Top 10 Reasons to Take you Team on a Short Term Mission Trip

Pictured here atop a Mission Discovery Mexico house (top right of picture) is Bob Carol, an elder at Heritage Christian Church

"Maury, I'm having a meeting with the Elders of my church and I'm talking to them about why we want to go to Mexico this year with Mission Discovery for our short term mission trip. Got any help for me?" It really only happens a hand full if times during a year but enough to cause me to write out what I'd love to spend time telling a group of church leaders about the value of short term mission trips for teenagers and adults alike.

My experience may be unique, but most of my meetings with church leadership about youth short term missions as a young church staff finally led to the price of the mission trip I wanted to do internationally and then to a comment like, "Maury, can't you accomplish the same thing locally for less money?" That question positively shaped my thinking in a list I call "Top 10 Reasons to Take Your Team on a Short Term Mission Trip".

Honestly the question irritated me but also challenged whether I had really thought deeply enough about the "Why" of leading my youth on a short term mission project.

If you are a youth leader, establish a ministry plan that includes within its structure a plan to experience God! A a component of that plan is a short term mission experience that has levels of service. Some group leaders have a plan to offer a local, regional, and international project within the time frame of a students involvment in youth group. When the leadership of your church and parents know that an international project to the "Congo" for example, is a part of an ongoing educational/growth experience they are more likely to be on-board. Same is true for those who work with adults. This top 10 list gathered over these last 22 years might be of help:

10. Short term mission project support the overall mission of the church by involving the congregation/youth as "world Christians".
9. Teams who return from short term mission trips report that that seem to have received more than they gave. Some have even reported to us at Mission Discovery that they felt that the price they paid was much to low for the experience they received. Wow!
8. They return with a new understanding of the journey of the poor.
7. Most short term mission trips take people out of their zone of comfort. This added pressure brings great opportunities for change in one's relationship with God and can provide a "new" persective on life back home.
6. Participants learn by experience just how unique God's work is in other lands and tend to return home talking about their experiences with God.
6. Mission Discovery short term mission projects focus on areas of the world where we have been invited to serve alongside long term ministries. These ministries have invited teams because they know their value and consider them vital to their ongoing work of spreading God's love.
5. Short term mission trips involve more than just the participant. They involve the whole family even though the rest of them may not go on the journey! Each friend or family member participates either in pray or financial partnership in the project. Whole churches have attached themselves to participants in short term mission projects and benefit from the results.
4. Pre trip training for mission trips not only provide a participant with skills for the project, but for life as well. Mission Discovery teams learn to tell the story of what God is doing in a 5 minute presentation. That training is beneficial for a lifetime not just for the short term mission trip.
3. We place value on higher education and are willing to invest our time and dollars in that education. Consider the average price of a short term mission experience being about $500 U.S. The return on that investment is lifelong.
2. Teams learn the difference between the God of their culture and the God of this world.
1. Because the scripture encourages us to go to witness the works of God in Jerusalem, Judia, Samaria and the ends of the earth. Acts 1:8

Remember, when your you are able to explain clearly how your mission trip fits in the larger picture of the churches plan for mobilizing people to serve God, it becomes not a matter of will the project happen but when! Once church leadership sees you are only fulfilling "their" vision they can only say "yes!"