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Making the Most of Your Summer Mission Experience

Insights | Discipleship & Evangelism | Jun 5, 2024

Summer mission trips have become one of the primary platforms God uses to call out and prepare people for longer-term missionary careers.

By D. Scott Hildreth

Summer is finally here. The weather is heating up. The school year is coming to an end. Our church ministry schedules take on a new pace and emphasis. Short-term mission trips are one summer ministry that are becoming more of a standard in many churches.

Even though these trips have become more mainstream, it’s important to remember they are relatively new in missionary history. When we first went to the mission field in the late 1990s, most people we were with hadn’t been overseas before.

Today, finding a missionary candidate with no overseas travel experience would be like discovering a unicorn. Short-term missions has become one of the primary platforms God uses to call out and prepare men and women for longer-term missionary careers.

But we also know short-term mission trips aren’t always positive experiences . They can be a drain on long-term missionaries. They can promote dependency and an unhealthy relationship between U.S. and national partners. These trips are often extremely (read: excessively) expensive. And they may fail to move the needle of missionary advance in any measurable way according to the longer-term missionary strategy.

Not only do poorly planned and executed mission trips have negative consequences for the mission field, but they can also have a negative impact on the mission trip participants.

Summer mission trips can reinforce bad missiology

God uses mission trips as a testing ground for His missionary call. Often, participants sense God has a plan for their lives, and the mission experience fills in the imagination, allowing them to “see” themselves as missionaries.

However, a poorly executed mission trip can reinforce unhealthy ideas of missionary practice. Participants may not appreciate the need for national partnership, or they may not understand that the missionary life is usually a series of smaller decisions, not massive events.

Summer mission trips can create bad habits and feed the worst of our own culture

Who hasn’t cringed at the notion of mission trips as social media fodder or Christian tourism? We know these attitudes are problematic. However, poorly executed mission trips may feed some more subtle aspects of our culture.

In our materialistic and consumeristic culture, we evaluate events and people through the lens of efficiency and bottom-line numbers. If we’re not careful, these same attitudes show up on our mission trips. The traveler (me and you) become the consumer, and national believers (or unbelievers) are products whose ‘value’ is measured by how well they meet our wants.

We treat others as if they’re the pawns on the chessboards of our lives, moving them where we want according to our preferred plan and quickly dispensing of them when the game is over.

Summer mission trips can harm spiritual formation

For some, a mission trip seems like the ultimate Christian life accomplishment. We can hear this when people tell their faith stories and include the countries they’ve visited or trips they’ve taken. It’s as if simple Bible study, daily prayer, and church are for junior varsity believers but serious Christians go on mission trips. If this is our thinking, these trips will feed spiritual pride and harm our long-term walks with the Lord.

So, none of us wants to participate in or lead a mission trip that’s counterproductive, or worse, detrimental to the work of God. The question we want to answer is: “How can we make the most of our mission experiences?” Is there anything you can do over the weeks and months leading up to your trip to combat these concerns? There are at least three things you can do moving forward.

1. Remember and remind your fellow travelers this mission trip is a partnership, not “your trip”

As we prepare for a mission trip, it’s tempting to take ownership of the experience and the event. We want our people to have a good time, and we want it to be a positive experience. We also use marketing language to recruit for the trip. However, at this point, we need to begin reminding ourselves, and others, that we’re serving the long-term missionaries and national partners. We need to submit our goals to theirs and evaluate success according to their metrics. It’s not about us.

2. Remember it’s a process

God’s mission cannot be fulfilled in a single mission trip. Even the most well-planned and successful trip serves as but a drop in the bucket for global discipleship. If we can keep this in mind, it will help us remember our goal. This attitude should keep us focused on more solid missionary practice. To use a baseball analogy, our trip should be a string of singles, not a home run. We may never see the runner score, but we play an important role in the process. You can begin reinforcing this theme along the way as you prepare your team for the trip. Frame success as part of a process, not a glorious walk-off home run.

3. Remember success takes planning

We know success won’t ‘just happen.’ Left to our natural tendencies, we, like water, all seek the path of least resistance, and this path leads downhill. As a leader, take time now to plan for missionary success.

• Before the trip, meet with your team and set expectations. Don’t use pre-trip meetings for logistics only. Take time to shape the expectations, thinking, and missionary mindset of your travelers.

• During the trip , help the team process. Take time each day (or every other day) to process the events of the trip. Take the lead in helping your team interpret the experiences (the successes and challenges) through the matrix of good missiology and partnership.

• After you return, debrief the trip and help your team understand what God accomplished and the role they played in the longer-term vision and strategy.

• Have a plan for continual spiritual growth for your team . Back to our baseball analogy, the mission trip is not home plate for disciple making.

According to Ephesians 4:12-13, your job is “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness” (CSB). This mission trip is but one step in this process. Don’t let your people substitute a life well lived for Christ for a fleeting mission trip experience.

For permission to republish this article, contact  Marissa Postell Sullivan .

D. Scott Hildreth

@dshildreth

Scott serves as Associate Professor of Missiology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author of Together on God’s Mission and the co-author of Sharing Jesus Without Freaking Out. Both books are published by B&H Academic. 

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Crewed Boeing Starliner finally launches from Florida: 'Let's put some fire in this rocket'

If all goes to plan, starliner will dock thursday at the international space station as boeing hopes to become the second company making routine trips for nasa..

Two veteran NASA astronauts, Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Sunita "Suni" Williams, are finally bound for the International Space Station aboard Boeing's Starliner space capsule nearly a month after its initial planned launch was scrubbed at the last minute.

Launching Wednesday from Florida, the inaugural crewed flight of Boeing's  CST-100 Starliner is a critical demonstration for the aerospace company, which hopes to join Elon Musk's SpaceX as one of two companies making routine trips to orbit on NASA’s behalf. The mission is the first crewed orbital test flight for Boeing after two previous demonstrations with no astronauts on board.

NASA, which provided live coverage of Wednesday's launch , is expected to provide coverage of the landing as well, which is projected to occur a little over 24 hours after launch.

Here are updates from the launch and what to know about the mission.

A year behind and over budget: Timeline shows Boeing Starliner struggles and scrubs

Boeing announces Starliner is in 'safe, stable' orbit

Boeing Space shared a post on X , formerly Twitter, at 11:44 a.m. confirming the launch.

"After today's launch at 10:52 a.m. ET, #Starliner has reached a safe, stable orbit on its Crew Flight Test," the post said. "NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are on their way to (the) Space Station."

If all goes to plan, Starliner will dock Thursday morning on the forward-facing port of the International Space Station's Harmony module. Once it reaches the space station, the crew will spend a little over a week testing the spacecraft and its subsystems before they board the capsule for a return trip to Earth.

The craft will land in the American Southwest using parachutes that will slow it to 4 mph before inflating large airbags.

Starliner reaches orbit

According to NASA's livestream, the Starliner safely entered orbit around 11:24 a.m.

"The names of Wilmore and Williams now join Glenn, Carpenter, Schirra and Cooper as American astronauts to launch into space atop Atlas rockets from Cape Canaveral," ULA officials said in a blog post.

Starliner orbital insertion burn

Around 11:23 a.m., the Starliner engaged in an orbital insertion burn – a process in which a craft is slowed enough in relation to the velocity of the target body to allow the craft to enter its orbit.

The burn took Starliner out of its suborbital trajectory and pushed it to an altitude that will allow it to enter proper orbit to catch up with ISS.

The capsule broke away from the rocket after reaching orbit and began firing its own engines as it powered onward to the International Space Station , NASA said.

Boeing Starliner launches from Florida: 'Let's get going'

The Starliner spacecraft was perched atop the Atlas V rocket when it launched at 10:52 a.m. ET Wednesday from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

In the moments leading up to the launch, astronaut Wilmore delivered a speech while strapped into his seat on the craft next to fellow astronaut Williams.

"We saw many American flags and many of you were waving flags at us ... also one on the side of the rocket itself," Wilmore said. "We know that that represents unity and resilience, and unified efforts for the common good. And that's what Suni and I have witnessed this last month."

"Each of you displays what this nation's forefathers envisioned, a people committed to God, family and country, a people who use their gifts and talents for the common good and are passionate and tough. And we all know when the going gets tough, and it often does, the tough get going, and you have. And Suni and I are honored to share this dream of space fight with each and every one of you.

"So with that, let's get going. Let's put some fire in this rocket, let's push it to the heavens where all these tough Americans are prepared to be."

Who is on board the Starliner?

The  Starliner was designed  to accommodate no more than seven passengers for missions to low-Earth orbit. For NASA, the capsule is intended to carry four astronauts along with a mix of cargo and other scientific instruments to and from the space station.

The two NASA astronauts on board the Starliner are  Wilmore and Williams , both Navy test pilots who have ventured to space twice before.

What happened on past Boeing test flights?

Dozens of software and engineering issues resulted in the failure of a previous attempt in 2019 to send an uncrewed Starliner to the ISS for a week.

While it reached orbit, the capsule failed to reach the space station and instead returned to Earth,  according to Florida Today , part of the USA TODAY Network. That mission raised questions and doubts about NASA's future with Boeing, which is scheduled to fly six crewed astronaut missions once it's certified as safe for flight, as reported by Reuters .

The follow-up flight test in 2022 met standards of docking to the space station and successfully landed, but not without the discovery of multiple concerns as Boeing crews inspected the spacecraft later, Florida Today reported.

Boeing competes with SpaceX to make low-Earth orbit trips

A successful mission would provide NASA with a second operational spacecraft to carry astronauts to the International Space Station .

As part of NASA’s commercial crew program , Boeing was awarded $4.8 billion and SpaceX was awarded $3.1 billion in 2014 to develop their respective spacecrafts capable of making crewed scientific trips to low-Earth orbit , Florida Today reported.

Under NASA's more ambitious commercial lunar program, it has also  paid SpaceX $2.9 billion  to develop the first commercial human lander for the agency's Artemis moon missions and eventually trips to Mars.

In March, SpaceX had its  most successful test yet  of the Starship rocket needed to ferry astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time since the Apollo era. While in orbit, the Starship hit several key milestones and carried out a handful of in-flight tests that are a crucial step forward for it to be  reliable and functional in time for Artemis III, slated for sometime in 2026 .

SpaceX, whose Dragon spacecraft flew its first human mission in 2020, recently saw its Crew-7 return to Earth after nearly 200 days aboard the space station. The eighth crew of three NASA astronauts and one cosmonaut  launched March 3  and docked March 5 to  await the arrival of Boeing's Starliner  capsule.

If the mission is a success, NASA will begin the final process of certifying Starliner and its systems for crewed rotation missions to the space station,  according to NASA .

Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected]

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Honduras (Engineering LHBH) Summer 2024 - Philip's Story

June 6, 2024

Dear Donors, Family, Friends, and Loved Ones,

Thank you all for your support, whether through encouragement with your words, financially giving, or most importantly through your prayers all of what you all have done for us to get to Honduras and back was greatly appreciated. The following is a short glimpse of what our team was able to do with the Lord’s help in Honduras serving Little Hands Big Hearts.

Little Hands Big Hearts is a local Christian group in Trujillo, Honduras that focuses on serving the often neglected group of children with special needs. They hold classes to help these children and their families deal with their special needs all while teaching about Christ. They also run a clinic for the community to do general health practices. 

The trip was full of opportunities and displays of the Lord’s hand and provision. Beginning with travel, we knew from the start that it was going to be a tight window from when our flight landed in Roatan, Honduras to get through customs, retrieve checked bags, and get on a shuttle to get on a ferry to mainland Honduras in La Ceiba. Our flight was scheduled to land at 12:30 pm local time and the ferry departed at 2:00 pm. Thankfully, our flight left/arrived early and we landed at 12:10 pm right before another flight that brought a lot of people into the slow moving customs line. The blessing of the landing twenty minutes early would be evident as we arrived at the ferry building exactly 20 minutes before the boat departed, allowing us time to bring the engineering equipment and our materials and get them all checked before going on board. Had the Lord not been with us there we likely would have lost a day of work as we would have been stuck on Roatan. 

There were many other moments where the Lord showed his protection and help when needed, whether through breaking the language barrier and helping communication happen smoothly to sweet moments of worship and devotionals that proved God truly is everywhere and moving in mighty ways. It was beautiful to see how God is still present even in different styles of worship than what I am accustomed to. A hymn we sang often that captivated me was “El Mismo Amor” which in English is a Common Love. The song’s lyrics were powerful. 

A Common Love For Each Other

A Common Gift To The Saviour

A Common Bond Holding Us To The Lord

A Common Strength When We Are Weary

A Common Hope For Tomorrow

A Common Joy In The Truth Of God’s Word

It was a song that touched my heart as we sang in Spanish and English, helped light a spark in my heart that there can be a unity that doesn’t make sense in the Church that transcends borders and barriers and the Good News could reach the ends of the Earth. 

Our team split into different groups for the work that needed to be done. The main issues that needed to be addressed were electrical issues with a water pump, erosion issues, and water security. Aaron Hardy mainly worked with Ricky Cadena on the electrical issues and were able to fix issues with the pump and explain troubleshooting to the locals.

Michael Cochrane led the work on erosion remediation. Philip Lamartiniere spent a lot of time working under Michael, though most of the team ended up helping with erosion remediation at one point due to the scale of the work it required. Reece Boyd, Kevin Mendez, and Van Uk did a lot of work in surveying and photogrammetry to help evaluate the land and help Dr. Wilson (who did work in just about every aspect of this project). with future planning for water security and other future projects. Heidi Wright helped with a lot of logistical work and making sure we didn’t burn ourselves out during the project. Before the trip Mariluz Rivera Dorado helped organize the team and helped with a lot of logistical things, communicating between Little Hands Big Hearts and our team as well as sharing verses of encouragement before our departure. A lot of their work was unseen, but very important in helping the project get done. Erosion and surveying work took a majority of the time of our project, thankfully erosion remediation finished on Friday, while surveying work finished on Saturday, our last work day.

It was a wonderful opportunity to be able to use engineering to serve others, especially those of the household of faith. It was an eye opener to see that engineering, (and all fields or vocations) all can (and should) be used for the Kingdom of God. All of our vocations can be used for good, and be gateways for us to share the Gospel with the people in our lives. Whether in Nashville, Albuquerque, Lexington, Honduras, or anywhere else in the world.

To keep this brief, I’d like to leave an encouragement/reminder to you all (and myself) to use whatever our respective field as a means to do good work the Lord is calling us to and use the opportunities our job gives us to spread the Gospel, locally and globally.

Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone—especially to those in the family of faith. (Galatians 5:10)

But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? (Romans 10:14)

Thank you all again for all your support, please continue to pray for the Little Hands Big Hearts organization and for us all to continue to be on mission for the Lord, even though we’re back in the U.S. 

Philip Lamartiniere, Little Hands Big Hearts Team 2024

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Love Crosses Borders event on Saturday to support mission trips

Love Crosses Borders, an event to support the missions of Corazon De Vida in Mexico and the Miryante Community Center in Uganda, will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday at the St. Mary Chillicothe Family Life Center.

Sample foods from all around the globe including Meixco, Uganda, Greece, Italy and more.

The event will include a 50/50 raffle, silent auction and dessert auction. Proceeds from the dessert auction will go to support the local students at Bishop Flaget School.

Tickets are now available and can be purchased in the parish office, or by contacting Pat Corcoran at 740-851-3456 and Mariea Wilbanks at 740-412-8092, or via Eventbrite.

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Boeing Starliner's first astronaut crew welcomed aboard space station

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Blinken to push cease-fire proposal in eighth urgent Mideast trip since war in Gaza erupted

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is returning to the Middle East on his eighth diplomatic mission to the region since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began in October

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Antony Blinken will push for a breakthrough on President Joe Biden’s cease-fire proposal when he returns to the Middle East next week on his eighth diplomatic mission to the region since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began in October, the State Department said Friday.

Blinken, who is currently in France accompanying Biden on a state visit timed to the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion during World War II, will fly from Paris to Cairo on Monday to meet Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and other officials before traveling to Israel, Jordan and Qatar, the department said. Blinken will then go to Italy to join Biden at the summit for the Group of Seven advanced economies.

In all of his meetings, Blinken “will emphasize the importance of Hamas accepting the proposal on the table, which is nearly identical to one Hamas endorsed last month” and “discuss how the cease-fire proposal would benefit both Israelis and Palestinians,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

“He will underscore that it would alleviate suffering in Gaza, enable a massive surge in humanitarian assistance, and allow Palestinians to return to their neighborhoods,” he said in a statement. “It would unlock the possibility of achieving calm along Israel’s northern border — so both displaced Israeli and Lebanese families can return to their homes — and set the conditions for further integration between Israel and its Arab neighbors, strengthening Israel’s long-term security and improving stability across the region.”

In Israel, Blinken will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials. In Jordan, he will participate in an emergency international conference on aid to Gaza, and in Qatar he will meet with officials who are attempting to mediate the cease-fire deal.

The lightning tour comes as the Biden administration is pushing hard for Hamas to accept a three-phase cease-fire proposal that would include the release of hostages taken from Israel and held by the militant group and potentially pave the way for an end to the conflict and the reconstruction of Gaza.

Biden, Blinken and other U.S. officials have lobbied Arab nations heavily to use what influence they have with Hamas to get it to accept the deal that the president announced last week. There has been no definitive response so far, and in the absence of one, Blinken will press the case in his meetings in Egypt and Qatar, the two countries with the closest ties to Hamas.

However, Blinken may also have trouble selling the proposal — or at least its implementation — to Netanyahu.

Although the deal has been described as an Israeli initiative, some members of Netanyahu’s far-right coalition government are strongly opposed to it. And, Netanyahu himself has expressed skepticism, saying what has been presented publicly is not accurate and rejecting calls for Israel to cease all fighting until Hamas is eradicated.

Despite Blinken’s roughly once-a-month visits to the region since the war began following Hamas’ deadly attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, the conflict has ground on with more than 36,000 Palestinians killed in eight months of Israeli bombardments and ground offensives in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry , which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

The war has largely cut off the flow of food, medicine and other supplies to Palestinians, who are facing widespread hunger . United Nations agencies say over 1 million in Gaza could experience the highest level of starvation by mid-July.

As the crisis has escalated, Israel has come under increasingly harsh international criticism for its actions and just this week has been excoriated for airstrikes in Gaza that have reportedly killed dozens of civilians. On Friday, Israeli strikes killed at least 18 people, including children, just a day after 33 were killed at a United Nations-run school sheltering displaced Palestinian families, health officials said.

Since mid-October, Blinken has shuttled between Israel and its Arab and Muslim neighbors, trying to boost aid to civilians in Gaza, prevent the conflict from spreading throughout the region and build support for plans for the reconstruction and governance of postwar Gaza — all while vocally backing Israel’s right to defend itself.

Israel’s offensive in Gaza has heightened political pressure in the U.S., with pro-Palestinian protests springing up at universities and resulting pushback from some who say the demonstrations have veered into antisemitism.

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Volunteer abroad this year on a short term global missions trip offered by one of the best, most-reliable Christian missions organizations in the world.

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