Lakota 2015 - Partnership

As I alluded to in yesterday's post, "partnership" would be an apt word to describe this year's Lakota trip. We have joined Hope Bible Church for our sixth year to serve together as truly one team. In past years, others have been around the area or individuals have come in to work on specific projects. The Brennans seem to love involving as many people as possible in as many ways as possible, which produces an incredible amount of momentum for the ministry here on the Pine Ridge Reservation. This year, however, the idea of partnership has been stretched far beyond anything I would have anticipated. The Brennans, Haddens, and McIntoshs work together like a well-oiled machine. I've never seen a ministry team work so effectively and yet be going in six different directions at once. Matt and Amanda Hadden are on-site camp directors and oversee much of the local ministry and outreach, along with Rob and Michelle McIntosh, who live at the parsonage next to Sharps Corner Baptist Church (the McIntoshes will be moving to the Gallup ministry in September). Mike and Monica Brennan currently live in Rapid City, but are involved in nearly every aspect of the ministry AND travelling to and from Gallup once or twice a month to continue to support the growth of that ministry.

The Haddens have a couple of Matt's sisters and friends staying with them for the summer to work with the camp, but this summer is also the first year that Team Effort (a summer missions ministry Matt used to lead) is staying at the camp all summer. Our ministry has coincided with Team Effort in past years, but they have usually stayed at a local school and served on work teams in the community. This spring they built an additional bunkhouse at the camp, and they are now staying on-site for each of their summer teams. Their ministry primarily focuses on work projects, both at camp and around the reservation. The bunkhouse will be a great addition to the camp, and we have already been able to take advantage of a chapel room as extra space for our camp stations. Team Effort currently has youth groups from North Carolina and Kansas staying and working at camp.

We were also joined this summer by a team from Indiana. Knowing that our team numbers were going to be a little lower, Pastor Brennan combined us with a new team that was interested in getting involved in the ministry at Chanku Waste Ranch, which has turned out to be two churches: Calvary Temple and North Park Baptist Church in Evansville, IN. With everything that was already going on, we might have thought that we had plenty of "partnership" to go around; however, God knew just what we needed. We had a couple of team members that had to drop in the week before the trip, but the Indiana team has helped to fill gaps and probably the greatest role of all: prepare meals for the entire week!

"Partnership" is mentioned in the English New Testament only three times, twice of which refer to ministry and are found in Philippians. One describes a financial partnership (Philippians 4:15) and the other partnership in the gospel in Philippians 1:3-5:

"I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now."

I was surprised to notice that "partnership" isn't a word that stands by itself; it's a translation of koinonia or "fellowship." In other words, partnering together in ministry is a form of fellowship. In that sense, as the global church, we really have no other option but partnership. As we have responded to the gospel, we enter into the fellowship of all believers. It may stretch us out of our comfort zones at times, but partnership for the gospel may be one of the best representations of the gospel. One of our devotions this week came from Ephesians 2, and these verses jumped out as I thought about partnership:

"For He Himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility" (v14)

"So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God" (v19)

The divisions that may have existed prior to our salvation in Christ have been broken down and removed. The power of Christ's death that broke down the dividing line between Jew and Gentile can also break down barriers among us Gentiles as well, bringing us one and all under the unity of Christ's death and resurrection. We may reside in different states with different ethnicities (Lakota, anglo, hispanic, even "vikibilly") but the gospel that we share is what unites us. We are humbled because we are reminded that we are not the only ones who serve or the only ones that care; many believers from many churches are engaged in missions. We are encouraged for the same reason. We don't compete with other teams for the best camp week; instead we have the opportunity to learn from one another and truly partner together in the ministry of the gospel in one of the hardest, darkest places in the U.S. In the past our focus has been on what God has been doing through us among the Lakota people, but this year is a tangible reminder of simply what He is doing through His people among the Lakota people.