Top 3 Mission Trip Prep Topics for Youth Mission Trips

Getting a youth group ready for a summer mission trip takes more than a packing list! We asked youth leaders from across the U.S. to give us their top 3 topics for preparing their teams and here's the scoop.

"Basically we want our team to be on the same page before we go on our summer mission trip." Explains Jay, from a church in Wisconsin. "Certainly knowing our teams gifts are important, but we focus one full session on writing out what we hope to accomplish on our trip. We support everything with scripture. So when we are done we have a document, like a contract, that we have all signed that outlines the goals of the week, how we will hold each other accountable, and a commitment to continue the mission trip when we get home."

Jay uses Mission Discovery "Team Covenant" outline with his youth. "Several years ago we came home and immediately adopted a project to renovate a home for a very poor lady living near the church after we returned from our Mission Discovery Mexico mission trip. It was sparked by a kid asking why we couldn't do this at home!"

We found that most youth leaders agreed with Jay that a Team Contract or Team Covenant is in the top three most important elements of team preparation. "It's my favorite part of our team preparation." Jay says, "It simply puts in writing 1. Why we are going on the summer mission trip, 2) What we will be doing, and 3) How we will do it."

Kevin is from a church in the northeast United States. "We are a church who loves telling the story of Jesus. But most of our middle school students going on a summer mission trip find themselves in new territory sharing their faith." Kevin likes the Mission Discovery training approach. "Because we are having to communicate through a translator, sharing our Jesus story has to be a bit different, shorter. And shorter is perfect for a middle schooler who might be a bit shy."

Kevin has each student write out his testimony and bring that story to their meeting a week later. Each student reads his story to one other student, then the next week condenses his/her story to an outline and tells it to another student from outline. "By the end of the next week we want them to know it by heart. We simply ask each student to think about the question, 'What difference Christ makes in a life?'" And Kevin was in agreement that helping his team effectively communicate God's love is in the top 3 most important elements of team preparation.

We were surprised at the next topic falling into the top 3 category. "Since the beginning of my work with youth, I have heard, 'Know your audience.' It's important for me to know youth and their culture, so I've taken that same approach in preparing our team for our summer mission trip." Becky is a 10 year veteran of youth ministry and works in Florida. "We ask every student to write a 3 page research paper on the culture we will serve. We divide into groups, and ask groups to focus on certain aspects of that culture."

After the group brings back the reports and listens to the findings of each group they brainstorm ideas of reaching out to people in that culture. "If we can find a person in our area who is from that country, we will have them come to group one night and talk about their culture and then we verify our research by asking them questions." Becky says the questions are excellent and almost always center on clarifying the research that took place weeks before. Some leaders called this final research paper a "Culture Gram." And so it rounds out the top 3 most important elements of summer mission trip prep topics.

Give us your feedback. What are your top 3?

If the above topics sound allot like regular discipleship of students, you are correct. A summer mission trip is one of the best possible ways to prepare youth for their life's journey!