Teddy James

AFA Journal staff writer

March 2014 – Missionaries can spend years preparing to fulfill their call in foreign lands. They must learn the language, customs and culture as much as possible. 

But there is a way to skip that preparation – by understanding that your own community is a mission field, and you are a uniquely qualified missionary,  prepared in ways outsiders could never be. 

Todd Wood is one such missionary whose ministry philosophy is captured in this simple axiom: “Missions is a lifestyle, not a trip.” 

More than a mantra
Wood is the founder of IMPACT Ministries in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. His statement is more than a mantra or mission statement for his ministry. It is how he lives life. 

Wood started IMPACT (Innovative Mission Projects Advancing Christ’s Teachings) after creating a booklet with several mission ideas a Sunday School class or small group could do every month. That small project has blossomed into a full-time mission involving hundreds of local congregations and mission teams from churches across the country.

After spending years building the reputation of IMPACT in his area, Wood requires training for teams coming to serve. “If you as a family or a church want to participate, you must first come to our training,” he said. “We do a two-day training from lunch on Friday to lunch on Saturday. The training lets you know what you can expect of us and what we expect of you.” 

But the training is for more than protecting IMPACT’s reputation. Wood said, “During the training, we cover everything from creative arts, balloon tying and face painting to how to utilize music, whether to use a mix of Christian and secular music at outreach events and how to share your faith. We go into how to have discipline with kids, and give practical steps on staying safe. We train teams on how to lead worship, present the gospel and put together a block party. We even train team members on how to have a discussion about the weather that leads to talking about Jesus.”

While the training seems ambitious for a short period, Wood says every action at IMPACT, including the training, follows a very specific model. He said, “We looked at how Christ ministered when He walked the earth. When He ministered, the people would proclaim their needs to Him or He would reveal their needs to them. We wanted to hear the peoples’ cries and listen to the Lord revealing what they needed.”

From ideas to action
After listening, IMPACT brings Jesus to people. Wood said, “We’ve got 100,000 hotels rooms in our area. We make regular visits to hotel lobbies with homemade chocolate-chip cookies for baggage workers and hotel clerks. We thank them for what they are doing in our community, helping tourists and listening to guests’ complaints all day. When they ask why we are giving them a cookie or thanking them just for doing their job, we have an opportunity to share Jesus with them.”

Outside working resort-based ministry, Wood leads IMPACT to work with over 120 local churches. When laying the foundation for partnership with a new church, Wood asks “What passion has God given you for this community? How can you best serve those in the area?” Wood helps churches answer that question.

“We have a homework club where we invite churches or volunteers to go into an area twice a week and offer a Bible study, a snack and homework help,” he said. “We provide laptops, printers and Internet access so children can complete school projects. We also lead construction projects when churches bring someone’s need to our attention or, just as often, we are able to point a church to someone’s need, and we help them through that local body of believers.”

During the summer, IMPACT invites 10-20 students who have completed their junior year of high school to stay in Myrtle Beach for 10 weeks. IMPACT provides food, housing and a small salary. Training is focused on helping young people to see missions as a lifestyle, not as a trip. These students help the mission teams that come to IMPACT. 

One concept Wood is particularly excited about is “missioncation.” He said, “Several churches and families want to do a vacation and a mission trip, so we put them together. We want families that have young kids because they will participate in the day camps while their parents lead them. We want kids sixth grade and above because they can help their parents lead those camps. We want senior citizen church members to come because they can watch the babies while the parents are out serving. Our desire is for every member of a church to come on a missioncation and have an important job to do.”

The reason for his most recent push is simple: Wood saw a gap in people serving during mission trips. He consistently sees groups of youth, college-age students and adults with teenage children. But he rarely saw parents with very young children. He said, “When you hit 20 or 30 and you’ve got young kids, it is almost impossible to go on a trip. But here you can. We want kids to see missions modeled by their parents and so we came up with a way for them to participate in missions with their parents, to see their parents’ faith in action.”

Wood said children will be able to see their parents serve, teach and worship while parents benefit because the children will be with them the entire day of service.

Taking the action home
Wood’s greatest passion and IMPACT’s end goal is not for Christians to go to Myrtle Beach and serve there. True to its mission statement, IMPACT wants every person to leave asking a life-changing question: “How can we take what we learned here and implement it back home?”

Wood said, “I always ask people if they have a shopping center or mall back home. Then I suggest going to Napa Auto Parts or the local bank or car wash or dry cleaner and thank those that work there for serving your community. When you go back the following week or month, tell them you prayed for their mother or their husband, whatever need they expressed on your previous visit.”

While the end goal of IMPACT isn’t mission trips, Wood recognizes they serve an important purpose. He said, “Sometimes it takes the spark of a mission trip to open people’s eyes to what they can do about a need in their community. I’m a missionary and it still scares me to death every time I share my faith. But it is something we are all called to do. And through equipping, training, studying and practicing, we’re all capable of doing it.”  

IMPACT Ministries
843-628-5300

IMPACT is a member  of Association of Resort and Leisure Ministers. ARLM works in more than 50 resort areas across the nation. To learn more, visit arlm.org.