R e V o L u T i O n A r Y T e N d E n C i E s: Resources for Training Short-Term Mission Teams

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Resources for Training Short-Term Mission Teams

One of the most important ways to ensure a peaceful and fruitful short-term mission trip is to train and prepare your team well. Here are four helpful resources for preparing your team:

This Bible study will help your team put their brief mission trip in the context of God’s big mission. It combines passages from the Bible with challenging questions that demonstrate God’s heart for the nations and His passion for his glory. It also includes verses to memorize, people groups to pray for, and help in applying the biblical themes to everyday life.

Lesson outline:

Introduction – Before You Get Started
Lesson One: For the Glory of God
Lesson Two: God’s Blessing and Purpose
Lesson Three: God Impacts the Nations as He Blesses His People
Lesson Four: The Psalms and Prophets Reveal God’s Heart for the Nations
Lesson Five: Savior of the World
Lesson Six: His Call to the Nations
Lesson Seven: To the Ends of the Earth
Lesson Eight: Personal Application
Your Next Steps: Roles to Accomplish His Global Purposes

Foreign to Famliar: A Guide to Understanding Hot- and Cold-Climate Cultures

This short (128 small pages with large font) little book divides the world into two groups: “hot-climate” (relationship-based) cultures and “cold-climate” (task-oriented) cultures. This book may not give you information on the specific culture you are going to visit, but it will help your team begin to think through the basics of cultural difference. It is filled with helpful anecdotes and contrasts, and will prepare your team to be more flexible—something that should be a primary goal for every team from the United States.

Chapters:

Hot- Versus Cold-Climate Cultures
Relationship Versus Task Orientation
Direct Versus Indirect Communication
Individualism Versus Group Identity
Inclusion Versus Privacy
Different Concepts of Hospitality
High-Context Versus Low-Context Cultures
Different Concepts of Time and Planning
Practical Next Steps
In Conclusion

Short-Term “Preparation Guide”

This free PDF is targeted mainly at teams going with the International Mission Board (IMB), but there is a lot of stuff that will be helpful to all teams, including:

A 30-day “Spiritual Preparation” devotional guide
Tips for raising prayer and financial support
A guide for prayer walking
Packing lists
Ideas for what to do when you return home

Trip Stuff: Stuff You Need to Know About Doing Mission Trips in Your Church

This is a collection of more than 200 documents developed or used by local churches for doing mission trips. This includes some stuff that will help you in training your team, but it is even more helpful in providing ideas, forms, and guidelines for administering and organizing your trip. Why re-invent the wheel? This CD provides samples, forms, procedures, policies, tips and hints – all in Word documents. For a full list of materials included, see here.

Mark Rogers is a Ph.D. student in historical theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL. A former college pastor and associate pastor, Mark is the editor of "Glimpses of Christian History."

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G. K. Chesterton said that every revolution is a restoration—the recapturing and re-introduction of something that once guided and inspired people in the past. The word revolution is from the Latin word re-volvere—to re-roll or re-turn. A revolution is that thing which going around, comes around—again. In a similar vein, C.S. Lewis says that when we have lost our way, the quickest way forward is usually to go home. So we are returning, we are revolving. To put it strongly, we are revolting, and we are doing it by going home.

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