Mission Trip Prep Kit Leader's Guide: Complete Preparation for Your Students' Cross-Cultural Experience

Mission Trip Prep Kit Leader's Guide: Complete Preparation for Your Students' Cross-Cultural Experience

by Kevin Johnson
Mission Trip Prep Kit Leader's Guide: Complete Preparation for Your Students' Cross-Cultural Experience

Mission Trip Prep Kit Leader's Guide: Complete Preparation for Your Students' Cross-Cultural Experience

by Kevin Johnson

Paperback(Leaders Guide ed.)

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Overview

You work hard planning mission trips. Now make mission trips work for you and your group. Headed to inner-city America? Appalachia? A border shantytown? Overseas? Wherever your destination, the MISSION TRIP PREP KIT contains all you need to prepare your students for an unforgettable cross-cultural experience—and tools to debrief them after they’ve returned to their worlds. Use this kit— To get on-site impact as well as long-term spiritual change in your kids. Whether you’re a mission-trip novice or a savvy traveler outside your comfort zones. Whether your group’s trip is geared toward reaching others with the gospel or to disciple your young missionaries. In several sessions spread over a month or two—or in an intensive, two-day training session or retreat. IN THIS LEADER’S GUIDE: You’ll receive not only the rationale, the how, and the logistics of planning and pulling off a missions trip, but—and this is the genius of the leader’s guide—4 PRE-TRIP TEACHING SESSIONS that will help your students— ·Assess their EXPECTATIONS, their fears, their motivations. ·Adjust their PERCEPTIONS of the culture they’ll be working in. ·Improve their emotional and spiritual STAMINA for living for a week or a month in a very different world from their own. ·Practice the skills and ATTITUDES (teamwork, servanthood, Christ-centeredness) they’ll need for a missions trip. And to make sure your trip’s goals are accomplished and the benefits stick around for the long haul, you’ll also receive 2 POST-TRIP SESSIONS that will help you DEBRIEF your students, ease them back into their own worlds, CELEBRATE with them, and make missions and ministry part of their EVERYDAY LIVES WITH JESUS. What’s more, in these pre- and post-trip teaching sessions are a variety of ACTIVITIES…processing points…creative PRAYER IDEAS…take-home applications…BIBLE STUDIES relevant to mission tripping…TALK OUTLINES that both instruct and inspire…and lots of sessions options you can tailor to your own HIGH SCHOOLERS OR MIDDLE SCHOOLERS.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780310244882
Publisher: HarperChristian Resources
Publication date: 02/02/2003
Edition description: Leaders Guide ed.
Pages: 208
Product dimensions: 7.50(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.65(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Kevin Johnson is the bestselling author or co-author of more than 50 books and Bible products for kids, youth, and adults. With a background as a youthworker, editor, and teaching pastor, he now pastors Emmaus Road Church in metro Minneapolis. Learn more at kevinjohnsonbooks.com.

Read an Excerpt

Mission Trip Prep Kit Leader's Guide

Complete Preparation for Your Students' Cross-Cultural Experience
By Kevin Johnson

Zondervan

Copyright © 2003 Zondervan
All right reserved.

ISBN: 0310244889


Chapter One

WHY DO SHORT-TERM MISSIONS?

Picture this:

You're a parent who is frantic to see something good happen in your church for your youth. You want them to step closer to God, bond with positive friends, and integrate with the adults in the congregation. What do you do?

Or you're a church volunteer who sees the youth you teach week after week spouting all the right facts yet showing no fruit from a tight relationship with God. They're choking on too much Sunday school. How can you grab hold of them with a spiritual Heimlich maneuver?

Or you're a rookie when it comes to working with students. Still you know God wants to use you in their lives. You're looking for ways to grow the youth you know. Where can you start?

Or you're a youth pastor worn out from trying to devise programs as enthralling as this week's hottest band, movie, or quiz show. You want to train your youth to take the next step toward God, not to expect you to produce a bigger and better program for each youth group meeting. How can you extract yourself from the contest to be voted America's Hippest Youth Pastor?

Or you're a student at the head of the your youth group pack, someone who senses there's more to following Jesus than sponging up Bible stories and doing church socials. You hate it when adults pat you on the head and tell you you're "the church of tomorrow." What can you do to make a difference in your world today?

Or you're a senior pastor wanting to energize what looks like a fizzling youth program. You know firsthand the struggle to be relevant without selling your soul, and you wonder how to best engage today's youth. What sort of guidance should you give your youth staff?

Maybe you see bits and pieces of yourself in several descriptions-or your situation is unique. Yet if you've picked up this book you probably sense that all of those dilemmas share a common solution: Thousands of youth workers have found that an indispensable key to moving their students toward spiritual growth is involving them in short-term missions.

THE ANSWER IS MISSIONS

Missions. Not an expanded diet of lock-ins and wild stunts.

Missions. Not more splashy meetings laced with pricey multimedia.

Missions. Not another luxurious camp or retreat.

Launching students into short-term missions produces effects far more enduring than entertainment. It cracks opens the hearts of youth to biblical content and commands in a way that fun-and-games can't. It ignites their minds far faster than lectures. It captures the attention of youth who want to do rather than sit and learn from a book, even if that book is the Bible. It can draw jaded students into a lifetime of making a difference in the world. And contrary to the old-school youth ministry theory that says the only way to evangelize students is by luring them in with crazy events and then surprising them with the gospel, a service event can even be an entry point to meeting God.

Students who take part in short-term missions join an activity at the center of the heart of God. As they get up-close-and-personal with the purposes of God in their world, they can glimpse the God who is ultimate power, ultimate intelligence, ultimate justice, and ultimate love-the God who burst into history in the person of Jesus Christ to wrap them and their world in total care, total wisdom, total fairness, and total belonging. They see that God passionately wants them to know him and to make them a part of his plan for the world.

THE THREE BIG REASONS TO GO

If you've never done a short-term mission trip either on your own or with students, you might smell a sales job. You may have heard the enthusiastic testimonials of youth workers who have led students on trips, yet you wonder if trips actually do anyone any lasting good. If you're already signed up for a trip, you might be wondering how to maximize the event. And if you've done a short-term project and had a less-than-incredible experience, you might be asking yourself why the project didn't produce the promised results.

The good effects of plugging your students into missions aren't automatic. The effort isn't as easy as barging into your youth group and announcing that you're doing a trip to Nepal next summer. But this guide will help you pull together everything you need to ensure your trip's success-to get ready, accomplish much, and make it stick when you get home. Whether you're a first-timer or a veteran of many short-term mission projects, Mission Trip Prep Kit will assist you in making the most of your project.

To start, here's a big thought: While the process of dreaming up the perfect trip for your students leaves your brain aswirl with questions of where to go and what to do, you're far more likely to get to the good results you seek if you first settle a bigger question: Why go at all?

Involving your students in short-term missions is nothing less than latching on to God's colossal plan to reach humankind with the Good News of Christ. Done right, that endeavor reaps at least three huge benefits:

BENEFIT: OUR MAXIMUM GROWTH. Frankly, the growth of your students might be your pressing priority. Facilitating their growth might be your paid duty, your full-time responsibility, the heartbeat of your life. And asking what a mission trip can do for you and the students you lead isn't a selfish question-not unless you're using missions as a ruse to set up a beach bash in Cancun.

Here's why. Outreach isn't just how Jesus spread news of his kingdom and met the needs of the world at large; it's also how he trained his followers. After those followers watched Jesus minister to the crowds (Luke 8:1), he sent them out two-by-two, first commissioning his 12 closest disciples (Luke 9:1-6), then a group of 72 (Luke 10:1). If you check the biblical texts, you'll notice that the people he sent were still homing in on Christ's precise identity (Luke 9:18-20). Jesus didn't send them out because of their thorough maturity but, in part, to move them toward that maturity.

The same kind of quantum growth that Jesus plotted for his disciples occurs because students involved in outreach help usher in even bigger benefits.

BENEFIT: OTHERS' MAXIMUM GOOD. God aims to do something about the world he sees distanced from himself and mired in destruction. Early in his public ministry Jesus engaged in a set of actions that illustrate the kind of good he intends for us to replicate as we do missions: When a group of men lowered their paralyzed friend through a roof to get him close to Jesus, he forgave the man's sins and healed his broken body and called him his friend (Luke 5:17-26).

That's exactly the kind of spiritual, physical, and emotional good Jesus predicted he would bring to the world when he stood in his hometown synagogue and read a prophecy from Isaiah: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me," he said, "because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor" (Luke 4:18-19). When students imitate Christ's love for the world, they do good for others that brings people whole-life help.

BENEFIT: GOD'S MAXIMUM GLORY. Our motivation for missions starts with the Bible command to "go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age (Matthew 28:19-20). That Great Commission tells us what to do, but often we lop off what Jesus said about why we do it: because "all authority in heaven and on earth" belongs to Jesus (Matthew 28:18).

God's greatness and majesty are one-of-a-kind awe-striking. And his goal is for everything about him-everything worth praising, honoring, and respecting-to be broadcast throughout the world. Isaiah 60:2 says, "See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you." Habakkuk 2:14 puts it this way: "For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."

Right before Jesus headed back to heaven, he made a great prediction of exactly how and where God's glory would spread: The Holy Spirit would empower all of us to speak and act-and we would be the ones to "tell people about [Jesus] everywhere-in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8 NLT).

God isn't glorified only when individual lives are repaired or even when individuals trust in him. God's biggest goal is to build a people. God made us for friendship with himself and each other, but sin smashed that friendship. His goal now is to build a tight group of friends who belong to him-friends who honor him as their Master and rely on his care now and forever, and whose hearts beat with his compassion for all the people of the world.

1 Peter 2:9-10 puts in plain words the good that God wants to use us to do in the world: "But you are chosen people. You are the King's priests. You are a holy nation. You are a nation that belongs to God alone. God chose you to tell about the wonderful things he has done. He called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. At one time you were not God's people. But now you are his people. In the past you had never received mercy. But now you have received God's mercy" (NCV).

NO BETTER WAY TO GROW

Our growth. Others' good. God's glory. Those are great benefits, but benefits that large can be abstract and hard-to-grasp.

As a youth worker-type contemplating a short-term trip for your group, you no doubt intend for your efforts to showcase God's greatness. You surely want to make a difference in the lives of the real people you reach out to. But your immediate reason for picking up this book is likely the huge change that short-term missions can work in your kids. So check out some of the big reasons why short-term projects are so effective in growing students:

SHORT-TERM MISSION EXPERIENCES OFFER AN EFFECTIVE WAY TO TEACH AND DISCIPLE YOUR STUDENTS. When Jesus took his disciples along as he ministered and then launched them to minister on their own, he was conveying spiritual content in the context of real life. It works the same for us: No classroom teaching tactic has the punch of a real-life project, and a short-term trip offers a concentrated way for students to see God at work in and through them. From a purely educational perspective, mission trips are effective because it naturally yields cognitive, affective, and behavioral results-helping students learn with their head, heart, and hands.

SHORT-TERM MISSION EXPERIENCES COMMUNICATE YOUR BELIEF IN YOUR STUDENTS. In his book The Power of Believing in Your Child, youth speaker and former San Diego Charger Miles McPherson talks about touring the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. As the captain reeled off facts about the multibillion dollar floating airport, Miles noticed the helmsman. Steering the ship was a baby-faced 19-year-old. If young women and men still in their teens can guide planes, target bombs, read radar, guard our national security, and put themselves in harm's way, we can trust them to be a light to the world. With a potency few other activities possess, short-term missions call students to live up to the active faith they are capable of.

Plenty of people overlook the potential of youth for accomplishing anything significant, whether teachers who baby-sit them until graduation or media that paints them as selfish rebels. Even many parents fear their children's growing maturity and puzzle over how to channel adolescent energy. When you dare youth to do their best by doing real ministry, you demonstrate gigantic faith in them.

SHORT-TERM MISSION EXPERIENCES HOOK STUDENTS ON MINISTRY-AND ON GOD. If students only know about God from week-in, week-out experiences of Sunday school and youth group, they can draw some misguided conclusions about their faith. They might think that following Jesus is all about sitting still and listening to someone drone on. And if the only place the adults of the church see youth are the week-in, week-out experiences of Sunday school and youth group, they might draw some misguided conclusions about adolescents.

For most youth, making their lives matter is high on their list of priorities. Taking part in a short-term mission project lets them make a difference in someone's life, maybe for the first time. It can jumpstart a life of service, making ministry a normal, everyday part of a student's journey as a Christian. Opening up opportunities for service, in fact, might be far more important than you imagine.

In one of the few empirical studies of why youth distance themselves from God, Dr. Bob Laurent found that teens' own most-cited reason for ditching God was surprising: their church failed to provide opportunities for significant involvement (Keeping Your Teen in Touch with God, Life Journey Books, 1988). Those "opportunities for significant involvement" often revolve around apprenticing youth in real ministry-in evangelism, administration, helps, social justice, worship, Christian education, and discipleship. Students not only need more than fun and games, they want more. Mission projects are one way to give it to them.

NO ARM-TWISTING REQUIRED

Offering your youth the opportunity to take part in a short-term mission project might not awaken an overwhelming response the first time. But recruiting is infinitely easier the next time. Countless students back from well-run trips report to their parents, pastors, and peers that they have experienced all kinds of growth:


+ THEY AUDACIOUSLY SHARE WHAT THEY BELIEVE. For some students, merely
identifying themselves with a mission team-signing up, climbing in the van,
being seen as part of the group, even wearing a project T-shirt-is a huge bit of boldness.
Others step out by speaking about their faith. And some stretch to taking part in
proactive evangelism, talking with strangers in a winsome way.


+ THEY MEET PEOPLE DIFFERENT FROM THEMSELVES. Not many students sit around with
their friends contemplating how to spend their spare time and come up with, "Let's
go meet some homeless people-or some senior citizens-or some people of another race
or religion." But that doesn't mean they won't grab hold of the opportunity if you put it in front
of them. Short-term mission projects open the door to a world they might never enter otherwise.


+ THEY DO NEW THINGS FOR GOD. Lots of youth are never trusted with a lawnmower,
much less a circular saw or a pneumatic hammer. They've never climbed a ladder
or hung out on a roof.

Continues...


Excerpted from Mission Trip Prep Kit Leader's Guide by Kevin Johnson Copyright © 2003 by Zondervan
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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