by Jon Konnerup
If you read Christian youth magazines, visit church websites, or follow Christian social media, you will find many organizations promoting mission trips. Even Bible colleges are actively planning trips for experience, training, and credit toward one’s degree. I think you would agree mission trips are certainly popular these days, but are they having the desired impact on our people and furthering the mission programs of our churches?
To be honest, participating in a mission trip to reach out through evangelism, construction projects, vacation Bible schools, youth or sports camps, medical clinics, or locating unreached peoples is exciting and potentially self-satisfying. It is gratifying to feel that, in some way, you have impacted lives and ministries in a foreign culture.
In many instances, the firsthand experience of mission trips has proven to have a tremendous, lasting impact on a church’s mission program (providing both finances and prospective missionaries) and on the mission field (lives eternally changed). However, careful planning and training must be taken into consideration to assure meaningful results. As a missionary, I hosted several groups from American churches. The purpose of some was to minister to missionaries while others assisted in evangelism, promoting the local church in the area, training leaders, and so much more. The church and the missionary must establish a clear purpose for the mission trip before it is promoted.
Are you carefully evaluating the purpose of your mission trips? Are you seeing an increase in mission giving? Do you notice a flow of people surrendering to missions as a result of these trips? If not, why not?