Last week I posted twice about short term mission trips:

Summer Trip Planning…in December

Mission Trip Top 10

Yesterday I had two conversations with other youth workers about planning their first trips. I love that more people are looking into taking mission trips with their ministries, and I am honored to be able to help these trips be as successful as possible. I ran across this post by Brian Ford this morning and felt I needed to share it with you.

Youth Mission Trips, Do You Know Why You’re Going?

In my top 10 post the first thing I say to do is know your purpose. Brian’s post speaks to the right questions to ask that will get you to the right purpose. He gives five very good answers to “why?”. I encourage you to evaluate which of these five (or a different one you come up with) are the most important to you and most needed for your group this summer. No organization will fulfill all five of these extremely well. Most will probably do one or two of them well. One of the first questions you should ask an organization you are researching is “what is your biggest strength?” or “how is the typical student most effected by your trip?”.

As he says, there are a lot of options out there, and if you haven’t answered “why” you will have no standard to narrow down the possibilities. Obviously price and dates are going to have some influence on your final decision, but they should not be the first or the only basis of your choice.

Please do NOT do a trip just because it is what everyone else is doing. Ask the right questions, pray a lot, and make an educated decision.