Nothing has the power to transform your teenagers’ lives better than an outside-my-comfort-zone mission trip or service project. Outreach is the lifeblood of a thriving youth ministry, and serves as a microwave for life-change.
What You’ll Find
The Missions and Service section provides guidance, inspiration, and ideas to help you find or create life-changing experiences for your youth ministry. You’ll find stories of epic triumphs and epic fails, along with how-to’s that will aid you in planning a trip/project, fundraising, recruiting volunteers and even post-trip follow through.
What’s the best way to communicate the rules at camp? You know… “the rules.” We’ve all been sharing these rules for years: “Boys are blue. Girls are pink. Don’t make purple.” “Respect the facility.” “Clean up after yourself.” “Blah blah blah blah…” It’s hard to capture it all in a way that students will remember.…
I had no idea I lived next door to a softball rockstar. Courtney and her family moved into the neighborhood during her sophomore year. We found out they were Christians, which they displayed over and over through tangible acts of service.…
I braced myself to hear whatever came out of her mouth next. “Here’s the problem,” she began. “I want to serve and have a lot to offer. I just have some strong opinions about a few things that I won’t budge on and sense would cause problems here.”…
I made some inaccurate assumptions about summer service during my first year in youth ministry. I thought it might be helpful to share three of them. I hope you’ll comment and interact with your discoveries and also give tips on how to head into a sensational summer of serving together with our favorite people…teenagers.…
Over the last decade there’s been A LOT of smack-talk about short-term mission trips (STMT’s)—in the youth ministry community. It’s intellectually fashionable to question their purpose, long-term impact, and even their moral foundation. The problem with short-term mission trips or service projects, according to critics, is that they function like a vaccine.…
I like it when people pick up the tab for my food. A guy named Doug approached me years ago when I transitioned into a church as its youth pastor. He’d been a faithful student ministry volunteer and wanted to start a friendship with me.…
In Part 1 I briefly discussed the idea that missions trips to produce lasting transformation. Another reason I love missions trips is that they put you in a place where you can develop deep and lasting friendships with students. Casey is that student who’s smarter than you.…
Mission trips can be very heavy on logistics. Where you go. Where you stay. Who you serve. How you serve them. What you eat. How you get there. And many more details… Ugh. In the mountain of all that info, it’s easy to miss planning and preparing for what may be the most important thing that will happen on your mission trip.…
So now that you’ve decided to take your group on a mission trip, the task of planning the trip and bringing everything together begins… There’s the travel to and from the location. The breaking down of your bigger group into smaller teams that will serve together.…
For the past few months, I have been making presentations to adult volunteers who will be going on summer mission trips with LeaderTreks. I do this every year, but this year I wanted to focus on helping adult volunteers really understand the purpose for student missions.…
