Team Member - Stan Irvin

Reverend Stan Irvin, fifty-five years of age, has served as the minister of the First United Methodist Church in Carrier Mills (www.carriermillsumc.com), Illinois since July of 2010.

Prior to serving in Carrier Mills, Stan served as the Minister of Outreach and Discipleship at Wesley United Methodist Church in Bloomington, Illinois for five years.

On this mission team Stan dug holes, helped set pipes, grinded pipes, served as the Director of Transportation (drove the tractor), poured concrete, helped put out brush fires, helped erect the fence, and found out that he was not very gifted not “called” as a welder.

Stan feels that the three areas where he most strongly does senses God’s call are: missions, teen ministry and outreach to “the un-churched”. Yet, for missions, it took a while for God’s calling and Stan’s response to become in-sinc.

Prior to seminary, during the eight years that he lived and worked in New York City he attended Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, where Dr. Tim Keller is the senior minister.  One of the strengths of Redeemer was its adult mission team program.  Redeemer annually sent out eighteen adult mission teams around the globe.

While at Redeemer, Stan was invited to join some of Redeemer’s mission teams.  But, Stan resisted going on mission trips and expressed “absolutely no interest”.

“One reason I resisted was because I felt called to help address the decline of Christianity within our own country. But honestly, there were also more subtle reasons why I resisted.  One being that I’m a sometimes picky eater due to having a continual queasy stomach. I was hesitant to be subject to eating ‘foreign meals’” he shared.   

“And, I’m not always good at ‘roughing it’. I didn’t know what the conditions would be. In reality, it is easier to be comfortable than it is to enter the unknown, take chances, and have to adjust what I liked to do” he confessed.

“I truly understand all the hesitations of others, and the reasons that they feel they can’t do mission trips. I had most of them myself. But … then I came to admit that most reasons are in reality excuses” Stan admitted.  “Jesus told us to go to Jerusalem (our home communities), to Judea (our neighboring counties), to Samaria (neighboring states of cities within the United States), and to the uttermost parts of the world (foreign countries). Most Christians might consider doing service projects in their home towns, but if they were quite honest with Jesus, they’d say ‘there is no way I’m traveling to a foreign country to help the poor … let me take care of my own poor first’. Well, Jesus didn’t see it that way. Jesus said to do both. And we resist doing both, even if it means resisting the command of Jesus Himself”!

Then came being appointed to serve Wesley UMC. “Vaughn Hoffman and I talked about what we would like to vision Wesley doing during our tenure there. We had both began as the two ministers at the same time, in July of 2004, and we were sharing together what programs we’d like to see in place” he said.

“I was thrilled when Vaughn readily agreed to attempt to replicate what was being done at Redeemer. He threw his full support and enthusiasm behind such, and agreed to go to our church’s Missions Committee to urge them to endorse our church beginning doing adult mission trips. His support was crucial and whole hearted” Stan shared.

“After that first Missions Committee meeting at Wesley in August of 2004, then the meeting with Rick Vaughn and his wife Linda Miles and God leading them with Rick’s expertise into our church’s doors, and all that transpired within the next five months thereafter … it can only all be described as nothing less than a miracle” Stan stated.  “What has transpired since then in the area of adult missions, over the past six years has been amazingly awesome”!

Stan has now been on eight mission trips. His six mission trips to Nicaragua are the most of any of the team members.

He was on Wesley’s original team to Nicaragua in January of 2005. He has worked on two Medical Mission Teams, and four Construction Mission Teams to Nicaragua, plus a construction team in the inner city of Nassau, Bahamas, and a service mission trip to Texas.

“I enjoy so much in Nicaragua: the friendliness of the people, despite the widespread poverty; the children and teens in the two orphanages, in Los Cedros and Jinotega; the missionaries who sacrifice so much, and with whom I’ve become good friends over the years; but what I enjoy so much is watching the team members each year … particularly those who have never been in Nicaragua or on a mission team ever before. I like to just sit back and see how God impacts them” Stan shared.

Stan is attempting, with God’s help and direction, to stoke fires of interest in mission trips in southern Illinois among United Methodists. Thus, on this year’s team he is thrilled to have the presence of one of his congregants, Jeff Parks, to be a member of this year’s team. “To my knowledge, we are one of the very few Methodist churches involved in adult mission trips throughout southern Illinois. I am praying that God moves mightily and calls others”!

“I am thrilled at the way God’s church in Carrier Mills is already responding to mission trips. Besides Jeff being on this trip, six others from our congregation have already indicated a desire to join us next year. Our congregation raised in one Sunday afternoon the entire amount of money that Jeff needed to attend. Plus, they have donated money to the orphanage here in Los Cedros. Our members are catching the fire of God’s Spirit when it comes to missions” he shared. “And, I am thankful that Wesley has allowed our church to join with it in mission”.  


Stan concluded by musing on the two times he has been blessed to preach in Nicaragua, at Verbos Church in Managua in 2005, and at the International Christian Fellowship Church in Managua in 2009. He reflected, "The people of Nicaragua whom we have worshiped with love God with all of their hearts, souls and minds. They worship with their full energy and exuberance.
And then, they themselves go out and help their neighbors, in full Christian love. And in the midst of poverty, they always find the joy of God"!