Why I Love Working At SOS
One of my first weeks on the job - summer 2007. I have no idea what I was doing! #CampLife
Fall of 1998… I was an immature college freshman who signed up for a weekend service trip because I thought it would be fun. That decision has altered the trajectory of my life in so many ways…
That was my first time learning about and volunteering with SOS. I came back at least three more times during college as a short term volunteer. Then I worked as a Team Leader in the summer of 2002. My first job out of college was serving as the director of student ministries for a small church in Mississippi. I returned to SOS four summers in a row, from 2004 to 2007, bringing a group of students from my church to volunteer with SOS. During those years I also served as a camp speaker for a week of SOS summer camp two times. Kelsea and I traveled to both Venezuela and China on short term mission trips with SOS summer staff alumni. And then we moved to Memphis in the summer of 2007 for me to start working as the Executive Director of SOS. When I reflect back on all those years I realize that there has not been a season of my adult life where I have not been working with SOS in some capacity - that’s over half of my life!
So - WHY have I given more than half of my life to working with SOS? Though there are thousands of small things that make working at SOS special and fun, there are at least two things that stand out as the big reasons why I wake up and give my energy to SOS day after day.
The first is SOS’s commitment to proclaiming the gospel holistically. Though I could not articulate it theologically at the time, even as a freshman in college, I was drawn to the way SOS lived out the gospel in “word and deed.” I saw SOS staff speaking of the hope they had in Jesus and demonstrating that hope through meeting real, tangible needs in their community. They were embodying what I now see all throughout scripture, but specifically in Colossians 1:20 - that Jesus came to reconcile - or set right - ALL THINGS to himself. The gospel offers not just hope for our souls (though it certainly does that!), but it also offers hope for the brokenness we all experience in one way or another, and which is especially experienced by people who are vulnerable or marginalized. Seeing this at SOS was unlike anything I had seen anywhere else. And I was hooked. And now I get to spend a big part of my time practicing that vision and sharing that vision with thousands of people every year. I get excited just thinking about it!
But, perhaps even more exciting than working with an organization that embodies the gospel in this way is seeing the fruit of that lived out in people literally of all ages and all over the world. Ultimately, our work at SOS serves as a platform. We are faithful locally to serve and seek the shalom of our neighbors in Binghampton, The Heights, and Orange Mound in Memphis. And as we do that, we invite others into that mission 1) to help us accomplish that mission locally and 2) to disciple and equip them to continue to live that mission out wherever they go from here.
When I reflect on the impact of SOS, I think about a teenage girl from Indiana who catches a vision for the gospel at SOS and then uses her gifts and passion for baking to bake hundreds of cookies and sell them, donating the proceeds to SOS so that we can continue our mission. I think of the college summer staff alumnus who has spent more than a decade living and serving with his family in a country in East Asia that is closed off to the gospel so that he might bring the hope of Jesus to people who need him. I think of the Orange Mound homeowner who, after SOS repaired her roof, would bring pizza to her neighbor’s house the next year to feed SOS volunteers as then re-roofed another house on her block as a way to give back. I think of the young families who were either summer staff or campers who chose to buy homes in Binghampton or The Heights or Orange Mound to live in and love on and learn from those communities. I think of the countless SOS alumni in Memphis and all over the world who have made intentional and strategic decisions about where they live and work to maximize their impact to bring more of God’s Kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.” And then I realize that for every one person in the SOS Family I know of who is living strategically for the sake of the gospel, there are probably 100 or more of whom I am unaware who are making incredible Kingdom impact in a way that is connected to work God began or continued during their time at SOS over the years. And that blows my mind...that God would use little old SOS in Memphis, TN to have impact all over the world for the sake of the gospel. It’s so beautiful.
This is not to diminish the impact SOS has had right here in Memphis - over 1,000 of our city’s most vulnerable homeowners are now living in homes that are warmer, safer, and drier; hundreds of youth in our partner neighborhoods have received training and equipping, opening doors of opportunity previously closed to them, and working in partnership with so many amazing organizations, churches, and individuals, we have seen noticeable change and impact in our partner neighborhoods. But pausing to reflect on the reality that SOS’s work here in Memphis is being multiplied in communities all over the world through people who have caught that vision here is so encouraging, humbling, beautiful.
So - while I love...
Seeing (not necessarily participating in ;) ) parking lot dance parties
Laying down straight rows of shingles (with no scuffs!) alongside teenagers and adult leaders
Sitting on a porch and visiting with homeowners, learning all about their beautiful lives and learning more about how to trust Jesus through their faith
Sitting in the back of chapel as the room fills with energetic worship music sung by tired bodies but energized souls
Hearing the sounds of saws and drills and laughter coming from the SOS shop as teenagers from Binghampton build picnic tables for neighborhood homeowners as a part of our after school program, SOS Builds
Watching our Academy interns adjust to living and working in a neighborhood like Binghampton
Rolling the exercise dice to kick off our morning discipleship time with summer staff
Traditions like SSDUBS, the Happy Birthday song, “Hey Everybody!”, Say-so, music videos, Friday picnics, LPPTSH, charges…
The thing I really love about working at SOS is getting to be a part of God’s great mission and seeing that lived out through his people. It just never gets old.
Written by Philip Walkley, SOS Executive Director
My last week as a youth minister in early summer 2007 was spent bringing students to a week of camp at SOS. A couple of weeks after this we moved to Memphis and I started my new job at SOS!