More than a mission trip: Emmanuel UCC youth travel to Knoxville

July 7 through 11, a group from Emmanuel United Church of Christ went to Knoxville, Tennessee. The group, consisting of 8 adults and 26 kids in grades 4–12, went for an unusual reason: a mission trip.

“We’ve got more kids [in our church] than we used to,” said pastor Eric Rummel. “We wanted to have more activities for them.” 

Rummel didn’t want to do a “packaged” trip. He and the other organizers wanted to serve at another church where they could connect more meaningfully with the congregation.

Several months ago, Rummel began searching online for just such a church. He explained, “if prayer doesn’t work, then you go to Google!” He found a small United Church of Christ congregation in Knoxville that had several maintenance projects, but not enough youth to do all of the work.

From the initial contact with a pastor at that church, Rummel and others planned a trip that included work on several projects. The church had a playground area that “looked like it hadn’t been touched in 50 years.” By the time the group from Emmanuel was finished, the playground looked brand new, said Rummel. The group also did cleaning and general maintenance on the church’s pews.

There was also some sight-seeing time structured into the trip. The group made a stop at Cumberland Falls State Park in Kentucky, took a day trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and traveled on an old-fashioned riverboat.

While in Knoxville, the Emmanuel group ate and slept at their host church. The group took turns showering at a nearby Lutheran church—which had one only one shower. Rummel had contacted a Lutheran group doing a campus outreach at the University of Tennessee, and so the Emmanuel youth also helped with a project refurbishing an older home.

Everyday of the trip the group engaged in morning and evening group devotional time to keep them spiritually and theologically grounded. During that time, the group discussed insights into how each of them had “seen God working” throughout the day.

“Mission trips can be a transformational experience for everyone involved,” said Rummel, while rebuking the traditional idea that they only affect the recipients.

By the end of the trip, Rummel said, both the kids and adults saw that they had made a difference for the members of the Knoxville UCC church. From one Sunday to the next, the members of the church saw the changes that had been made inside and outside their building.

“Sometimes you get stuck in a rut going to church every Sunday,” said Rummel, “but those people felt like they were coming to a new church.”

The Emmanuel group hopes that the changes they made to the surfaces of the church will help internally energize the people there. Rummel and others hope to plan a similar trip for next summer. He is also looking forward to having the youth from the Knoxville UCC church come visit Bluffton in a few years.