Everyone Goes On Every Trip

This saying shaped the culture of our church.  One of our goals as a congregation was to grow together to become a group of people committed to the global mission of the Gospel.  The saying “everyone goes on every trip” set the expectation for each of our  mission trips.

The approach was simple:  some would go, and the rest of us would send and support in many different ways.  There was always something for everyone to do.  We would seek people out and create opportunities for them to be involved.  Here are a few of the ideas that worked well for us.

Before the Mission Trip

The team was selected about six months before each trip.  Then the team would meet for special prayer and training meetings every other week until they left.  This time of prayer was promoted to the whole congregation to join with the team to ask God for success with His Gospel.

One simple tool that was always useful in the work were “Gospel bracelets” consisting of colored beads which corresponded to the “wordless book” presentation.  These would be used as gifts and as conversation starters.  It was a large project to assemble these, and a great way to meaningfully involve the children and youth of our church.

Funding of trips can be done in a variety of ways.  For us it culminated in our fundraising dinner held one month before each trip.  We encouraged people not to give to the trip at all until this dinner.  The letters had gone out to friends and family, and most of all the donations had been given.  However, there would always be a significant gap.  So, people were instructed to bring their checkbooks to the dinner and pray in advance about what the Lord would have them give.

This event is where we would share the vision for the mission trip and the specific strategies to be used in doing evangelism and church planting.  Each of the team members would share from their hearts, as well, about why they were going and what they hoped to see God do.  We ended the dinner with a time of group check writing; then we listened to music while the figures were tallied, and finally we would praise God how He always brought in the amount we needed!  This happened with every trip.

During the Mission Trip

Part of the dinner included signing up for very important support roles that would be played out during the two-week mission trip.  One role was to “Adopt a Missionary,” which involved preparing personal cards of daily encouragement to send along with that missionary.  It also involved praying more intentionally for that one person on the team during the trip.  

A related role was to “Adopt a Missionary’s Family,” which meant being committed to take care of any needs that arose during the trip.  Often this would involve fixing things around the house that broke.  It might include mowing the lawn, running errands, taking care of children and even simply providing encouragement to the spouse.

We believe that prayer is the most important activity accompanying the proclamation of the Gospel.  We put together a 24-hour “Prayer Chain,” with one-hour slots, where a person committed to pray during that hour each day.  We filled the list up twice, sometimes three times over.  Related to prayer is fasting, and so we also put together a list for “Daily Fasting,” where people would sign up to fast one of the days during the trip.

One of the biggest blessings was getting communication back home from the team out working.  A team member was selected to write a daily progress email and send it to a point person in the congregation who would then disseminate it to the church.

After the Mission Trip

Unlike many churches, when our teams returned we kept the story-telling to a minimum for about five days.  And we purposefully did not share anything during the Sunday morning worship service.  This is because we wanted a whole evening to tell stories and celebrate together what God did.  

Since the whole church had been personally invested in the mission trip, the whole church would show up for the evening of story-telling.  The team was coached on how to tell their stories well, and in such a way that magnified God and His power.  What evenings of joy and blessings these were--three hours of sharing, crying, rejoicing, and simply being amazed at God together!  We would observe that so many prayers were answered so specifically, and that God worked in and through us as His church so gloriously that we were greatly honored and humbled.

Of course, this would just be the beginning of the stories.  Now the team was free to share completely in their small groups, over lunch with friends, and at other churches to encourage them, as well.  In just a few short months it would be time to plan the next mission trip.  It was these stories that moved most people to consider physically going on the next trip themselves.

Mission work is a whole lot of fun and very exciting when “everyone goes on every trip.”  We all knew the saying and loved it; and loved how it grew on us, built us as a community of believers, and enlarged our hearts for the glory of God.  

Our church mission verse came to be:
Ephesians 3:20–21 ESV “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”