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Short Term Missions: A Greenhouse for Student Growth

I was picking out a Christmas tree last year at a local, family-owned tree farm. It’s one of those places big into festivals and hayrides, selling Christmas trees to sustain them through the winter. I ran into the owner while I was sizing up the perfect tree, and we started making small talk. I remember my conversation with him well because it seemed so unusual for small talk.

“Tom, how’s business been? Staying busy?” “Ehh, it’s fine,” he said.

“How about your family? They doing well?”“Sure, they’re good,” he replied without really making eye contact.

And just when I thought he’d move on to the next customer, he looked straight at me and went into this impassioned speech about planting seeds. Seriously…planting seeds. “Spring can’t come soon enough,” he complained. “I just can’t wait to get into the greenhouse and begin poking holes into fresh dirt. There’s nothing better than dropping seeds into the soil and watching for their first signs of life.” I remember thinking, it’s 10 degrees outside, Christmas is in two weeks, and all this guy can talk about is planting seeds? On top of that, how do you even respond? I settled with a “yeah, you’re right, we all can’t wait for the warm weather to come,” and then grabbed my tree to go.

Later on, I was thinking about my encounter with Tom, and I was actually a little impressed. I love running into people who are passionate about what they do, especially when the world is full of short-cutters and people who are just trying to get by. Tom was so excited about growing new plants that he was talking about it four months before he could even step foot into his greenhouse. His passion spilled over into his bank account when he filled acres of his land with greenhouses, in order to give everything he planted the best chance to grow. Selling flowers and vegetables are not the core of Tom’s business, but to him they are the most valuable and enjoyable part of it.

It’s not that different from most youth pastors’ view of their students’ growth. While the rest of the church is talking about the next event, the attendance, the budget and facilities, we can’t help talking about the last break-through conversation we had with a student. How many of us can’t wait to get through the next meeting, so we can hang out with students and grow disciples? While everyone else is caught up in a season of events, we are taking every chance to plant seeds in a safe place, looking hard for the first signs of growth in our youth.

There are a lot of ways we can help our students grow, turning our passion into lifelong results as our stu-dents leave youth ministries as strong disciples of Christ. So much happens in youth ministry, from sermon topics and worship, to small groups that focus on growth. But there’s one thing in particular that almost every church does that has the potential to transform your entire youth ministry: short-term mission trips.

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Notice I used the word “potential.” I say this, because a mission trip is really a short-term Kingdom experi-ence introducing and preparing students for long-term Kingdom living. Everything on a short-term mission trip — the purpose, serving others, being uncomfortable, taking risks, building community with the unlikely, and rubbing shoulders with the least — can transform students. Every part of a short-term mission trip is an intense training environment for following Christ. Unfortunately, we don’t always make the most of these trips, not utilizing them to grow and transform our student’s lives. It would be the same thing if Tom scattered seeds just anywhere on his property and hoped for the best. Sure, some could grow to be healthy and strong plants, but many would die from the elements or get trampled. Instead, they get planted in a greenhouse, where they are protected, nourished, and given the best chance to grow. The greenhouse is a short experience, introducing and preparing plants for long-term living. Sound familiar?

So why not look at short-term missions a little bit differently? Why not craft the short-term missions experi-ence to be a greenhouse for student development, using every experience to give them the best chance for growing into a strong and healthy Christ-follower. These trips can give you the materials you need to build a greenhouse for your student’s growth — multiplying the effectiveness of service and tapping into new potential.

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Building a Greenhouse Out of a Short-Term Mission Trip

The leadership principles and life lessons that can be taught on a mission trip have no rival. Yet students will only learn these principles and lessons if we are intentional about bringing them to the surface. We cannot simply hope the trip alone transforms them; we must be intentional about transformation through-out the entire process. It’s one thing to toss some seeds on the ground, hoping they take root. It’s another to cultivate the soil and provide an environment for solid growth.

This is why I believe it is essential to approach short-term missions with a “greenhouse” mindset.

The test on whether or not a short-term missions trip was truly transformational in your students’ lives is to touch base with them a month later. Are there any new habits, attitudes, or mindsets engrained in their lives?

Are they desiring and pursuing growth?

Are any of the relationships formed and deepened on the trip being maintained?

Although we can’t force growth on our students, we can turn a short-term mission trip into a greenhouse for their spiritual lives, creating a space where the perfect combination of sunlight, moisture, and rich soil (or in this case, training, challenge, and relationship) cause your students to confidently come alive. But long before our students arrive on the site, we need to cultivate the soil, sinking the framework deep into the ground, constructing a foundation for the transformation to come. Building a greenhouse takes time and preparation.

Building the Structure: Planning Your TripMonths before your next mission trip you should begin the building process. As you plan, start with the end in mind. What do you want your students to look like when they return? How do you want them to live differently? How do you want to see God work in their lives? Take time to answer these questions before you start planning your trip. Once you have answered these key questions about the desired growth for your students, you can work backwards from those goals to help in the planning process. Do you want your students to come back from the trip longing to dive into God’s Word every day? Then plan on having time set aside every day on the trip for them to study scripture, discuss what they’ve learned, and relate their experiences to this scripture. Do you want your students to be motivated to serve in their communities when they get home? Then get them involved from day one in planning out the work project, teach them the necessary skills for the work project, and relate their service on the mission trip to service opportunities when they get home. If you really want to see your students experience transformation, focus on it during the planning phase first.

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Let your purpose and desired outcomes shape this mission trip. Your purpose should direct where you go, what you do, and how you spend your time before, during, and after the trip. Your purpose in going will even direct whether you run the mission trip yourself, or you hire another organization to lead the trip for you. In the end, the location, activities on the trip, and even the work project could mean very little if you have not thought through your students’ growth.

Once you’ve extensively thought through how you want your students to grow, share your plan with the other adults going on the trip. Recruit their help in the building process. When your adult volunteers under-stand the clear purpose and reasons behind the trip, they’ll be more effective and inspired to serve. Cast the vision to parents as well, and get them on board. When parents know the purpose behind anything you’ve planned for their students, especially a mission trip, they are much more likely to trust you. Finally, inspire the students with how their world will be different as a result of this trip. Sell them on what they will learn, and how they will grow, rather than on where they will go. All of these components will end up being positive reinforcements in the structure of your greenhouse, giving you a strong foundation for your student’s transformation.

Cultivating the Soil: Pre-Trip TrainingThe next step of the building process is pre-trip training. It’s where you can begin cultivating the soil and preparing your students for what’s ahead. Preparing a mission trip can be stressful — registrations, de-posits, parent meetings, travel forms, and so much more. The last thing youth workers want to do is add on more stress when planning the trip, and many of us look at pre-trip training as extremely stressful. Howev-er, training your students can make or break the impact of the trip both in their lives and in the community you’re serving. I would go as far as to say training sessions should be a requirement for all your students before they are even allowed on the team. Their level of commitment to the trip is clearly displayed if they cannot commit to the scheduled trainings. If your short-term mission trip is going to be truly effective, then pre-trip, on-trip, and post-trip training should take place. Every student must know that every training ses-sion is an expectation, not a suggestion.

Pre-trip training should include the following components:

Poverty TrainingFor many students, this mission trip will be their first time encountering real poverty. Teach them about the causes and effects of poverty, and about God’s heart for the poor. Speak honestly and openly about how to effectively interact with poverty so your students do not walk into their mission trip donning a savior complex. We are called to help others in need, but we will be taught many valu-able lessons in the process. Students must understand the value of building relationships with people they are serving, and how these relationships show God’s love more than the material assistance offered.

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Team Building TrainingEvery team will experience interpersonal conflict on mission trips. It’s unavoidable. But having team building training beforehand will help them deal with this conflict in a mature way. Teach your stu-dents about the power a team can have when they are unified, focused, and caring for each other. Using team building initiatives and games are a great way to build these values. Plus, it’s a ton of fun.

Spiritual TrainingTake time in pre-trip training to teach your students about the spiritual value of missions and the ways in which their personal spiritual growth connects with God’s plan for the world. The Kingdom of God is huge, and while your students’ mission trip is just a small part of the Kingdom, it is significant for their future work. We often focus on logistics during our training time and miss the opportunity to train our students spiritually. What a shame if their trip program is prepared, but their hearts aren’t ready.

Hiring the Gardeners: Preparing Your StaffWorking in a greenhouse takes a unique person. As the gardener grows the plants during their most vulnerable time, tedious work and careful hands are necessary. Your staff members have the potential to cause transformation and change lives. Training and investing in them is essential. I have led over 200 stu-dent mission trips, and the number one problem I see is adult volunteers who have no idea what they are doing on the trip. Too many adults are asked to come on trips as chaperones or van drivers, but they could be so much more.

On one of the trips I led down in Arizona’s Navajo Nation was an adult volunteer and parent named Nancy. Nancy had come on the trip because she wanted to be a chaperone and make sure the kids stayed safe. On the first day of our trip, we went to the grocery store to do the shopping for the week. On LeaderTreks trips, the students are in charge of the food: making the menu, buying the groceries for each meal, and cooking the meals. This always results in great teachable moments, and sometimes some pretty bad food. In the grocery store, adult volunteers are not allowed to tell students what to do. We are there to answer questions the students would not know themselves. As we were standing in the aisle of the grocery store, I noticed Nancy was getting too involved, telling students what to do and what ingredients to get for each meal. I quickly pulled her aside and reminded her to empower the students and let them make the deci-sions. As I spoke these words to her, she appeared physically agitated and tears welled up in her eyes. “But Doug, they’re going to forget the butter for the pancakes.” Through muffled laughter I said, “Nancy, don’t worry about it. They’re going to forget to buy the syrup too… But we’ll have a great chance to teach them in the morning.”

Sure enough, the next morning we had the most amazing pancakes, but no butter and no syrup. So right then and there, standing in a little church kitchen located in the heart of the Navajo Nation, Nancy and I were able to teach our students about the power of strategic planning. Nancy learned a ton too. She saw

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students taking the knowledge learned through the experience and actually applying it. She realized just telling the students to plan would never help any of them in the long run. Nancy’s whole perspective got turned upside down. Instead of being concerned that the students would ruin breakfast, she was now concerned with whether or not they were growing as leaders. She didn’t need to tell them what to do, she just needed to empower them to make decisions and teach them through their choices. Nancy no longer tried to give advice; instead she sought to mentor, and it changed everything.

Every adult who goes on a youth group mission trip must understand they have the ability to be a trip men-tor. A trip mentor’s main responsibility is to develop relationships and challenge students, using teachable moments to help them grow. While adult staff still need to enforce rules, drive vans, and maintain order, becoming trip mentors reorders their priorities. If adult volunteers intentionally build deep relationships with students and willingly challenge students on the trip, their influence carries on past the trip. A trip mentor can easily become a life mentor after the trip has passed, and mentoring relationships are some of the most formative relationships I’ve ever seen when it comes to youth ministry.

In order to help adult staff understand the dynamic role they can have during the mission trip and after, training is crucial. Adult volunteers must learn to develop relationships with students, challenge students, use teachable moments, and how to maintain reasonable boundaries.

Relationship BuildingThe key to building relationships with students is simple: ask questions. Students love to talk, especially about themselves, so train your staff on how to ask lots of good questions. Students love to be discovered, so asking questions about their lives is always a big win. If staff start off asking surface level questions (“What music do you like to listen to?” or “What sports are you involved in at school?”) in the beginning of the relationship, they set the foundation for deeper level questions (“What is your big dream in life?” or “What has recently impacted you?”) later on. Asking questions of students that lead to deep and inten-tional conversations is one of the best ways to build a relationship.

Challenging StudentsOn mission trips, challenging students starts with challenging the top performing students. Usually we want to challenge the students who don’t “get it.” But challenging the students at the top is much more produc-tive; it gives struggling students a model to follow. Challenge can be as simple as asking students: Is there a better way? How can we improve tomorrow? These questions will require students to think about their performance and how they can grow. Challenge can also be spiritual, emotional and mental, even though it’s easy to think of it as always being physical. I often challenge the guys on the first night of a trip to step up as spiritual leaders. So often, when we ask for volunteers to pray before a meal, the girls will raise their hands right away and the guys don’t even budge. I challenge guys to step up, because they often don’t think of being leaders in regards to the spiritual aspect of the team. Yet as they grow in Christ and grow in their leadership, they will eventually have to become spiritual leaders.

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Challenge your students based on their future potential. Don’t push them to the breaking point, but don’t let them stay comfortable either. I always say, challenge a student 10% past their comfort zone. That’s not exactly a scientific measurement, but you can usually tell when you’re there. Challenge is such a great tool to use when building Kingdom leaders. It adds the friction and tension needed to produce solid, confident Christ-followers.

Teachable MomentsSimply put, a teachable moment is an opportunity to draw a life principle out of a life experience. Teachable moments happen when you mix a student’s experience with the truth of God’s Word. Students remem-ber lessons when they are tangible and personal. On mission trips, students will encounter many differ-ent experiences, and they will be challenged to think in new ways. Look for moments to help them make applications for changing their lives back home. These moments can come in the midst of great failure or great success. Teachable moments give you the platform to share valuable words of insight. Your words of truth can challenge students to make life changes — changes they ordinarily would have resisted or simply missed.

Unfortunately, adults often struggle to make the most of teachable moments. Sometimes it is because they don’t know what to say, or they are afraid. Other times, it’s because there is no relationship built between the adult and student, leaving no platform to speak truth into a student’s life. Most often, though, adults miss teachable moments because they simply aren’t looking for them. It’s easy to get distracted by details or the program and miss the opportunity to leave a lasting impact. Make the most of teachable moments by looking out for them!

Boundaries = LoveWhen I first started LeaderTreks in 1994, I was able to partner with several private Christian schools fo-cused on leadership development. One school gave us their toughest students, thinking that if we could do a good job with these students, we could do a good job with anyone.

Shortly before we left for the trip, several parents informed me they had overheard their kids saying they were going to “bust out at night,” and cause all sorts of problems. They wanted me to keep a special watch on their sons so they didn’t misbehave. Armed with this information, I realized if I didn’t set clear boundar-ies and expectations for the students, not only would they misbehave, they would also miss all the oppor-tunities the trip had for them. So what did I do? I worked really hard at establishing clear boundaries with our students, letting them know the expectations I had for them. I also set up a lot of fun things for us to do, but in an organized way. And because of what the parents had told me before the trip, I slept in front of the door. All the boys on that trip knew there was no way of sneaking out, because each night, I parked my sleeping bag in front of the only exit. The trip ended up being a huge success; in fact, it was one of the best trips I’ve ever been on. The students understood, maybe for the first time in their lives, the boundaries set for them would lead to joy and fun. I let them know up front tat I loved them and cared for them, but that I also wanted them to grow. Growth was more likely to happen if they weren’t always in trouble.

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Don’t give students what they want; give them what they need. If you raise the level of expectation, your students will rise to meet it. If we have low expectations for our students, they will meet those as well. Before the trip, ask more of students than you think possible. Challenge their potential, and see what hap-pens. The students who were with me on that first trip ended up going on trips for the next three years, and the school has been an established partner with us for almost two decades. It’s amazing what setting clear boundaries helped us accomplish.

In the end, choosing the right adult volunteers and training them to be trip mentors can multiply their impact in student’s lives. It will also give them immense value, creating passionate volunteers who desire to be in meaningful relationships with students long after the trip is over. And what youth ministry couldn’t use more volunteers like that?

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Maintaining the Environment: Ingredients for Student Growth

Without the perfect balance of water, sunlight, and temperature, a seedling will never have a chance to grow. Elaborate systems are installed in greenhouses to maintain the optimal environment at all times, never letting anything get out of balance. The same is necessary for our students. There are key ingredients on a trip that will give them the best chance for growth.

Spiritual IngredientsObviously prayer and Bible study are key to spiritual development, but how can we use these ingredients on a trip to inspire and equip students to carry out these habits at home? The system we follow on Lead-erTreks trips is the best way I know. On every trip, students spend 45 minutes each morning in silence and solitude. They are given a trip book, which contains a Bible study, a prayer journal, and a growth journal. Each Bible study contains various study methods, helping them dive deeper into the scripture. We challenge students to find one or two methods that connect with them, encouraging them to use these methods at home. Instead of just telling students to read the Bible and journal about it, students actively engage with the Word of God, learning to effectively study scripture on their own.

These 45 minutes are non-negotiable, meaning they will never be shortened or cut out. Throughout the day, our staff members engage students in challenging conversations about what they learned that morning in the Bible study or the growth and prayer journals. Our staff focus on how these truths not only apply to the trip, but also to their lives at home. By continually connecting what they are learning on paper with their experiences, we heighten the impact of scripture on students’ hearts. In addition to these conversations, each night of a trip, the team gathers together for Team Time — a time of student-driven discussion focus-ing on what the team learned throughout the day.

Leadership IngredientsStudents cannot get away from the fact that they are influencers. Their decisions, attitudes, and actions have an influence on others. This is especially apparent on a mission trip. In such tight quarters, it’s easy to see the ways teammates influence each other, and how each student’s actions influence the community.

Training students in leadership helps them direct their influence in a positive way. Students can be inten-tional in their influence and take ownership of their faith and decision-making. Short-term mission trips are a great place to challenge and equip your students in leadership. It’s almost impossible to be a leader without being an owner. If your students are leading on the trip, they own the mission. If your students are taking it a step further and leading spiritually, they own their faith. The results of student leadership are pretty spectacular.

When we lead short-term mission trips at LeaderTreks, we place students in specific leadership roles, chal-lenging them to take ownership of the trip. When students are the ones making the food, executing key decisions on the worksite, and running the vacation Bible school ministry, amazing things happen. Failures

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are often inevitable, but when students fail, teachable moments can happen. Through failure, students are faced with the consequences of their decisions and challenged to find solutions to the problems they face. Students fail and succeed as they put leadership principles into practice, and these experiences solidify the student’s understanding of these principles.

Vision IngredientsBy changing the way you approach your trips, you will increase the likelihood of your students experiencing lifelong change. When you teach students how to deepen their relationship with Christ, and the ways in which their leadership can impact the world, students are inspired and equipped to make their lives count. Following their experience on intentional mission trips, I have seen countless students go into the mission field, become full time youth workers, work for non-profit Christian organizations, and step up as leaders in their churches. Instead of simply “hoping” the trip will propel students into a life of influence and service, teach principles that students can apply to their everyday lives, laying the foundation for lifelong impact.

Get Sleep Though sleeping doesn’t seem like it belongs with spiritual development, leadership principles, or vision, it is just as important. Why? Because without sleep, students might be able to function, but they can’t be challenged. And challenge results in the growth of all the previous areas. Each day, your students should be growing, naturally sharpened by the challenges of living together, serving wholeheartedly, applying scrip-ture, and processing what they experience. Otherwise, they will leave the greenhouse the same way that they came.

If your team does not get enough sleep at night, the success of the trip will crumble under the weight of exhaustion. Trips become increasingly ineffective as team members become tired. I am amazed by how many teams come on trips with the idea they are going to stay up all night. Students spend their nights talking and “building relationships” hours after the designated lights out time. In the morning, they are groggy at best, non-functioning at worst. Hours of quality time are wasted on the worksite or at VBS as ineffective students who are sapped of energy trudge slowly through their duties. Excitement for serving, learning, and growing are destroyed because students were allowed to push back their bedtime. Set clear boundaries in this area to encourage and ensure your students’ growth. Years of experience have proven this truth: students can’t be challenged or learn if they haven’t had enough sleep. Oh, and you won’t be at your best either. Trust me on that one.

Each day on your trip, evaluate where your team is at based on these areas: spiritual growth, leadership de-velopment, vision, and sleep. Evaluate on which of these ingredients you need to focus in order to maintain a healthy greenhouse environment. Don’t let any cold air in that will negatively impact your team’s growth, especially spiritually speaking. Protect the team environment while they are in the greenhouse of a short-term mission trip.

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Acclimating: Returning Home

My wife and I moved into a house that has a fenced-in space for a vegetable garden. It is perfectly po-sitioned in the sun and protected from the deer who love to raid our yard. In the springtime, she bought greenhouse trays from the hardware store and planted the seeds in our dining room. The seedlings sprout-ed up quickly, and it wasn’t long before they were ready to take on the outdoors. I learned from her you can’t just transplant them outside right after they sprout though because they will die from the shock; the plants must first acclimate to the outdoors over several days. By leaving the seedlings outside during the day and taking them indoors at night, you help the seedling make the transition. Eventually, you leave it outside for a few days straight, eventually transplanting them into the garden. A period of acclimation is also necessary for our students following a short-term mission trip. A mission trip is a unique environment for growth; it’s unlike any other. The return home can be a shock to their system reversing the growth they experienced on the trip if we don’t help them acclimate. Here are some ways to bridge the gap for them and encourage them to continue growing at home.

Time to DebriefEveryone who has experienced a short-term mission trip needs time to debrief. Provide a night shortly after you get back from the trip (no longer than a week) for your entire team to debrief their experience. This time should include revisiting what students learned, celebrating the team’s wins, and challenging the stu-dents to move forward in the changes they committed to making. Have this time at someone’s house, and consider inviting parents to be a part of it so they can see the impact the trip is having on their students. I’ve seen some churches go as far as to meet with each student individually, telling the student how they saw God working in and through them, and setting up some specific growth goals.

Connect to a Local CauseStudents always return from trips wanting to do more in serving others around them. This is natural, as the trip should serve as a catalyst for increasing their role in the Kingdom. But you can’t just wait for it to happen; instead, plan for it to happen. Take time after the trip to brainstorm with your team possible ways they can connect to service opportunities in their local neighborhood. Use the trip as inspiration, and see if your students can connect to similar ways of pouring back into their own community. If your whole team connects to a cause, the learning and impact can continue long after the trip has ended.

Missional LifestyleShort-term mission trips should never be mountain top experiences. Unfortunately, the excitement of many trips never lasts longer than a couple of months and students go back to their same old patterns. You can help change this. Start by asking students to help keep each other accountable to the decisions they made on the trip. Next, walk them through the process of discovering their God-given mission for their lives, and how to apply that mission both now and in the future. Helping students discover how the trip can affect their lives for the long haul can prevent the common mountain top experiences found on many short-term

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mission trips.

Maintain the RelationshipsOn a trip, students become connected to each other and to the staff that went with them. Have a plan to help students maintain these relationships. Host a party a few weeks after the trip, and have everyone bring their trip pictures. Give the whole team a chance to reconnect. Create a Facebook group page where students can post best memories. Also, encourage and challenge your adult staff to pursue intentional men-toring relationships with the students they connected with on the trip. Be sure to equip your adults with tools and training to continue these relationships.

Help students through this acclimation process following your short-term mission trip. Lead them through this transition; it’s one of the most transformational things you can do.

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Where Do I Build My Greenhouse? The Short-Term Missions Dilemma

I’m addressing this last, because it’s outside the realm of student transformation, but so closely tied to Kingdom impact. As powerful as short-term missions can be for our students, we must be careful they are not destructive to the communities we serve in.1 If we build a mission trip greenhouse for our students without thinking about the community around it, we can have some really harmful effects: invading their existing systems and structures, taking away local jobs that feed families, robbing people of dignity, and be-ing culturally offensive. In many cases, it’s possible to undo a lot of work that a long-term missionary and/or local church have spent years completing. WE MUST BE CAREFUL!

Choose the Right PartnerOne way to avoid causing harm to the community or church where your team serves is by choosing the right partner. Working with a missionary partner who is long-term in the community is a must. When you partner with someone who is longstanding in the neighborhood where you are working, your time will be more transformative, both for your students and for people you serve. This type of partner knows the local people and can best identify who needs the most help from your group, and how best to help them. Your students will also get to see God’s missional call clearly displayed through the lives of the missionaries with whom you choose to partner.

Working alongside missionary partners who are committed to community development is the best situation you can find. It’s not that missionaries who focus solely on evangelism or discipleship are wrong in their approach to missions. It’s just that missionaries committed to community development projects are better- equipped to deal with the team component of short-term mission trips.

I have personally experienced the power of a long-term partnership with a full-time missionary. I’ve been going on mission trips to Pawley’s Island, South Carolina, for 20 years, where I’ve worked alongside a good friend named Van. Van worked for a local organization helping African-American boys get off of drugs and finish high school. After a year of working with him, I told Van I wanted to be partners with him. I’ll never forget his response to me. Van turned to me and said, “Alright Doug, if you want to partner with me, we gotta get married. If a white guy and a black guy are gonna be partners, they gotta be in it for good. See, we are gonna have good days, and we are gonna have bad days, and just like any married couple, we gotta know we’re gonna be there for each other, even in the midst of those bad days. You and me see the world differently, we see ministry differently, and even though we may like each other now, just liking each other’s not gonna hold up forever. We gotta love each other, and we gotta get married.”

So I got married. I am for Van in every way possible, and I know Van is for me. We’ve had horrible days, and we’ve had amazing days — loving each other through it all. Today, 20 years later, we still do ministry together every summer. In fact, Van and I became such close friends that he officiated my real wedding. It’s

1 While I had known the negative effects short-term mission trips could have, all my thoughts were confirmed by Steve Corbett’s book “When Helping Hurts” (Chicago, 2009).

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a powerful testament of what happens when two people love and care for each other. Long-term partner-ships meet long-term needs because trust is present. Serving alongside a missionary partner for the long-term makes short-term missions better…not to mention, a lot more fun!

I’ve seen two effective strategies for finding the right missionary partner — 1) work alongside a mission-ary your church already supports, or 2) find an organization that works with full-time missionaries. If you go the route of working through your own church, make sure the missionary partner is excited about using student teams to get work done, whatever the work may be. I have heard of many missionaries commit-ting to partnering with teams from churches, only to discover they really have no desire or patience to work with teams. Also, if you do choose to partner with a missionary your church supports, know that assisting your team is not that missionary’s number one priority. You may end up having to do a lot of logistical work ahead of time to get your trip off the ground.

If you choose instead to partner with a mission trip organization to run your trip, make sure they really do work with full-time missionaries. Ask a lot of questions up front about who they partner with, and what work would be done on the trip. Ask how many partnerships are repeating. A high return rate is usually a sign of a good partnership. Remember that while your goal is developing your students, their goal is serving the community they are in, and there are plenty of ways to do both. Obviously the longer the missionary partnership, the better it is for everyone involved.

Add Value to the Missionary PartnerOnce you know with whom you will partner, you need to value and care for them. Before the trip starts, find out ways you could serve them. It could be as simple as bringing them a favorite snack from back home. They could be in desperate need of textbooks for their own children, or they may need an extra bag of supplies flown down with your group, saving them on shipping costs. Before you arrive on site, find ways to care for your missionary partner.

After you arrive to the site with your team, and the trip is underway, make time to have the missionary partner (and family) over to your team house for dinner. Give them time to share their story with your team, and allow your students to ask them questions. Thank them for their hard work and sacrifice, and spend time in prayer together. The more you get your missionary partner involved in these ways, the more they will feel valued and encouraged, and your partnership with them will be strengthened.

Don’t Deplete Community ResourcesWhen the cost of hosting a team is high, short-term missions can damage an impoverished community. Many times, work project materials, utility costs, and team space can deplete resources from the ongoing ministry in that community. Make sure to add that into the cost of the trip. Many other cultures have such a high value for hospitality (at any cost) that they would never mention the costs to you. Do some research beforehand with the missionary partner, or with the mission trip organization, to make sure that your team does not deplete these resources. This part of short-term mission trips is often overlooked, but the ways in

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which your team supplies and uses resources makes a lasting impression on the community. Learn From the “Least of These”Too often, groups arrive on a mission site wanting to “save” the poor from their destitute situations. It’s easy to walk into a mission trip with a savior complex, ready to serve the poor, but not ready to learn from the poor.

Christ wanted us to treat the poor with love and respect. In Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6 he said:

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.2

Christ knew that because of their general lack of financial security, the poor were more likely to cling to God and desire a saving relationship with Him. He called them blessed — yet our approach to missions generally views the poor as somehow beneath us. God commands us to assist our brothers and sisters in need, and every student should learn this, but he also longs for us to develop relationships with the people we serve and learn from them.

There’s a lot to learn from the community in which we build our short-term missions “greenhouse.” In fact, the interaction your students have inside of the community could be another ingredient that catapults their Kingdom growth. So be careful where you choose to serve during your short-term mission trip. Search for a place where your students can have a positive impact on the community, and the community can have a positive impact on your students. Rubbing shoulders with God’s children in different parts of the world can be life changing for both parties!

2 Luke 6:20-23, NIV

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The Greenhouse Approach to Short-Term Missions

There’s a lot that goes into short-term missions. And depending how everything lines up, it could be the perfect storm or the perfect environment for your students’ growth. If I had to sum it up though I would say this: “Be intentional.” If you decide to be intentional about every aspect of the trip, you’re going to give students the best chance for growth and lasting change. Be intentional with how you choose your team; be intentional about where you choose to go; and be intentional with who you choose to partner. Be inten-tional with your adult staff by training them to be trip mentors, and be intentional with your students in preparing their hearts.

That’s all a greenhouse is — it’s simply an environment that’s intentionally focused on growth. The place-ment, the climate, the soil, the level of moisture in the air — every aspect of a greenhouse contributes to the growth of strong and healthy plants. Help your students grow into strong followers of Christ by being intentional with the few precious weeks they spend on a short-term mission trip.

Mission trips need to be intentional. At LeaderTreks, we’ve always believed this and have

been running transformational mission trips since 1994. If you are interested in booking a

trip or buying mission trip curriculum, give us a call at 877-502-0936.

We would love to partner with you.