Tips for the Journey

Preparing for a Mission Trip: Leadership Matters!

Knowing the purpose, (the mission) of your mission trip and clearly communicating it to all of the participants was the first key to a successful mission trip. The second key to a successful mission trip is found in the leadership team.

When planning a church mission trip it is critical to consider who the leaders will be and to choose leaders with the skills needed to ensure success. While the pastor of a church should always be involved in any mission endeavor of the church it is not necessarily the pastor who should be the Mission Trip leader. The pastor is called by God to shepherd the church. The myriad of responsibilities surrounding planning and leading a mission trip take the pastor’s focus off of the day to day tasks of guiding the church, sermon preparation, discipleship evangelism and ministry to the church family. Selecting a passionate volunteer with good organizational skills, who has the respect and admiration of church members and senses a call from God to the ministry of a missions leader is a great first step in planning and carrying out a successful mission trip.

Once called to the task the wise missions leader will seek out others to join the leadership team. Planning a mission trip includes a myriad of details. Volunteers can be enlisted to take on responsibility for planning for travel, food, lodging, materials, medical and insurance forms, bible studies, team member preparation and for promoting the mission trip and other issues. Writing job descriptions for each of the tasks will help to find people with the right gifts and abilities for each area of leadership.

The leadership team will need to work together to ensure all the details are taken care of in a timely fashion. Coming together to pray over the details and the participants will help to build commitment and a sense of teamship.

Usually the recruitment of a volunteer missions leader falls to a church staff member. When enlisting a volunteer it will be helpful to remember the following guidelines.
   Tell the story. Describe the activity of God that would lead the church to do a short-term mission project.
   Tell your story. Why are you involved? Why do you want to see this happen?
   Define the task. What is the church attempting to do? Whom will the volunteers be helping?
   Define the expectations. This will clarify more exactly what the team leader will be asking volunteers to do.
   Describe the personal benefits. Help a potential team leader or team leadership member understand how God might grow them through this experience.
   Pray with potential volunteers. Every step of the volunteer process should be bathed in prayer. No responsibility should be accepted out of pressure or obligation. It should come from a clear understanding of God’s purpose for the individual.

© 2009 Adult Volunteer Mobilization Team, NAMB. Portions taken from the Volunteer Mobilization Project Logistics Manual. You can download the entire logistics manual from the AVM website.

If you want to read previous Tips for the Journey visit the Mission Trip Tips webpage.

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