Three Mainstays for Every Short Term Mission Trip

    Short term mission trips exist in a variety of flavors. Sadly, many of the trips taken from evangelical churches don’t have a great impact on the missionaries or regions that they visit. If you have partners in mission at your church, here are three mainstays for every short term trip.

I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need. Philippians 2:25

Encourage Your Missionaries

  Missionaries are often in spiritually isolated places. They can lack deep fellowship and not have others speaking into their lives. Thus, short-term trips serve to bless our sent ones in both word and deed.

Plan to strengthen and minister to their needs both spiritually and physically. Pour into them and their family that they might persevere in the good work the Lord has called them to. Through studying God’s word together, debriefing, counseling, investing in their children, and spending time together, the Lord often greatly encourages his people—this is our aim.

Understand the Need

    By understanding the spiritual need of your sent one’s community and region, you gain a better ability to partner in the work. Thus, we plan to listen and ask good, helpful, mature questions about the spiritual need of the work. We serve our missionaries by providing them space to openly process—with another—how they are engaging the spiritual needs of the lost around them.

    We also seek to interact with locals and spend time with believers and unbelievers. While we might not be experts in the local culture, we can personally grasp the spiritual state of the area through engaging with locals. And upon returning home, we are Lord-willing better equipped to know how to pray, engage, and resource from grasping the spiritual need firsthand.

Engage the Work

    By engaging in the biblical vision of sent ones we also build into the advance of the gospel. You should plan to strengthen the local church and evangelize the lost. Strive to dovetail into this biblical pattern and possibly be used in a small point of time to advance the overall work. The Lord is weaving a glorious work through which we can be a small thread in the overall tapestry.

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