Customize this Word document created in partnership with staff at Sequoyah Hills Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Service for sending forth church mission groups. A covenant sealed with or symbolized with salt is one seen as a solemn promise before God, never to be broken. From A Journey Together: A Resource for Short-Term Mission Volunteers and their Congregations.
For services recognizing the return or departure of trip participants, mission workers or volunteers. From A Journey Together: A Resource for Short-Term Mission Volunteers and their Congregations.
Laura Cheifetz, Deputy Director of Systems & Sustainability at National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum explains how looking at mission through a lens of anti-racism can help reshape our understanding of mission and how we engage in it.
For commissioning a group before leaving for a mission trip. The service can be adapted for use in commissioning an individual volunteer by changing "Team" to 'Mission Volunteer" and using the appropriate pronouns. From A Journey Together: A Resource for Short-Term Mission Volunteers and their Congregations.
Sharing the mission trip experience helps other people in your church learn about people and places with which they are unfamiliar. Telling the story brings others along with you in an experience they didn’t get to have. What you say and the images you show can have a lasting impact on your listener or reader. Use these tips to help craft respectful mission stories. For more information about short-term mission, visit pcusa.org/toolkits/short-term-mission.
Use this list to determine what items you should bring with you on a short-term mission trip. For more information about short-term mission, visit pcusa.org/toolkits/short-term-mission.
Not all short-term, church-related trips outside of one’s familiar, close-to-home comfort zone are considered (or called) mission trips. Some trips are considered study tours to learn about an issue, a people or a place. Some are called partnership trips because they are short-term trips carried out within the framework of an ongoing, long-term “partnership” between two church-related communities, often with a purpose of mutual learning and fellowship. Whatever kind of trip you are going on, and whatever it is called, this workbook is intended for use by the participants of any short-term travel into a context and culture different from …
Mission co-workers Ellen and Al Smith reflect on the importance of having travel medical insurance when traveling outside the U.S. Medical care in many foreign places is not always up to the standards we are accustomed to in the U.S. Even in industrialized countries, medical care in rural areas may not match what is available in the capital. Additionally, U.S. medical coverage may not pay for services rendered in other countries. For more information about short-term mission, visit pcusa.org/toolkits/short-term-mission.
Church leaders should discern whether to go on a trip. Planned and carried out well, in a spirit of true partnership where all participants are equals at God’s “table” of grace and of mission, a short-term mission trip can be a way to learn about God, oneself, the world and the world church. A lot has been written in recent years on the benefits and the harm that can be done in the name of short-term mission. Before you decide to go, it is important to ask yourself and your church deeper questions about the reason for a trip and …