any of DBU's mission trips, and so my first international mission trip was actually two years ago, the first time I went to. Our Mexico trip was the very first one, and so uh, I think I was with you.
Speaker 1I was with you on that trip, yeah, so you were on my first international mission trip.
Speaker 2That's amazing.
Speaker 1That's amazing.
Life-Changing Mission Trip Experiences
Speaker 2It was fantastic, and so it's been cool, as I've gotten to lead these trips and be a part of them. I think they've been almost as formative to me as the team that I'm supposed to be leading, and it's been a really cool experience.
Speaker 1Well, I want to talk about that, but before I do just introduce your family a little bit. So you, you have a, a new family, I mean you guys are young, so tell us about that.
Speaker 2We got started early. We have a two-year-old daughter named Layton, who is the life of every party.
Speaker 1Yeah, she's like the the, the doll of the the youth ministry is the mascot Absolutely, and she knows it too.
Speaker 2That's the dangerous part. And then we have a five-month-old boy named Michael, who is a polar opposite of her in looks and personality, like much more reserved Um, but we'll see how long that lasts with big sister.
Speaker 1So yeah, big sister, and an extremely um busy social life with the ministry and all things.
Speaker 2She's a teenager at this point.
Speaker 1She's convinced, Um so she's got, you said, 140 students that are ready to wait on her on a Wednesday night, and they do, and they do, and there's a few that really do oh yeah, we got built in babysitters.
Speaker 1Built in and highly attentive. It's pretty awesome. So let's talk about that. You said that the mission trip was really transformative for you. It really was something that shaped you. So tell me about that before you get. Like maybe tell me what's your expectations before leaving, like, what did you think you were getting yourself into? You know we're going to take this team to Mexico. I think we took 35 people that year. It was a big trip, a crazy trip. A lot, a lot of a lot of wildness on that trip, especially when it comes to the housing and arrangements. We have a lot of a lot of deviating from our plan.
Speaker 2Power just decided to go out on us All the time, in and out all week. Yeah, it was, it was great. I I don't think I came in with a ton of expectations. Honestly, I didn't really know what to expect. Uh, I'd heard a lot of stories, cause obviously the legend of the Mexico trip is large here at FBC and for good reason, 20 plus years of that partnership and and almost every year.
Speaker 1I think the only year they didn't do it was COVID year and there's seriously great regret on that yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, that was the one year we couldn't, and so I didn't come in with a ton of expectations or or, really honestly, that first, that first trip, I was really just trying to soak it in and try to learn and see what's what's going on, and I just tried to come in just like, all right, let's see, let's see what this looks like, cause I had no framework for it at all. I mean, there was a second time I've been out of the country in general, so so tell us, tell me a little bit like um, uh, in some ways this is really exciting.
Speaker 1I mean, how often do you get to talk to a pastor and kind of think through their initial interaction with, uh, a trip? That's international. I mean, there's a lot of different scenarios we could put you in, but like that was, that was the first one that you you experienced. So what, what were some of the takeaways? What are the big impacts for you? Maybe a surprise is something like that.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think. I mean you always hear about when you go and you you encounter things that you do in the places where we serve in missions the poverty, the hurt, the brokenness I feel like a lot of times I expected to go and get this sense of gratitude for all that God's blessed me with, but when I showed up, for whatever reason, that wasn't the takeaway. I looked at these people and I looked at the joy that they had. I think of the Bennys of the world, I think of the Darius, I think of just the people. I think of the Bennys of the world, I think of the uh Darius, I think of the, just the people I got to interact with.
Speaker 2There's a woman named Elena that was from this most recent trip, Um, and the whether they're a pastor who's got slightly better living conditions, or there's somebody who's in the squatters villages, like there's just a joy that permeates them. And so for me, I don't think the takeaway was so much of like, hey, I should be grateful for what I have, but like, maybe stuff should not be the, the measuring stick for contentment and fulfillment, because a lot of people I met down there didn't have a lot as what we would consider you know stuff and they're the most joyful people I've ever met, and so it just kind of challenged me in that way, Cause it's easy to kind of let that slide and you live in a very affluent a town that has a lot of stuff and a lot of things and you can kind of just start to keep up with the Joneses, in a sense, here in Bernie.
Speaker 1For sure the affluence of of, uh, hill country, hill country, just outside of San Antonio is is, uh, it's pretty remarkable, you know. You know there's a lot to that. A few weeks ago I was talking, you know, at our church. We've got some people here that have some resources, you know, and some of them have these beautiful houses and some of them have ranches even, and big properties, and so I was interacting with one of them and I was just marveling because he was telling me that since he's been in the house and it's this big, beautiful house that they built, that's just gorgeous.
Speaker 1He's like we have mice and sometimes rats, and he's somewhere like how he's got these traps and he's trying to catch them, and it just makes you laugh. You're like there are issues that everyone deals with. Oh yeah, the size of your house, the type of exquisite whatever decor, flooring, you know, siding, uh, everything that goes like all of that is kind of irrelevant. I mean, it all costs. There's obviously a massive cost, um, but people living in a one room, shantytown, uh, can find and be content with their life, uh, and someone that has everything can be not content with their life. And in the middle of it you have bugs and scorpions and snakes and rats and mice and you have flat tires and you have car. And scorpions and snakes and rats and mice, and you have flat tires and you have car problems.
Speaker 2And all of those things are just part of everyday life.
Speaker 1So really the difference between being rich and poor has to do with the way that you really experience fulfillment in your life. And of course, if you have richness and you have a lot of resources, then maybe you can buy those comforts to some degree. Whether you can enjoy them or not is still secondary. And so yeah, that's, that's a huge takeaway. Uh, what? What else stood out to you?
Speaker 2man. Um, I think kind of we talked about like how it impacts students and everything and I'm kind of getting into this year's trip a little bit now but just the value it has for students, especially in our context. We were kind of just talking about Bernie's, this affluent town. I truly believe one of the biggest strongholds that we face here as a student ministry and as a church as a whole is religion. Cultural Christianity is rampant in Bernie. I heard it from a sermon I listened to a while back.
Speaker 2It's almost like there's people who are inoculated to Christianity, so in the same way that you get a little bit of the dead stuff that keeps you from getting the real stuff. In a vaccine, we get a little bit of the cold dead religion and it causes us to miss the real thing. Yeah, people with a calloused hearts kind of concept.
Speaker 1You're so accustomed to hearing the same things over and over again that you just can't hear the truth behind it or the spirit behind it.
Speaker 2Yeah, and so understanding that's our context, watching kids who have grown up and maybe Christian homes under good biblical teaching. Just be pulled out of that Bernie bubble and witness. Hey, this is the real world. Like you guys live in the 1% of the 1% and this is not everybody's experience, and to see that change them from the inside out is just incredible to watch.
Transformative Mission Trip Experiences
Speaker 2And the impact that has on them and what it looks like for them to just take a week away from their busy lives and really genuinely pursue the Lord. Like, hey, you've got kids who go on that trip, who have never really consistently read their Bible before, and you have a week where they're taking a quiet time every single morning they're praying, then they're going out and they're living out their faith. And they come back and they're like man, that was the best thing ever, like I felt so full, I felt so alive. And it's not because there's anything necessarily special about Mexico or anything necessarily special about the way we do things on that trip. Like God, there is the same as God here.
Speaker 2But they're living out their purpose, like they're living on mission and they get to experience that for the first time. And so you pull them out of this consumeristic, cultural Christianity and put them into hey, you're living out your purpose to be salt, to be light, to be healing and love and peace to people and bring the gospel to people. And you get to experience what living is really like. And you get to see it kind of separates the wheat from the chaff in a way of like okay, do you, do you want this, cause it's hard, but the kids who, the kids who really stick to it and are like man, this is what life is about. How could I do anything else? They just come back changed and it's just so cool to see. Yeah.
Speaker 1It's, it's just so cool to see. Yeah, it's, it's super exciting. And my, my ministry career I think I've probably led upwards of 30 or 40 mission trips at this point. Probably a good portion of them, maybe as many as half, has been student, student oriented, you know. So you're taking anyone from seventh grade to 12th grade. Every now and then a family that has some younger kids, but the bulk, the kind of big majority of those big trips are those student student base and uh, and so many of those impacts are are so clear right there, the the shocking realization that the world that they know uh doesn't fit uh the world that they're experiencing during that mission trip and, again, the joy that they see on the faces of these kids that are living on and with so much less.
Speaker 1My very first mission trip, garrett, was when I was, I think, 11 years old. It may have been 12. And I was too young to go, but my dad was serving as a volunteer youth leader, so they made an exception. He didn't even go with me, but they made an exception. He signed all the papers. I got to go with this mission team. We were living in Arkansas and we drove, you know whatever 20 plus hours to Mexico from Arkansas and and uh, yeah, yeah, it's like you guys in Cairo you know, we're on these buses and setting the border in lines for hours and uh, and we were very poor.
Speaker 1My family was very poor. You mentioned how your family didn't have a lot of resources. Uh, mine didn't as well. Like there was a season in our life where we didn't have electricity in our home for like two to three years and so, uh, I always think about like I grew up where the red fern grows. If you've ever read that book you know like it's like dirt poor and uh and and uh and uh, ozark kill country, kind of craziness.
Speaker 1And um. So when I got to to to Mexico, one like I had had to raise all the money. We didn't have money. So people sponsored me to go. So I felt, you know both, uh, thankful that people were willing, felt humbled. You know somebody was willing to pay for me and uh, and even the spending money someone gave me spending money. So I had a little bit. First stop we got across the border in Mexico. First stop they let us off to go buy some chips and Cokes or something. And of course, you know, first thing you notice is Coke in Mexico is like a tenth of the cost.
Speaker 2In the United States you're like, wow, I could drink a lot of Coke as a 12-year-old.
Speaker 1That's a great thing to learn. And we walked out and there were these kids that came running up and surrounding us and they were begging us for money. And one of the kids stuck out his hand and the skin on his hand, the palm, was like peeling and it just shocked me. I was a really poor kid from Arkansas, I was the least of the whole thing and I'm standing here looking at someone that has less than me and I just didn't know what to do with that. It was a moment that was seared into my heart and mind and you know, those things are happening. Everybody is having those little moments. It's like, oh, I need to think through this. The hard part is knowing how to keep those heartbeats, keep those.
Speaker 1You know there's a word from scripture, it's an Ebenezer. Yeah, you know this. It's in a couple of our hymns and and you throw it out there right now but it's this kind of a like a almost a um, an altar type moment where, like I want to remember this. So you know, in the old testament they would stack, stack rocks and make a here's a pile. And when I see this pile, it's going to remind me that god does like this is. It's like Ebenezer moments where God is just kind of almost like he splits time and space and says I need you to think about this and mission trips are ripe for it right.
Speaker 1It's why I often say that mission trips are really maybe the best form of discipling your students, your key students. Right, you don't take everybody, you take only the ones who are willing to go through all the effort and willing to make that commitment and sacrifice.
Speaker 1And so you know, one of the hardest things is to come back and try to help students walk through what God did, what were those moments on the mission trip that impacted you. And so this podcast today with Garrett is really we're trying to just introduce a little bit of what's coming. We have about, I don't know somewhere between 7 and 10 or 11 students that want to talk about this mission trip from the summer, and so I know it was a really good trip. We've got just a few minutes here, Garrett, so just give us the introduction of what we're going to talk about when we talk about Mexico here from 2024.
Speaker 2Yeah, we had talked a little bit about that first trip. That first trip was fantastic but, for whatever reason, I truly believe even after the dust has settled, god showed up in a very unique and powerful way in 2024, in a way that I don't think anybody who went on that trip came back. The same person you had, james Smith, who's been leading that trip for 20 years say, man, this is the most meaningful, impactful trip that I've ever been on. Uh, I think, to this point in my ministry, it's probably the most meaningful thing I've done in five years of doing this and, uh, that's huge.
Speaker 1I mean you kind of joke like every time you go on a mission trips like oh, this is the best one ever, and I was like, but but uh, to think about just the impacts that they continue to have, yes, uh, is really, really powerful.
Speaker 2Yeah, we've got a group of kids who they've come back different and it's not just it's kids we've been praying for, like it's not your typical camp high, uh, and there's been follow-up. I mean the the fact that they want to do a podcast, like getting a teenager to get on a video or a podcast is usually like pulling teeth, but they'd expose.
Speaker 1It's an it's it's exposing like yes, yes, and it also lasts. You put the stuff on the internet, expose. It's an it's it's, it's exposing like and it also lasts. You put the stuff on the internet and it's going to be there for a while.
Speaker 2It's going to be there forever, and so I think just the follow up and the encouragement from seeing them live out their faith has been incredible and the stories that have lived on and we're still seeing that impact today. So I'm excited, I'm, I'm. They're going to tell their stories way better than I possibly could and the the million of stories that could come out of that trip that we got to experience and witness have been just incredible. So I'm excited for people to get to hear it.
Speaker 1Well, that's uh, that's awesome, Um, garrett, so there's so much in this Um, one of the reasons we're doing the podcast. I just want to give people the opportunity to share stories like stories that that really almost ebenezer moment stories. We could we could have called the podcast ebenezer, but I don't know if anybody the ebenezer scrooge or yeah, our numbers might go down if we we name it ebenezer.
Speaker 2That's, that's not really optimized for the search engines.
Speaker 1You know it's not, but you know it has. It has done ring to it it's like you're you're bringing in some sort of uh not ancient and old word, but definitely, uh, you know one that ties you to the Christmas carol.
Speaker 2Yeah, you can make it trendy, you put on a hat, get a good font, you can pull it off.
Speaker 1Charles Dickens and Scrooge Well Garrett. Thank you so much for just coming in for a few minutes. I really, really want this to be a great way for us to capture these stories. You know one of the things again, I've been doing this for a while now.
Speaker 1My first mission trip I led as a, as a minister, was somewhere around had to be about 1999. Uh, first time I led a student group and I would have been 20 at the time, you know. So the church took a pretty big risk to let this 20 year old kid take their kids out of the country. You know, yeah, um, and I learned so much on that trip. But now, looking back, I saw so many kids whose lives were impacted on the trips we took over this.
Speaker 1Those three or four years we did it in a row and some of them have really struggled in their faith since then, and some of them have. But, but, you keep every now, and some of them were really close to me, so I call them every now and like, hey, you remember Every now. And then some of them were really close to me, so I called them every now and then like, hey, you remember, you remember those days, even the ones who were far from God. Now they'll look back and they're like I don't know what to do with that because I don't believe what I used to believe, but something was real there.
Speaker 2You just sort of pull them back.
Speaker 1Remember, just take a second, remember God was working in your up and you don't know exactly how to deal with it, but it's such an important part.
Speaker 1So, brother, like these, these, uh, these moments that you're leading these kids on, they're going to be something that you can tie to for the rest of their life, right? So now I'm in my forties, I'm not a 20 year old kid taking kids around the around the world anymore, but I'm talking to those 30 year old kids for saying, hey, remember 15 years ago, remember, remember when we went and did those things. And, uh, and it's something that they have to wrestle through still, even now, 20 years later, they have very clear memories of what that was and they're not sure how to define it. Of course, there's some that are ministry now doing great things, but, like uh, it's really interesting to me to see how God continues to use these moments in the lives of these students. So, man, keep doing great work. Garrett, I'm excited to hear how our ministry is growing, how God is opening the hearts of students at Bernie to get to know him through the ministry here at FBC, through your ministry and all your volunteers.
Speaker 2It's really great work so brother, thank you so much for all that you're doing.
Speaker 1Appreciate it, man, yeah thanks for having me on. Yeah, hey guys. Thank you so much for all that you're doing. Appreciate it, man. Yeah, thanks for having me on. Yeah, hey guys, if you're listening, we hope that you've enjoyed this. We know it's a little shorter than normal, but we have a number of bonus episodes that we're gonna be putting up over the next several weeks and months talking to these students, talking to some of our mission trip participants from the summer, and I want you to remember why we is doing so.
Speaker 1We can see the great things that God is doing. He is at work and when we partner with the things he's doing, we all find value. We find things that are everlasting. We find really substance that we can't create or manufacture. And so, man guys, remember why did God call us? Why is he using us? Why is he even redeeming us? It's so that we can be a blessing to those around us. Garrett, thank you for being a blessing to those students and we pray that God would use them for years to come. So, all of you listeners, have a wonderful day and God bless. We are so thankful that you joined our podcast today. We would love to hear any feedback you may have for us. Remember. Psalm 67 says May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine on us, so that your ways may be known on earth and your salvation among all nations. Don't forget why the Lord blesses us it's so that we can be a blessing to those around us. Until next time, god bless.