Mission Trips

What is the point of a youth group mission trip? That’s a great question with a lot of different answers. To be honest I don’t think there is ONE answer. I think a lot of people would say…it’s to serve people as Christ would. Some people would say it’s to open youth’s eyes to a world outside of their own…or to give them a spiritually deep experience that will impact their life in the long term. Some would say the point is to have fun, create lasting memories, and build a stronger community within the youth group. To be clear…I don’t think there’s a problem with any of these goals for a youth mission trip. I do think if you’re goal is to accomplish all of the above for every youth & adult who comes on the trip…you’re probably asking too much. If your trip is able to accomplish just ONE of those things…you should consider it a success.

This made planning and executing mission trips a challenge. I’d want to accomplish all those things mentioned above. Ultimately, I tried to remember these trips were for the kids and despite my personal shortcomings I don’t think I ever lost sight of that.

A trip that sticks out to me for all these reasons and more is the mission trip I led as the youth director of my college town church. When I say this trip had everything I mean it had EVERYTHING you would want and fear from a youth group mission trip. We went through an organization that does what I like to call “mission trip in a box,” for youth groups. They have various different locations you can choose from to go on your trip, they arrange all the worksites, they arrange where you stay and most of your meals, they provide most of the tools, and they usually provide some type of worship experience. Your responsibility is usually just getting it paid for, picking some fun activities for your group, and getting there. The church I worked for had made a tradition of doing their annual summer mission trip with this organization so that’s what we did.

We went to a camp in rural southeast Tennessee…it kind of hugged the borders of North Carolina and Georgia. It was on a large campground that had huge fields, a lake, and cabins. It was in the middle of the mountains and it was beautiful. The trip was filled with ups and downs. To the extreme.

We had a solid team of adult leaders on the trip and a great group of about 12 kids. I found myself bonding with the youth on that trip better than I ever had up to that point. Telling lots of jokes, quoting Will Ferrell movies, and had a relatively busy worksite that we could at least rotate people around on.

At the worksite we also had an adult volunteer go down with a pretty serious shoulder injury. We took her to the doctor and found out she would need surgery. Our church bought her a plane ticket out of Atlanta and I rushed her to the airport barely getting her there in time. It was stressful…but during that drive I ended up having one of the greatest and most personal conversations I ever had with an adult volunteer in my youth ministry. I look back on that drive fondly.

While trying to find the place at the camp where we would be playing paintball for one of our fun day activities…I got our church bus stuck in the woods. Literally stuck between trees. It was scary and panic inducing…but when I got it out the kids who were with me cheered. We laughed about my blunder for the rest of the trip and the kids had a lot of fun on that paintball field.

We went whitewater rafting on that trip too…and during a calm portion of the river…3 of the boys from our group pulled me into the river despite me fighting every inch of the way. They surprised me…and scared me! There was a moment where I literally thought I was in danger of drowning…of course my life jacket brought me to the surface and I was fine. I spent the rest of the ride down the river FUMING at how those guys had pulled me in. It took a while…but I eventually realized they were just being them, and trying to show me in their own weird teenage boy way that I was a part of their group. I was a part of their community.

We worked hard to build a man who had a wheelchair bound family member a ramp into his house. We had it nearly finished by the end of the week and left with a lot to be proud of. As we pulled back into town…the same bus I had gotten stuck in a tree…started overheating and shut down. I felt devastated. I was exhausted and just wanted to go home. The other adults on the trip stepped up. We transported some kids in another vehicle back to the church. The ones we didn’t get there had their parents show up at the gas station I pulled into and came to pick their kids up. It was unexpected. It was frustrating…but it was ok. It was a reminder that thigs don’t always go the way we plan…but God has a way of making it work.

I still struggle with how I feel about youth group mission trips. I think they often do more to make the attendees feel better about themselves than actually help the people they’re meant to serve. I think church resources can sometimes be better spent pouring into their local communities. That being said…there’s something special about taking a group of kids on a trip, and feeling like they’re different & better people when you come back home. That was the part of youth group mission trips I loved. It’s the part I still miss today.