On the way to Tennessee, 2008...

The 2007 Mission Trip was June 16-23 to Gulfport, Mississippi to work with Hurricane Katrina disaster relief.

Mission Trip 2007 Photos
Click photos to view full-size

2006 Mission Trip

The 2006 Mission Trip was the week of June 4-10, 2006 to Washington, D.C. We stayed at The Pilgrimage, an Outreach Ministry of Church of the Pilgrims, PCUSA. The mission program was“Church in the City”, which focused on issues surrounding hunger, homelessness, and poverty.

2005 Mission Trip to Florida

The 2005 Mission Trip was to Silver Springs Shores Presbyterian Church in Ocala, Florida on June 4-ll. The focus of the trip was to assist hurricane relief efforts. Work was still needed after all the hurricanes of 2004.

Mission Trip 2005 photos:
Click on images to view full-size photo

2004 Mission Trip to Tennessee

Click here for information about the 2004 Mission Trip.

2003 Mission Trip to New York

Thirty-four adults and youth from our congregation and the youth fellowship went to New York for mission work. They worked hard every day. They went. They saw. They talked. They learned. They listened. They are now different. No one knows how that experience will change each of them, but they are all different because they have made the effort to go in the service of grace to be gracious to others. They have spent a solid week wrestling with the questions of how do you do good to those who need it. Those are not easy questions.

There are those who believe that if we just got everybody to love Jesus the world would be better. It would be different and solutions might be possible to some of the challenges, but just because everybody loved Jesus would not make it any easier to try to figure out how to deal with the homeless, the hungry, the lame, the mentally challenged, and the sick. This trip and the issues that they experienced demonstrated some of the obstacles of doing good.

We do not send our people on this mission trips to change the world to which they went. We did not send 34 people to New York to save New York. We sent 34 people to New York to change the 34 people who went. The work of a Christian church is to make disciples, to help shape and nurture, responsible, faithful, and persistent disciples. We sent 34 people to New York in the hope that the trip would help mature and strengthen the Christian character of those who went. We sent 34 people to be changed by the trip so that they would come back and be agents of challenge, encouragement, steadfastness, and determination to the rest of us. We will look forward to the stories, the excitement and the wisdom of that trip. We will await with joy the testimonies of how God was active in their lives on this trip. We will be ready for the ways God wants to be active in this congregation because of that trip and the people God has prepared for service in our community on that trip.

Jesus sent out 12 on a mission trip for training while He was still alive. They reported back and He trained them some more. Then, at Pentecost, they were sent into all the world.

Local Mission Work and Goals for Our Congregation

Now we have 34 mission workers back to help lead us into our own mission work. Our Session believes God is leading us into more mission work with Cotton Memorial and with the Hispanic community in Henderson. God has placed on our hearts a vision of a youth association of churches in our downtown area. God has placed on our hearts a vision of a better fellowship pattern for the whole congregation.

Next year we will send more out for training and practice, and we will expect those who have been to urge us onward with the mission at hand in Henderson.
The mission work at First Presbyterian does not just include the members who do the work on site, but it also comes from all of our members who support the program by cooking meals to take on the trip, prayer buddies, scholarships, and the participation in the various fund raising activities that the mission team creates. Every member of the church is involved in an important and special way.

Since the beginning of the Mission Trips in 1987, the number of people who do the mission work has doubled. Feeding the homeless and working with less fortunate children have been the goals of most of the previous trips. The first mission trip was to West Virginia. The crew worked on houses and other construction jobs. In 2000, team members worked many days throughout the year in Rocky Mount, North Carolina helping flood victims who had no housing. The other trips were to Washington, DC in 1999 and 2001. Last year's mission trip was to Marvel, Arkansas. Keep the members and the work of the mission trip in your prayers.

Contact the Church if you have questions regarding future Mission Trips at (252) 492-0156.