In more than a decade of ministry, I’ve planned a lot of events and trips. Some were worthwhile, and others left me scratching my head wondering why I didn’t stay home and play golf. One thing I’ve discovered is that students long for the opportunity to participate in trips with purpose—to show that their lives matter and they have the God-given ability to make a positive difference in this world.
Mission trips have the unique ability to empower students to put hands and feet to their faith. Students are fueled when they are pushed beyond talking about service to living out service. It’s for this reason, along with God’s mandate, that mission work is woven into the fabric of our student ministry.
However, leading a successful mission trip isn’t as easy as grabbing some Evangecubes and flying across the Atlantic Ocean. I believe the success of a mission trip is founded in your ministry’s philosophy behind missions.
While our student ministry was at camp this summer, one of the girls expressed she felt God calling her to be a missionary, and then made the statement, “I just don’t know yet if He wants me to go to Africa or some other country.” Isn’t it common for students immediately to equate missions to living in a Third World country, feeding the poor and giving medical care to the sick?
Because we were in a large group setting with only our church, I took her statement as a teaching opportunity to remind the students of Acts 1:8: “You will be My witnesses, telling people about Me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (
In order to help students understand what Christ meant in Acts 1:8, we must guide them to serve in such a way. Moving students into a new understanding of authentic missions is something that must be strategically planned and organized. If our mission work is solely focused on remote, international locations, we end up teaching our students that traveling overseas is the only way to fulfill the Great Commission. For this reason, I’ve established an Acts 1:8 process for our student ministry missions efforts:
Jerusalem: teaching students to impact their local community
Before any student is allowed to go on a mission trip, he or she must first participate in what we call Outreach Saturdays. These monthly projects teach our students that authentic missions and the Great Commission start by loving our neighbors and serving those in our Jerusalem.
Judea and Samaria: teaching students to serve domestically outside their local communities
Before participating in an international mission trip, students must learn that even in our own blessed nation, people are in great need of Jesus Christ. We offer a spring break or long weekend mission trip for which students are asked to sacrifice fun in the sun for long hours of helping people in need. We teach our students about the sacrifice (and reward) of serving others and take them a step further in understanding the heart behind missions. This is also a great testing stage for me to screen students who desire to participate in our international mission trips.
Ends of the Earth: teaching students to serve in foreign cultures
I desire to give every student the opportunity to experience international missions prior to graduation. These trips always have opened students’ eyes to various cultures, living conditions, belief systems and so much more they never could experience staying stateside.
It amazes me at how much more prepared students are for these trips after going through our Acts 1:8 process. Students enter the trip with a better understanding of God’s call to missions and have been practicing and carrying out the Great Commission for an extended period of time. While we are serving in international locations, we are strategic in our efforts to help students realize how this trip can change them when they return home and how missions should continue there.
Choosing the Trip and Team
Once you’ve established your mission trip philosophy, the obvious next step is choosing a trip. Closing your eyes and randomly pointing to a spot on the map probably isn’t the best approach. Partnering with organizations or missionaries who already are serving probably is the best approach. Organizations such as Score International and Praying Pelican are a couple of many great organizations which can offer your group a complete mission experience. Partnering with your local food bank, thrift store, school and soup kitchen are also very powerful ways you can create long-term relationships as you serve.
Regardless of where you choose to go and what you choose to do, the most important aspect for choosing your location is prayer. Pray and ask God for direction about where you should go and what you should do. Once you figure out the destination, God will lead you to work out the details.
After prayerfully considering locations and ministry options, we select the best fit for our group. Then we begin advertising the opportunity. The application deadline for an international trip is usually at least six months prior to travel.
It’s important for you to have an application/screening process for your trips, especially international trips. During this process, you clearly communicate what you are going to be doing and what the expectations are for participating. I have found that students will rise as high as we set the bar. If you want a passionate and committed team, set the bar of expectations high. The application is where you list your requirements for small group attendance, meetings, outreach projects, etc. It’s also a great time to get information such as passport numbers, shot records, etc.
After all applications have been submitted, take the opportunity to meet with each interested participant. During these brief interviews, ask good questions to discover why students want to go, what they are excited about, concerned about and anything else that you believe would help you best prepare and encourage them. Take full advantage of a good application process, and your team will greatly benefit from it.
Preparing for the Trip
Once our team is formed, we prepare through several months of meetings. Training your team for the mission trip is more than just preparing for Vacation Bible School or talking about safety issues when swinging an axe. Training is where you get to teach your vision and purpose, as well as educate students about the culture in which they will be serving. Nothing is worse than doing a VBS program where one of your team colors is black and the culture believes black is evil and cursed.
We also talk about building the bridge of friendship by learning to greet in a culturally appropriate way. Members of the team are taught to share his or her testimony in a succinct manner that will help him or her feel prepared to share the faith at every opportunity.
Team chemistry and unity are huge for this trip to be a success. Creating team unity is not as hard as you may think. In fact, a Google search on “team building games” will result in hundreds of ideas you can adapt and use in your meetings to help teams work together and solve problems together. Prayer is a huge part of team building. Sharing requests with each other and praying with prayer partners, small groups or as a team will result in your team growing closer together.
Fundraising
I’d venture to guess the most common reason mission trips aren’t offered is because of the cost involved. The reality is these trips can be very expensive.
A typical international trip will usually cost at least $1,000 to $1,800 per person if you are going to a nearby country. If financial support is a challenge for you, consider offering international trips every other year, and raise money for two years to help cover the costs.
Another option is doing an international trip domestically. There are many communities in the United States filled with international refugees. This year, our students will be serving Haitian and Jamaican churches in Miami—the $500 trip is much less than it would cost to conduct a similar effort in Haiti or Jamaica.
Fundraising is one of my least favorite parts of being in student ministry, but sometimes we just have to roll up our sleeves and make it happen. We have tried so many fundraisers through the years including spaghetti dinners, lunches after church, discount cards, yard sales, etc. When thinking through fundraising options, think about your culture, your community and your goals. We have a large community of retirees in our area. The most effective fundraiser for us has been our annual golf tournament Swinging for Missions. Each year, we raise thousands of dollars for mission trips through this single event. The front-end work is time consuming, but the final product produces great results for our student ministry.
Heart Preparation
We believe in preparing our hearts for mission work. Prayer should be a focal point for us as we train and equip our students. Prayer is something with which most teenagers struggle. Most teens struggle to pray in groups, out loud or for longer than two minutes. Pray in groups (large and small), on the bus, in the airport or on the street. Praying for those who are sick on your team, for team members’ concerns about the trip and for poverty around the world are just a few ideas to help your team engage in prayer together.
Encouraging students to pray for each other and to pray for those we will serve is a big step in preparing their hearts for what God will do in and through them. You may have to do some one-on-one coaching to get your students comfortable praying out loud in groups, but it really will pay off!
In addition to the emphasis of prayer, we require the team to spend time in God’s Word.
Christ in Youth has a great set of journals, available from Standard Publishing, to guide your students spiritually in preparation for the trip (Anticipate), during the trip (Experience) and after the trip (Reflect).
When we take time in our training process to teach about the power of prayer and reading God’s Word, we are instilling in our students trust and dependability on God’s power.
The Trip
You’ve spent months preparing and now your team has arrived at the ministry site. Everything will go just as planned, right? Probably not.
My pastor growing up, Gary Crawford, often said, “Organization puts you in the best possible position to be used by God.” Your months of preparation have done just that—prepared your team not to follow the plan, but to follow God.
As a college student, my wife went to Wales prepared to spend the week in local schools doing programs for the children. While they did visit several schools, the majority of the team’s time was spent hanging out with the two young full-time missionaries serving that community. She recalled being frustrated that they weren’t being productive for God…until God revealed to her that while her plan was children’s ministry, He had a greater purpose for the trip: bringing hope to two missionaries who desperately needed encouragement.
On a mission trip, flexibility is key. When your team is spiritually prepared, the members are placed in a position in which they quickly and easily can respond to the opportunities God provides.
Our desire is for students to emerge from the mission process desiring to serve and share God’s love with those they encounter—regardless if the students are in their own backyards or in a foreign country. We want to expose our students to the reality that no matter their vocation, we all are called to be on mission as we serve an amazing God.
Let’s be strategic in our efforts to help them live in such a way that they would be witnesses of Christ in their Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
Resources:
StandardPub.com (Anticipate, Experience, and Reflect)
ScoreIntl.org—(domestic and international)
PrayingPelicanMissions.org
BrotherhoodMutual.com—Travel Insurance
VolunteerCard.com—Travel Insurance
Jeff Dye is the minister of students at Northcliffe in Spring Hill, Florida. He has been serving in student ministry for more than 12 years. He is married to Karen, and they have two children, Lauren and Caleb.
