I first met Matt when I was in college. My roommate was preparing for an RP Missions trip to France, and Matt and I helped her sign and stuff fundraising letters. When I got back to school the next fall, Matt and I looked at her pictures and heard about the trip.

We have been married for 12 years now, but RP Missions is celebrating an even bigger anniversary this year—20 years! What follows is my interview with my husband, Matt Filbert, founder and director of Reformed Presbyterian Missions, the short-term arm of the denomination’s mission program.

RP Missions started with a trip 20 years ago, in 1996. What did that mission trip look like?

Very young! The very first short-term trip, which I was blessed to co-lead with Tom Gray, consisted of high school and junior high students spending a long weekend in the D.C. area working with Trinity RPC and Anchor RPC. It served as a test trip for a developing vision for a Reformed approach to short-term missions, and we were blessed to have the opportunity to learn from pastors Bob McCracken and Peter Smith. As part of that trip, the pastors led the team in door-to-door ministry, an activity that we thought might not capture the interest of the students. When we approached the first few doors, the primary interaction was reserved for Tom and me. Yet as we kept going, the youth began to get antsy and eagerly stepped up to participate. By the end of our outreach time, we practically had to drag the youth from the doorways.

How did it grow in 1997?

After our test mission trip to D.C. in 1996, I turned my attention back to the original plan of fielding a team to Scotland. For this trip we looked for college-age young people to serve. Within a couple months, we had completely filled the team with 15 men and women from the United States, and even had Dempei Takiura, from the RP Church in Japan, serve as an integral part. This team not only included youth from the RPCNA but also from several other Reformed and Evangelical congregations. This mix of participants brought many questions forth that helped the young people develop their capabilities to winsomely and respectfully give an answer for their theological convictions.

Those 15 young people were split into two teams. One served Airdrie RPC under the leadership of Pastor Andrew Quigley, and the other team served Wishaw RPC under the leadership of Pastor David Fallows. The four-week trip was a successful first attempt at an international short-term mission trip.

The most valuable counsel Pastors Quigley and Fallows gave RP Missions was that we ought to grow slowly. By heeding that advice, the Lord allowed us to gradually learn and improve, and He protected us from spreading ourselves too thin.

How has it grown since then?

 We grew from one trip in 1996, to two teams in 1997, to three teams in 1998, to a dozen teams by the early 2000s, and to nearly two dozen teams going out annually since. However, the growth hasn’t only been in the number of opportunities. RP Missions has also grown into the area of longer short-term mission opportunities (6-month to 3-year commitments) and has gone from being aimed only at young people to now providing some opportunities for families, school groups, youth groups, and retirees.

What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned in the past 20 years?

When I was younger, there was a sense that young people would flee if too much responsibility was placed upon their shoulders. Yet, as I got to high school and college, a shift in the Midwest Presbytery displaced that former mindset. In a conscious effort, the Midwest Presbytery sought to invest heavily in the training of youth—not only via lectures, but also in the providing and encouraging the practical application of the faith and tools that had been given to us.

It was such a blessing to grow up with faithful leaders and role models in the church who comfortably could grant to youth “enough rope to trip, but not to hang ourselves” and who helped us to learn from our mistakes and acquire new skills. Their wonderful example was integrated into the development of RP Missions, so that youth would enjoy the opportunities to study and labor under faithful pastors, elders, deacons, and other Christian servants to grow in their confidence and capabilities to actively serve Christ.

As duties were delegated to team members, they didn’t shrink from them but flourished through them! Much of the growth that RP Missions enjoyed through the number of teams we could field was directly attributed to the amazing return rate of our participants, coming back year after year and taking on more and more responsibility to coordinate each team.

What has encouraged you most?

First, it has been so encouraging to see those who have given their time and talents in RP Missions come home. They not only step up and become servants in their own churches, but also they demonstrate a continuing support of missions, including RP Global Missions. When the markets collapsed in 2008, and things looked dire for RP Global, many of our veterans began giving monthly toward RP Global, an occurrence that many short-term agencies have not seen happen with their veterans.

Second, seeing the youth from churches that have hosted mission teams get to the age to apply and serve on RP Missions teams has also been very encouraging. Many of those young people testify to the impact that joyful servants can have on God’s people, and it is exciting to see those folks desire to be an example to others in the church!

What has been the hardest challenge for RP Missions?

Probably the hardest thing to deal with over these decades has been to carve out the needed time to accomplish meaningful pre-field training without the expense of flying everyone to a location in advance of their trip. Thankfully, because of technology, we have been able to use online meetings and online testing tools to achieve the necessary training and confirm that each participant actively completes their assignments. This has helped ensure that the team arrives on site with some common training, experience, and expectations of what they will be doing, and it saves the host congregation from having to scramble to rapidly prepare their team.

Looking ahead, what do you see for RP Missions?

There are several new opportunities that are before us in the near future. First, we are continuing to expand our longer-term mission opportunities in such places as South Sudan, Uganda, Costa Rica, Japan, the United States, and Northern Ireland.

Second, we are receiving increasing inquiries from groups outside of the RPCNA with an appreciation for our Reformed approach to missions and an interest in learning while serving with us. This has afforded us many new opportunities to expose Christian servants to the blessings of a Westminsterian approach to missions and to help them better see the common pitfalls that arise when we don’t observe well-thought-through biblical principles of missions.

Third, we are receiving increasing numbers of invitations to come labor alongside our NAPARC (North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council) and ICRC (International Conference of Reformed Churches) brothers so that they too might see that a Reformed approach to short-term missions is a viable and effective tool for encouraging their own members.

Heidi Filbert is a member of First RP Church of Beaver Falls, Pa. She stays at home with her four children.