Mission Year: What does this even mean?!

From Mission Year’s Website:

“Mission Year is a year long urban ministry program focused on Christian service and discipleship. We take teams of people, place them in an area of need, and help them to serve people and create community. We are committed to the command of Jesus to ‘love God and love people,’ by placing the needs of our neighbors first and developing committed disciples of Christ with a heart for the poor.”

But what does THAT even mean? In this post I’m going to talk a bit about what being a Team Member will look like, as well as what drew me to apply to Mission Year’s program in the first place.

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Community Service:  

During the entirety of Mission Year (September to July), I will be serving at one of Mission Year’s partner organizations four days a week. This partner organization could be a community development corporation, a public policy organization, a shelter—anything. Wherever I am placed, I will serve there faithfully and with enthusiasm for the organization, encouraging staff and all involved. I’m excited for this portion of Mission Year, as I will learn about ways to serve a community, whether with social services or social change. I’m excited to ask questions of people who are in this sort of work, hearing their stories and struggles as well as encouraging them in their journeys. Through being at South Street Ministries, Stop Traffick Fashion, and the Learning Commons, I’ve learned that community organizations really resonate within my soul, and I’m eager to see if my skill sets can be used to benefit a community in some way (and if so, how). 

Relational Impact: 

We (my team mates and I) will be living in an under resourced community, in a house that we will call our own for the year. This house will be the location of hospitality dinners on Saturdays, where we invite our neighbors over for a meal. This house will be the location of children and adults coming over and hanging out. This house will be the location of sanctuary for my team mates and I after trials and joys of community living.

The relationships are what I am most excited about when thinking about this upcoming year. I’m excited to listen to the stories of the people in my neighborhood. I’m excited to have my worldview challenged, and maybe challenge theirs. I’m excited to simply LISTEN. I say this over and over, but seriously. The majority of my life I have simply spoken without hearing other people’s stories. I want to hear people’s stories. I want to laugh and cry with others. I want to walk in people’s shoes and see the world in different ways. I want people to feel cared for and loved, valued and worthy. I want people to soar. I want to connect with others and walk with each other. Relationships...so good.

Christian Community: 

I will be living with 4-5 other teammates and we will be walking with each other throughout the entirety of the year. These are the people that I will be laughing with, fighting with, crying with and living with. I’m nervous for this aspect of Mission Year, as I have never been in a living situation where everyone has been committed to one another and worked consistently through conflict and celebration. I don’t even have the vocabulary to describe what this kind of challenging community would look like, which is why I’m nervous for it. Inside this nervousness, though, is an eagerness for these kinds of intimate peer relationships.

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There are many other aspects of Mission Year that I haven’t touched on in this post, some including simplicity, church partnership, and justice. There are morning devotionals, neighborhood prayer, family dinners, learning through a curriculum put together by Mission Year, a weekly Sabbath day, city-wides and of course—fundraising (the one that’s on my mind right now).

After a year of learning of social structures, power structures, oppression, poverty and wealth, community development and community organizing, race relations, and so many other subjects, I’m eager to take all of this education and "knowledge," mesh it with desires of my heart, and experimentally learn what it is to live a life at the intersection of Jesus and Justice.

Would you consider supporting me in this Mission Year journey?

https://missionyear.thankyou4caring.org/donate
Designation: Amber Cullen