How to Develop a Healthy Short-Term Trips Strategy

This resource provides guidance for churches to reassess and redesign their short-term mission trips to ensure they are beneficial for all parties involved, including the receiving cultures, sending church, field partners, and trip participants. It highlights the importance of developing a clear vision, choosing appropriate partners, and effectively communicating and categorizing trips to avoid common pitfalls such as cultural insensitivity. By implementing thoughtful training and debriefing practices, churches can maximize the impact of these trips, fostering meaningful connections and promoting long-term engagement in global missions.

Short-term trips have come under criticism in recent years, and in some ways for good reason. With the publishing of books like When Helping Hurts by Steven Corbett and Brian Fikkert, the church in North America has begun awakening to the reality that some trips can be ineffective or even harmful. Some of the possible pitfalls of short-term trips include:

• Churches spending huge amounts of money on short-term trips, amounts that could easily fund the workers and ministries they are going to help

• Short-term team members making cultural mistakes that set back the work of long-term missionaries

• Trip participants making paternalistic choices that fail to affirm the dignity of the people they are trying to reach in an effort to make their trip feel meaningful and effective

• Churches carrying out short-term trips as a way to “check the box” for missions engagement

These are serious issues to consider and can be great reasons for a church to reassess their vision for short-term trips. Some churches may even decide to cut them out altogether because of all the problems they have caused. We think, however, there are ways to redefine and re-engineer short-term trips to use this common church program in healthy ways.

By reworking the training, implementation, and follow-up of our short-term trips, we can redeem an existing structure that holds a special place in the hearts of many churchgoers. A few examples of short-term trips that work well and that this resource will advocate for are as follows:

1. Blessing to the Partner - Trips can be an incredible blessing to the on-field missionary or indigenous partner when the trip is designed with the field in mind first and foremost.

2. Blessing to the Ministry - When a missionary or indigenous partner sees short-term trips as a vital part of their strategy, they are able to use them to increase their impact on the field.

3. Blessing to the Sending Church - When the missionary or national has a vision for short-term trips impacting the sending church and the trip participants, the reciprocal impact on the church can be eternally significant.

In this resource we will look at ways to “redeem” the short-term trip model so that they can be a blessing to all the parties involved.

To apply the content shared in the rest of the this resource consider downloading and printing the “Worksheet for Developing a Healthy Short-term Trips Strategy.”

Develop the Vision for Your Trips

Begin with defining a vision for your short-term trips. Many churches do them just because that’s what churches do. Make sure your leadership is truly aligned with the vision of short-term trips. Consider some questions like:

1. Are you doing trips just to offer them and meet a felt need of your members? Or are you doing them for a significant strategic purpose?

2. What are those strategic purposes? (field impact, missionary care, mobilization, etc.)

3. Have you asked your field partners if short-term trips are helpful to them? Have you asked them what you can do on those trips that would be helpful for the ministry?

4. Do you have the right field partners in which to send? What values do you want them to embody? What strategies do you want them to be engaged in that you can join?

5. Do you want your short-term trip partners to be ones you are partnering with more long-term? (i.e. sending multiple short-term trips to, highlighting to the church, sending mid-term/long-term personnel, etc.)

6. Do you want to offer different types of trips for the diverse maturity and skill levels of your members?

7. What do you hope to see in your members when they return from the trip?

Short-term trips consume significant financial resources from the church and donors. They also consume the time of the short-term trip coordinator, the participant, and the field. Because the harm potentially made can outweigh the benefit they bring, you need to make sure the vision is clear.

Develop the Right Partners

The field partner is very important to a healthy short-term trip. The location can align perfectly with your strategic vision, but if the field partner is not someone you align with to deploy your people on the field correctly, the short-term trip will lack the impact you desire. Vetting partners is an important second step. Consider the following:

1. Ideally, the short-term trip should not be your first trip to that location. There’s only so much about a partner that can be learned over a video call, on a website, or even a meeting at your church. Get a trusted leader on the ground to evaluate the partner. Check out “How to Take a Vision Trip”. 

2. Develop a list of questions for that vision trip. Beyond the questions in “How to Take a Vision Trip,” you can also check out the Upstream resource, “Questions for Evaluating On-Field Partners.” Develop these questions based on the values you want the trip leader to embody and what you want your people to be doing on the trip.

3. If you want your short-term trips to connect to long-term opportunities, you will want to evaluate if that partner is one your church wants to partner with long-term before committing to a short-term trip.

If you cannot sufficiently evaluate a partner, you may want to reconsider sending your short-term teams to that location. 

Re-evaluate the Communication of Your Short-term Trips

As you communicate your short-term trips to your church members, you may need to reconsider how you communicate your trips to them.

A place to start is what you call your short-term trips. Most often, they are simply called “mission trips.” Sadly, North Americans are known for sometimes having a paternalistic viewpoint towards other cultures. Short-term trip participants from North America have a tendency to assume what they think people of other cultures need rather than asking questions. This has been a grave mistake in modern missions. It has sometimes led to the dehumanizing of people North Americans intended to serve. It has also caused many locations to become dependent on continued help from missionaries rather than empowered leaders.

Additionally, a common thread in the mobilization of Gen Z is that they can be more adverse to the word “missions” because of its close alignment with colonialism. While they may need to have a clarifying discussion about what “missions” and “missionary” mean, the advertising of short-term trips may not be the place to start.

While calling a trip a “mission” trip is not the only contributing factor to this, consider dropping the word “mission” from the title of your trips to continue to work against this paternalistic mindset on trips. The next section provides examples of alternative phrases.

Categorize Your Trips

A way we have observed churches finding success in communicating their trips well and stewarding the resources surrounding those trips is to make categories of trips. Dividing them up into categories helps with:

1. The stewardship of resources—getting the right people, on the right trips, to the right locations, to the right distances, for the right time, and for the right cost

2. The clarification of expectations of a short-term trip participant—helping them have the right posture on the trip

A few categories we have observed churches utilizing have included, but are not limited to:

1. Exposure trips

The goal of these trips is for the exposure of your members to what is happening on the field. The goal of the trip is defined less on what the individual does for the mission field, but what the mission field does for the individual. Often these trips are shorter, to a closer location, in a similar time zone, and are on the lower end of expenses. These trips are good ones for families to go on as well. 

2. Missionary care trips

These are trips focused primarily on caring for the missionary. Often they are a small team that includes a church leader and someone that the missionary is close to in the church. If the missionary is a couple or family, consider bringing multiple people connected with the missionary. The goal of these trips are to love the missionary or partner.

These trip participants need to come with love and care in their minds more than mission and strategy. While the missionary may want you to engage in some ministry or talk strategy, this should be led by them rather than required. 

3. Specialized trips

A specialized trip is one in which a particular need has been voiced by the missionary or the indigenous partner. This is not a need determined by the sending church, but one that is voiced from the field. In meeting that need, you send trusted members of your church with a specific gifting or skillset.

A mistake that is often made with specialized trips is to send members who have not been trained in relating to other cultures and who do not have the skillset to meet the need. This is why distinguishing between exposure trips and specialized trips is so important. Exposure trips are the better type of trip for the first-time trip participant as they will have low impact (both positively or negatively) on the ministry. Trips in which a specific need is met need trained and skilled participants.

An example of this from the church where  I served at as missions pastor was my friend Marlin Rice. Our teaching pastor had been to Zambia multiple times, had gathered some of the voiced needs of the people, and determined with them that agricultural training was needed for the sustainable health of the members of the church.

Over the next twenty year, Marlin took multiple trips per year to this area to teach basic agricultural principles. These practices helped the church to have a sustainable food source. In the region where Marlin worked, this training then multiplied organically. The key was that the local believers were asked what they needed and that need was met thoughtfully and with a strong belief in the indigenous people as image bearers of the Lord with their own creativity, intellect, and ability.

4. Evangelism Trips 

There are some important considerations when sending trips that have an evangelistic focus:

1. Translators - If you are going to a place where the locals speak another language, how do you feel about your people working through translators? Would it be better to do training with indigenous people who speak the language of our trip participants? Would it be better to go to a place where there are people who speak the same language as your trip participants?

2. Cultural Difference - Are the cultural differences between your people and the indigenous culture too great for your short-term trip participants to bridge? There are some locations where extensive study of the culture and religion of the people are needed to communicate the gospel effectively. If it is too great, should you consider other locations for evangelistic trips? Or should you consider a more select and trained group of people to go on these trips?

Effective Training for Short-Term Trips

Here are a few important elements of effective training for short-term trips:

Choose the right people to go for the right amount of time. 

You can take just about anyone on a one-week exposure trip. If your trip is much longer than that, you will need to put some time and effort into determining who should go and who should not. Relational chemistry is incredibly important when you’re spending extended time together in high-stress situations.

Training should involve interaction between team members. 

It has been proven that poor team dynamics is one of the main reasons people have a bad short-term experience. Cultivating a sense of love and trust stateside is important for preparing to take on the inevitable relational challenges that will come during the trip. Close proximity in overseas situations heightens stress, and stress heightens relational missteps. Taking steps to build trust prior to the trip will pay off once you get to the field.

Include cross-cultural training.

Becoming an expert in cross-cultural ministry takes years, but here’s one exercise I’ve found to be particularly helpful for our crash course with short-term teams. Share the following chart with them along with explanations of each of the Western and Eastern cultural value systems: 

As you share the chart, ask them to give examples of each of the Western values in action. Ask them to give examples of some of the Eastern values as well. Ask them to think through the positives of the Eastern value system and the negatives of the Western value system. Ask them to give examples of opposing values they might run into on the field. Have a conversation about practically working through these different value systems during their trip.

Outline proper expectations for the trip.

You’ll have to craft your expectations according to the type of trip you're sending. Exposure trips will require the most work to adjust your team’s expectations. Communicate the importance of having a learning and serving posture rather than a task-driven mindset. It’s actually best to help them have as few expectations as possible and to come in with an open mind. Encourage them to let go of their expectations and instead come in with questions. For example,

1. When you encounter something that seems different or less valuable than what you’re used to in your culture, don’t rush to judgment, but ask, “What does God want to teach me about other cultures?”

2. When the overseas host asks you to do something that seems odd or that you don’t particularly enjoy, ask, “Do I really need to challenge this, or can I trust my church’s partner and seek to learn something by following their lead?”

3. When the schedule isn’t as clear as you want or it seems like you are wasting time, how can you have a servant posture and a listening attitude before the Lord?

Ask the host what they want the team trained in before they come.

Some hosts won't really care, and some hosts will have high expectations. Of course, you’ll need to use your wisdom as a missions leader to determine what your team should learn and do prior to their trip, but having a learning posture toward your host is critical for communicating service to them and to the people going on the trip. They might ask you to use an evangelistic method that is theologically acceptable but not your favorite. We encourage you to use that method. They might ask you to go through a training or two prior to coming that you feel is unnecessary. We encourage you to do the training. Support the long-term worker.

Debriefing After a Short-Term Trip

Proper re-entry and debriefing happens throughout the trip. It is important for short-term trip teams to create space. Begin your reflection on the field by having your people keep a journal during their trip. Also check out Upstream’s book Listen: How to Make the Most of Your Short-term Trip for a short-term trip reflection guide that begins on the field.

Once they return it is very valuable to have a short-term trip debrief or two. The debrief is the portion of the trip that is most often missed. Helping short-term trip participants finish their experience and connect it to their life back in their passport country is necessary to see the personal impact of a trip come to bear on the individual and on the mission of your church. 

Part of your vision for short-term trips should be great impact from those who go. This includes things like greater passion for evangelism and discipleship ministry in your church; awareness of non-Americans and refugees in your local community; involvement in a missional outreach; and for some, a consideration of going mid-term or long-term to the partner they served on the trip. Don’t miss this critical opportunity for maximizing the experience of the short-term trip. 

Short-term Trip Finances

There are many considerations around finances for short-term trips that can redeem them or keep them in the same rut:

1. Does the cost of the trip align with the vision of the trip? In economic terms, there needs to be a cost-benefit analysis to the trip. Just because people are willing to go and a partner is willing to receive, it doesn’t mean it makes sense for the length of the trip and the impact of the trip.

2. Will your people raise support for the trip, pay for it themselves, or a combination of both?

3. Will you put parameters on how short-term trip participants can raise support among fellow church members? If so, what are those parameters?

4. Does your church have a budget for scholarships for short-term trips? If so, what percentage do they cover? If not, would this make sense to do?

5. Is it most beneficial to your church administration team to raise support through your church’s giving platform or through an organization?

These are important considerations for right stewardship of the resources of your church and the resources of the donors your people will mobilize for their trip. 

Redeeming Short-Term Trips

Despite their shortcomings, we believe short-term trips can still be effective. By using healthier practices, we can redeem these trips and make them a powerful pathway for caring for missionaries and partners, supporting their long-term work, and growing the sentness of your church members. Don’t do short-term trips just to check a box! Do them in a way that will impact eternity, truly bless other cultures, and strengthen your sending church.

Next Steps

The journey toward sending well happens one step at a time. Here are three ways you can continue moving upstream:

1. Apply this resource to your own church context using the corresponding “Worksheet for Developing a Healthy Short-term Trips Strategy”.

2. We have further resources on nearly every topic addressed in these pages. In the Members area of the Upstream website, click on the Short-term Trips tag to explore them all.

3. Take the time to reach out to a leader or two from another culture and ask them to share their honest experiences with North American short-term teams. Ask them what they find helpful and harmful. Take these insights into consideration as you develop your own short-term teams.