You’re going on a short term mission trip. That’s awesome! My hope is this trip helps you become a global missional Christian, whose life is deeply changed because of what you experience. I hope you see God more clearly as you step into new cultural experiences—meeting people who are like you, yet different—and come away with a greater appreciation for the awesome diversity and creativity of God. I hope God uses you to bless the people on your team and the people in another place, in another culture, from another background. I hope this trip makes an incremental change in you to help you reach out to those back home both in your own culture and in different cultures.

What makes a short-term mission trip ‘good.’ What are the objectives we should shoot for? Our goals are both that we are blessed and that we are a blessing. These are both good motives. We want to get something out of a trip, whether we are the ones going, or the ones receiving. We want to be a blessing to the other, whether we are going or are receiving. When both being blessed and being a blessing are viewed as complementary values, the results will honor God and build His Kingdom. This idea goes back to the beginning of God’s people, in Genesis 12:1-3 — The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Leave your country and the people of your father’s family. Go to the land that I will show you. I will cause your descendants to become a great nation. I will bless you. Everyone will know your name. You will bring my blessing to other people. I will bless those people who bless you. But I will curse anyone who insults you. Through you, I will bless all the families of people on the earth.’  Abraham was to be like Lake Galilee, which has water flowing into it and water flowing out of it, to bring life to the whole nation of Israel. This is a picture God uses for His people–we are blessed to be a blessing.

Being Blessed

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” —The Apostle Paul (Eph 1:3)

The goal for you as a participant of a short term mission trip isn’t drastically different from your long-term goal as a disciple of Jesus. Simply put, it’s to become more like Jesus. A short-term trip can be a spiritual greenhouse. Make sure you set aside time on your trip to draw near to God in an undistracted way—take time to spend time in prayer alone and in groups. Keep a journal of what you’re learning. Read your Bible daily. Use your time traveling and your down time to read, pray, listen to sermons or worship music, as well as hanging out with friends.

On a trip, you’re experiencing new things. New things are exciting. New things are hard. New things can cause you to think and feel differently than you’re used to. New things can cause you to want to shut down. It’s good to not just experience new things, but to think about what you are experiencing. Think about why this is good, or why it is confusing or hard. Learn more about a new culture. Ask yourself, ‘what new things about God could I learn from these new people, places and things?’ God is the Lord not just of you and your culture, but is the Lord of Life in every culture. He has designed the world so that a multitude of cultures exist. When we experience new things, we are pushed to grow, to expand, to get beyond our ‘normal’. These new things are a great way to grow in your trust of God in the midst of hard things, as well as to grow in your praise of God in good things and your thankfulness that He is such a good and creative God.

On your trip, you will experience crossing cultures (if you do the trip right). Each culture has different values and beliefs that drive what people do and what they don’t do. If we want to honor God, we need to know how to love, respect, and honor others, but love, respect and honor are experienced differently in different cultures. One of the goals of your trip, whether you knew it or not, was for you—with God’s help and the help of your team—to grow in your cultural intelligence, so that you can have a lifetime of blessing others.

You are on your trip to be blessed—to be blessed with really fun and awesome new experiences and to be blessed with being transformed to be more like Jesus. But if that becomes your only focus, or even your primary focus, then this won’t be a mission trip, it will be a church-sponsored vacation. No! Like Abram, we are blessed to be a blessing.

Being a Blessing

“It is more blessed to give than to receive.” —Jesus of Nazareth (Acts 20:35)

The goal for your short-term mission trip isn’t drastically different from some of the goals of everyday life—learning how to bless other people. It’s helping people hear about and experience the love and sacrifice of God. It’s learning how to become a servant by meeting others’ needs and in doing so, to experience the blessing of God. 

What does this look like when you’re on a mission trip? It looks like laying down your plans, your schedule, and your preferences to serve the local gospel workers in their plans, their strategies and their preferences. When you travel to another country, the leaders of that country are like the head coach. You are there to please and serve the head coach. You don’t get to set your own practice schedule. You don’t decide the lineup for a game or match, the head coach does. Your trip is there in order to serve the coaches (the local workers), not yourself.

I led the first summer trip to the Dominican Republic in a new partnership reaching college students. When we got to the country, we learned that the local staff member had received many missions trips in the past, and had seen many, many students indicate decisions to follow Jesus, but these trips never had any lasting effect to build the ministry. The students wanted to hang out with the Americans, but never connected with the Dominican believers. So we spent many days in conversation about what we should do, and finally landed on the goal for our 5 week trip to find student leaders who could help her lead the ministry. We pivoted from reaching out to the general student population and decided to focus on an English language program. We made sure to be outside the building during every break and after classes were done for the day to build relationships and share the gospel. We started a meeting to disciple believers and platform the in-country staff member to share her vision for the campus ministry. We had a leadership meeting at the end of our 5 week trip and had 5 student leaders who wanted to work towards the vision of building a student movement on campus. The staff member who initially had her resignation on her desk before our mission trip kept working in that country for 15 years and counting after our trip. We went to bless her, not fulfill our own goals.

As a participant on your mission trip, be flexible. Lessen your expectations. As a trip leader, loosen up your grip on your plan. Communicate well and frequently. Be a team player by not merely deferring to the local ministers of the gospel but by actively looking how you can serve. Follow their rules and follow their game plan. If you do well, they will reap the benefits for years. If you do poorly, they will be the ones cleaning up the mess.

Go, asking the question, ‘What can we do to be a blessing?’ There will be times when cleaning up garbage, doing repair work, or teaching English will be the biggest blessing. There will be times when doing sports camps or playing games and meeting hundreds of people and doing huge outreaches will be the biggest blessing. You may have one thing planned, then something unexpected comes up. BE FLEXIBLE! You may plant a new church in a village, show the Jesus Film, meet college athletes, disciple younger believers or spend hours and hours in prayer. 

Our biggest goal for the short-term trip is to be a catalyst and a help to the overall strategy and plan of the local ministry. Our goal is to be a sidekick to the real heroes (the local, long-term gospel workers), not to be the heroes ourselves. If we do this well, then we will get our goal, hearing national leaders say, “They were a blessing. We are glad they came.”