Short-term trips can be challenging to evaluate. Even terrible trips have some excellent and powerful testimonies coming out of them. How can we evaluate someone’s spiritual experience or even determine if a church’s mission trips are beneficial or not? Here, I will provide some questions and thoughts that could help you evaluate short-term trips at your church and help determine if you can use the kind of help MissioSERVE offers:
Some questions to ask about the goers reactions after coming home from a trip:
Some questions to ask about the goers reactions after coming home from a trip:
- When given a chance to speak about the trip, do the people speak about their experience or the ministry’s impact on themselves and the people they served? If the people talk mainly about their personal experience, the ministry impact of your trip for the glory of Jesus Christ was likely very low.
- Can the people on the trip articulate the ministry’s goals and how that fits into the overall ministry of the missionary they served? If not, they were not appropriately prepared to carry out their mission.
- Did they interact only with translators and believers close to the missionary during the trip, or was there general interaction with the host culture? If yes, then the missionary planned for a shallow cultural engagement for the trip.
- How enthusiastic are the people to help the next trip get trained and prepared to go? If they are not anxious to help the next trip, they do not have a sense of mission or the larger purpose of the trip they took than the impact it had on them.
- Do the people who take short-term trips become more active in church and more interested in the church’s ministry or not? This is a pivotal question to answer to find out if the short-term trips you take help your church members mature spiritually.
Some questions to ask the missionaries who received your short-term trip:
- Does the missionary talk excitedly about new and different trips to his/her region from your church? Does he/she have ideas for new trips based on the one he/she received?
- What does the missionary think of the training process for the trips they are receiving? If they are evasive, that means they think poorly about the training. If they say they think it was good, then ask them what the best part of the training was in their opinion.
- Is personal gratitude the trip’s benefit, or does the missionary speak about its importance to his/her ministry? Missionaries are almost always genuinely and personally grateful for a trip. A church should also want their trip to have a positive impact on the ministry.
- Ask how the nationals received the Americans and how they viewed the trip. Seek honesty and accept it graciously.
- How did the trip impact the ministry goals of the missionary for that year?
- What was the most exhausting thing about the trip for the missionary? This can help in future planning for your trips.
Some questions to ask the church leadership about the short-term trip:
- Why are these trips important to the church? If unclear to the church leadership, there is a flaw in the trip planning and purpose.
- Does the church do anything to check with short-term goers after the trips to see how it affected them? Debriefing is key to spiritual growth and prevents alienation between those sent and the senders.
- Does the church think it is essential for the congregation to understand the trip? If the church leadership sees the mission trip as a side project for a few ardent enthusiasts, it is a problem.
- What would help the church most in planning future trips?
- Are there people in the church under-served by short-term trips? Are there areas the church would like to see short-term trips cover?
- How does the church leadership view the equipping process for people going on short-term trips? Another way to ask: What do the church leaders expect the short-term missionaries to do when they complete their training?
- In what new ways will the church encourage and support the short-term missionaries to serve the church when they return?
Using the questions above and others like them, it becomes possible to evaluate short-term trips and their impact on the body. It will point you towards areas that need work and areas that deserve more praise. It will not be easy to effect change, even when it changes for the better. The bias is always toward the status quo and the desire is not to hurt anyone’s feelings. Still, missions are worth the effort. There are few experiences more extraordinary than seeing the Holy Spirit impact a nation for the glory of Christ in the will of the Father while participating in that effort.
One tragic mistake to avoid is thinking that only difficult trips are worthwhile trips. That is not true. Trips at all levels of difficulty can be impactful and useful. At the beginning of any mission effort, the early trips will be much simpler and less demanding than later trips, which is natural and right. Prayer-walking trips, construction trips, service trips, VBS-style trips, English teaching trips, and others can be beneficial and powerful trips when used correctly within an overall strategy. The crucial question to ask is, what useful and necessary tasks have you seen accomplished in your life by total amateurs who took no time or very little time for preparation?
Short-term trips can cost a lot, demand a lot of time from the people going, and strain the nationals and missionaries asked to receive the trip. Surely that effort and sacrifice in time and resources deserve training, preparation, and effort to make sure the trip is accomplishing goals worthy of the effort!
Let MissioSERVE help you and your church with these tasks. In trip planning, trip training, and cultural awareness, as well as logistical help and debriefing, the dedicated staff and resources of MissioSERVE stand ready to serve. We will help your short-term trips rise to the next level and maximize your church’s impact in God’s worldwide mission.
Read other articles in this series: How to Make Sure Your Short-Term Trip Helps Instead of Harms the Mission Field
How to Make Sure Your Short-Term Trip Helps Instead of Harms the Mission Field: Part II
Aug 16, 2024 3 min · Brian W Part II: How to Make Short-Term Trips Go Right In part I, we learned about some reasons that poorly designed and executed short-term trips occur. Now, we will look at some of the ways you can make sure… Read More
How to Make Sure Your Short-Term Trip Helps Instead of Harms the Mission Field: Part I
Aug 09, 2024 3 min · Brian W Part I: What Goes Wrong Whenever people prepare for a short-term trip, good feelings abound. People want to help and serve and have an adventure. The missionaries are happy and supportive of the trip… Read MoreAuthor
Brian W
Brian served 14 years in the Republic of Georgia, where he started a youth ministry, discipled new leaders, and planted over 15 new churches before serving in leadership of another missions organization. Brian is married to Maia and they have two children.
Brian served 14 years in the Republic of Georgia, where he started a youth ministry, discipled new leaders, and planted over 15 new churches before serving in leadership of another missions organization. Brian is married to Maia and they have two children.