It’s certainly not the easiest trip to pitch to parents.
“I’d like to take your teenager and several others on a road trip for multiple days without explaining to them where we’re going. They’ll likely hound you with questions about it, but you can’t reveal anything I tell you. What do you say?”It may not be any easier to invite students to sign up to go.”I’m not telling you anything about this trip. Instead, I’m daring you to pray about whether God wants you to go. Practically, you’ll jump into a van with other students and ride for a number of hours as we travel from one undisclosed destination to another. Spiritually, it’ll serve as one of the most powerful metaphors for you to learn what it means to follow Jesus.”Still, a well-planned mystery trip can challenge students to grow spiritually and relationally in unique ways. It’s one of my favorite means of creating a climate in which appropriate risk and personal transformation combine through mature planning, supportive parents, open students and competent volunteers. Mystery trips invert the emerging generation’s desire to Google their way out of a problem and embrace an intentional journey with God that builds trust.After all, God is reliable, yet unpredictable; a shield, yet dynamite. Why would we want to give students the same trip or retreat experience every year?
Mystery trips require you to be incredibly intentional months before the experience. A mystery trip isn’t an excuse to wing it (especially if that’s your personality); it’s an opportunity to shape the lives of students—something that isn’t our right but our privilege.
Seven Key Mindsets
I first began doing these types of trips while serving in a rural ministry. We were within driving distance of some larger cities, so I asked parents if I occasionally could pick up their kids on a Saturday afternoon if I returned them later that night. I explained that we would visit some random restaurants or participate in a specific service project, but that the drive itself also would be important in creating space to talk about life and spirituality.In your context, this may be the best way to test the waters with your students before planning longer trips that would span several days. For example, I initially discovered which students could handle being in a van with other students without getting into a fight and who could not. (It’s also a lot easier to turn around and cancel a trip when you’re only an hour away from home versus being stuck in another state with a bunch of guys who won’t stop slapping each other with the end of their seat belts).Then again, you still can include hard-to-manage kids in your experiences if you have appropriate leadership and planning in place. There are several complementary values such as this that are needed for larger mystery trips to work well.Honestly, a mystery trip is basic. You take students away, either in town or out of town. They know nothing about the trip except they are to follow your lead, go with the flow, and enjoy the journey. Planning a mystery trip takes focus, planning and a little finesse; and it helps to remember these seven important principles for planning a mystery trip.
Prayer—and Planning
Mystery trips are not merely youth group travel experiences meant to take students somewhere geographically. This is a bold form of spiritual warfare meant to take students somewhere supernaturally. Recognize this up front by prioritizing prayer before planning so you’re more in step with the Holy Spirit you’re asking to impact students. Perhaps you can challenge yourself in this, whether staring at a map and asking God to lay locations on your heart or pausing with Him while you’re with students as you ask Him to teach you how to create experiences that would serve them.Prayer such as this isn’t meant to suppress planning but to inform it. While the details of a trip are obviously important, so is how you determine those details.
Communication—and Secrecy
One tension you won’t shake throughout the process is making sure the mystery trip remains a mystery. Parents will need to know a reasonable amount of details, while students will have to be appropriately kept in the dark. What has worked well for me is having open planning meetings that parents are welcome to attend as long as they don’t write anything down or tell others the details. I once had a student learn all the secrets of a trip from his sister after their mother confided in her about it. He then gave away information to other students, and much of the trip had to be changed.As a compromise, hand parents a complete itinerary the day you leave so that students won’t come across it beforehand. Tell families not to use this in conversations when kids call home, but only for emergencies.
Leadership—and Cooperation
Years ago, I shortsightedly led a trip on my own after two leaders had to pull out the day before we left. Going forward alone was unwise, as I could’ve been accused of anything without a credible response. It also meant I was always on in supervising 10 students during the course of five days, causing me to hit a wall emotionally that soured our last two days together.You can’t take just anyone with you, though. Adult volunteers and well-meaning parents can experience breakdowns or take the casual comments of students way too personally. I’ve seen catty girls make grown women feel rejected and sarcastic boys create self-esteem issues in grown men. Take note of the strengths and liabilities of any adults you might invite to join you before you invite them.To complement this, create a code of conduct that details the type of cooperation you expect from students who come on the trip. Perhaps also require students to take part in a few fundraisers or activities leading up to the trip to nurture the kind of trust and community you want on the trip.
Participants—and Owners
Your students will be able to trust you with a certain degree of mystery, but they’ll also want to be hands-on with something. Put kids in charge of shopping for all your groceries. Have them work in groups to determine the menus for two meals a day while you provide the other meal.Another fun idea is to have the first stop on your trip be at a store where they can buy some supplies to decorate the van. I’ve seen everything through the years from students who put a small cape that emerges out the van’s back doors to others who construct a mascot that sits on the dashboard throughout the trip.
Big Picture—and Everyday
Have a topical theme or biblical story that you follow on your trip that informs your daily experiences. One year, we followed the life of Moses through experiences that had us taking care of sheep on a farm to highlight his role as a shepherd, visiting a state capitol building to talk about his time before Pharaoh, serving in an inner city soup kitchen to highlight him serving the people of Israel’s basic needs, and ending up at a water park to talk about the Promised Land. Let every stop add to the narrative you’re exploring.Another fun tie-in is what I call mini-missions. Every morning, I have a student choose from among several envelopes which one they’d like to open to reveal a unique challenge for the day, such as “Only one person can talk out loud today, shifting each hour” or “Tie yourself via a thin string to another person. Do everything together.” Their success or failure earns them extra group grocery money for food or affects the quality of the third meal you’re providing.
Spiritual—and Relational
Your trip is going to end on a higher note with God or a high-five with each other. As much as we’d like to say that it’s possible for both to happen equally, one will emerge slightly more so than the other. Determine ahead of time which matters more for this particular trip, as each can be appropriate. I’d personally recommend that you aim for spiritual depth through a Jesus-centered road trip of stretchy serving, but don’t be afraid to have some wild fun along the way.
One way to guide this is to make pit stops before you arrive at significant destinations or by creating a handbook for them to journal in throughout the trip. Spend about 15 minutes together reading a portion of Scripture or helping students pray that they will trust God with whatever happens next. Show them how this is an important life skill in itself.
Victories—and Failures
From time to time, something you do on a trip is going to bomb. You may have siblings, friends or couples on your trip who create more drama than you expected. Your vehicle may breakdown, and you may have a meltdown.For all of these reasons and more, it’s important to begin with prayer. When something negative happens, don’t deny it. Bring it before God as a group. Show students that God can do good in us even through circumstances He wouldn’t choose for us. What you model as a leader in these moments can shape the kind of adult Christ-followers your students become, so dig deep now in order to have something to give later.The real beauty of mystery trips is how they naturally (and sometimes supernaturally) nurture trust, stretch students, grow leaders, and impact the rest of your student ministry year. Experiences such as these can remind us what it means to follow Jesus without having any direct knowledge of where we’ll end up after taking our first steps. Such defining moments do not require you to define every moment, but track back to how intentional you are in your planning, prep and follow-up work. By working ahead on the quality of your experiences before the trip, you will better equip your students after the trip to see how God is working in and around them every day.
