The Trouble with Waiting for Next Year’s Trip

“I can’t wait for next year’s mission trip.”

There are few things sweeter than hearing this affirmation of a great experience as students pile out of the van or process the experience a few days, weeks or months later. It’s a “yes” vote to a meaningful part of your annual programming. It’s a pat on the back for the effort you put in and an affirmation that God is at work…

…and also, it might mean some of your students are missing the point. Let me explain why.

It begins in the fall and unravels throughout the entire year. There are announcements, sign-ups, fundraisers, paperwork requirements, reminders, deadlines, extended deadlines and students squeezing in after the late, late deadline. There are leader meetings, team meetings, parent meetings, prayer meetings and sendoffs. Sometimes mission trips are the capstone to confirmation or the final youth group event for graduating seniors. And all these things send a pretty clear message: This mission trip is important!

And it is… but the mission trip shouldn’t be the main event of a students’ faith nor a finale to a season in youth group.

The mission trip should be a beginning… the drawing back of the bow… the windup for the pitch. The mission trip should be a launch pad experience that catapults students into the mission field they step into every morning when they roll out of bed.

So when it comes to mission trip preparation, should we start in the fall and have meetings and fundraisers and all-church involvement and encouragement for students to go? Absolutely! But how we do those things matters. Here are three things you can do as you prepare for and communicate about your next mission trip:

1. Talk about it as a learning and growth experience for students

Invite teenagers to take part in something that will affect everyday life back home. Avoid language that suggests this is the grand finale to your year of youth group.

2. Challenge teenagers to do something after the trip.

Next time you hear a student say they enjoyed the mission trip, be excited with them… then ask them how they can apply something they learned or experienced to their everyday life. Then be willing to walk alongside them as they do.

3. Provide opportunities for service and growth back home.

Help students bring home their experience by making service a regularly scheduled event in your youth ministry. Also help students know how they can connect with service on their own at church, in school and around the community.

The point of going on a mission trip is not simply to look ahead to the next one. Rather, mission trips are like that sample of food you get handed in a store—certainly, it’s nice on its own, but the hope is that you’ll bring a whole box home. And the desire for mission trips is that students will sample respectful service and choose to bring it back with them into their everyday lives.

May the students in your youth ministry develop the excitement to say, “I can’t wait for my next opportunity to serve!” And may they understand that it is likely mere moments away.


Sam Townsend has helped write summer theme content and other material for YouthWorks since 2007. He considers his years on staff with YouthWorks to be some of the most formational times of his life. Sam loves good people with new ideas, full conversations over half-price apps, and puns bad enough to make a grown man groan. He is the Pastor of Senior High Ministry at Calvary Church in Roseville, Minnesota and can be reached at sam.townsend@calvarychurch.us

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