On May 5, 2024, I left on a GO Trip to Pittsburgh at 6 a.m. the morning after I graduated from Cedarville. This trip was led by Jim Cato, who I had worked very closely with during my time as a student leading a Cedarville University Chapel Band. He mentioned that he was leading a church-planting-focused trip to Pittsburgh, and I immediately knew it was something I needed to be a part of, even if it was right after graduation. I grew up in the New Jersey/Philadelphia area and have a lot of connections as well as pull to the East Coast, so I was excited to head back that way to see the Kingdom work that was being done in a city like Pittsburgh.
The team left for the trip on Sunday morning and made it to New Horizon Church by their 10 a.m. service. Their pastor, Will Cole, was our main contact for this trip. He had been communicating with Jim ahead of time to plan our trip, so it was sweet to hear him preach and be welcomed by this church upon our arrival. The congregation size that morning was around 30–35 people, but they all came ready to lead and to sing. When it came time to pack everything up at the end of the morning, everyone in the congregation jumped in to do their part to get the job done. It was a beautiful picture of the body of Christ working together for a common goal.
We visited two other churches and a few church planters during the week, including Travelers Church and Steel City Church, and learned a lot about church planting and the ministries that were going on in the city. Each church had a different story and different goals, but all talked about the way Pittsburgh functions as a city and how that shapes the approach to ministry.
The city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is split into 90 different neighborhoods, each with extreme passion for the neighborhood that they come from. It is difficult to get people to come to your church from a different neighborhood because of the way the city functions, which means the city needs more churches, not larger churches. This is reflected by these church plants planting or planning to plant more churches, even when their congregation size is only 100. New Horizon was a larger church, but they planted two churches from their own body and dropped back down to 30 members. This ministry philosophy was eye-opening to me, as church planting and vocational ministry are paths that I want to pursue in my life.
The team of six had a great time learning about the ministry while we were there, and we grew closer together as a team during that time. Most of us did not know each other before this trip, but we created friendships over the course of this week as we did ministry alongside one another.
The thing that challenged me on this trip was that the work wasn’t what I had expected it to be. We didn’t do much community evangelism, we didn’t paint any walls or feed any families, but what we did do was support and encourage the ministry of weary church planters who are yearning for more help and fellowship. I learned to be content listening, learning, and ministering to fellow believers and discovered how fruitful of a role that can be. Our team was able to see ministry happen, grow together, and encourage the laborers on the front lines of church planting.
These churches are trying to plant even more, and the issue is personnel, not desire. Pittsburgh needs people that are willing to pursue a career in the flourishing city while being a faithful church member at one of these plants. The ministry is rich in the city and waiting for laborers to come to the harvest, and that was my biggest takeaway from the trip. There are so many cities like Pittsburgh, including Boston, Denver, Salt Lake City, and more, that are ready for people to come be faithful followers of Christ in a community that needs it.
While I have now started working in Ohio on staff at Cedarville, my desire in life is to one day be a part of a church plant in vocational ministry, and this trip only encouraged that desire. I left with a greater respect for the need around the country and the world, a greater urgency to encourage others to faithfully answer that call, and a greater acknowledgement of the hard work and sacrifice it takes to be a part of this type of ministry.
Tags: #college, #experience, #globaloutreach, #missions
Posted in: College Life, Experience, Global Outreach