missions
New Reality Show Highlights Two Young Missionaries
By Heather Sells
CBN News
CWNews.com–-They're young. They're sold on Christ. And they're willing to travel.
Tim Scott and Will Decker have trekked through more than 25 countries, evangelizing in some of the world's most remote areas. Their travel gear? A backpack and a camera.
Travel the Road is redefining Reality TV in its own unique way. Scott and Decker have no crew –
they shoot everything themselves. There's no set-up, no formula. It's a show that the storyline is based on real-life events as they unfold.
A recent show chronicled their work with the Reindeer tribes in Northern Mongolia.
After spending several days traveling by car and by horseback, they stumble upon an empty tent. They spend the night only to be awakened by a father and son. The son, who heard about Jesus from Korean missionaries two years earlier, told his father that Jesus would return to them that day. And he did indeed – as represented by Scott and Decker.
“My son saw you – it's very surprise to him.” the father said.
“Tell him – we're messengers from God,” they replied.
These kinds of everyday miracles, combined with exotic locations and high production values –may be just what the millennial generation needs.
At a recent event at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Va., the crowd was sold.
“It's not orchestrated,” participant Hector Falcon said. “You see a missionary experience that's being lived out in real life.”
“When I watch it, like I'm an aspiring missionary so it just kind of stirs me up insides to want to go to these unreached places,” another participant Joel Hill said.
And that's exactly the response that Scott and Decker want – passion followed by action.
“In the past it's been viewed as 'Well, if I do missions it's going to be a horrible life,” Scott said. “I'm going to have to eat bad food or do whatever. We want to get people to the point where they say – this is an exciting life in the Lord.”
“I want people to be moved and impacted,” Decker said. “I don't just want them to say – 'oh, that's a nice testimony.' I want them to say 'whoah – this is amazing.'”
Amazing indeed. But does it go too far? Does Travel the Road risk glamorizing missions and misleading the very people it seeks to influence?
“Following that initial contact someone needs to move there,” Jason Benedict, missions executive with Accelerating International Ministries Strategies, said.
Benedict said he would like to see Travel the Road tell the rest of the story.
“Ultimately for that ethnic group to be reached, we need to make sure that a church is planted among them,” he said. “And not just a church, but a viable church planting movement that's able to reach the entire group. And that work is done by cross-cultural workers actually moving there and living among the people.”
At least one missions agency tied directly to Travel the Road's website is benefiting. Overland Missions says it receives ten or more inquiries from viewers every week.
It's a solid indicator that the show's action-packed format is working.
“We have a generation at hand that is so willing to live for something.” Scott said. “They so want that essence of truth in their lives where they can take something and say – ‘This is what I'm living for.’”
To visit the Travel the Road Web site, click here.
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