One finding that’s stuck with me from Sticky Faith is, “More than any program or event, what made kids more likely to feel like a significant part of their local church was when adults made the effort to get to know them.”
One of the best ways my congregation helps adults get to know kids is through mission trip prayer buddies. Parishioners who serve as prayer buddies commit to praying daily for a student before and during our trip and to writing students notes of encouragement which they’ll open during the trip.
Prayer buddies connect young and old people beyond the walls of the church. For this reason, this experience is invaluable. With that in mind, here are 10 steps for facilitating a mission trip prayer buddy ministry in your congregation.
1. Six weeks prior to your trip, provide a sign-up station in a visible place for your congregation to collect prayer buddies’ names and contact information.
2. At one of your pre-trip meetings, ask trip participants to fill out a prayer buddy worksheet. In addition to basic info (name, grade, school, etc.), have teens answer a few questions, including:
• How many mission trips have you attended, and to where?
• What’s your biggest worry about our upcoming trip?
• What do you hope to learn on the trip?
• How do you hope your life will change as a result of this trip?
• What are three prayer requests you have about the trip?
3. Two to three weeks prior to your trip, assign prayer buddies. To foster new relationships between people and avoid having anyone feeling left out, randomly assign prayer buddies rather than allowing parishioners (or students) to request buddies. Additionally, don’t allow any parent to be his or her child’s prayer buddy—we hope they’ll be praying for them anyway!
4. Once assigned, send an email to each prayer buddy informing them for whom they’ll be praying. To help prayer buddies get to know their assigned students, send them a copy of that student’s prayer buddy worksheet. To help shape the prayers (and notes) of prayer buddies, include a trip itinerary.
5. Assign a minimum number of notes you’d like each prayer buddy to write. Typically, we request at least one note for a week-long trip and at least three notes for a two-week trip. Often, prayer buddies will write more than the minimum number. Ask prayer buddies to turn in their notes—clearly marked with the intended student’s name and date the note to be opened on the front of the envelope—to you one week before leaving for the trip.
6. The week before the trip, follow up with anyone you still have not received a prayer buddy note from to make sure every trip participant receives at least one note.
7. Each day during your mission trip, deliver the notes you’ve received from people’s prayer buddies.
8. During one night of your trip, build time into your schedule for students to write their prayer buddies a note. In that note, ask students to tell their buddies about the highlights of their trip so far and thank their buddies for praying for them. To make mailing these easy, print address labels for prayer buddies before leaving on your trip.
9. Throughout your mission trip, pray for your prayer buddies—individually and collectively.
10. Upon returning home, host an event to give prayer buddies an opportunity to hear about how God moved in and through your mission trip. During this event, give prayer buddies time to connect with the students for whom they prayed. To help facilitate this, provide each with a list of basic questions he or she can ask his or her student. Kara Powell and Brad Griffin provide some great examples of these in their book Deep Justice Journeys. They include:
• What one-word or phrase would you use to describe your experience?
• What surprised you? How did that impact your justice work?
• How was life in the place you visited different than you thought it would be? What discoveries did you make?
• Where did you sense God at work during your mission trip?
The connections that are made through mission trip prayer buddies are powerful. I know this because recently, one of my regular prayer buddies, a woman in her 90s named Lillian, cornered me after worship, concerned she’d missed her chance to sign up to be a prayer buddy for our upcoming trip. She then told me, “I want to be a prayer buddy, Jen. That’s important to me.”
What I hope Lillian realizes is that her participation as a prayer buddy isn’t just important to her. It’s important to us, too.
