CHAPTER 9
DEEP MISSIONS: WHY ARE SO FEW KIDS INTERESTED IN SERVICE AND MISSIONS?
Kara Powell
DEEP DESIGN, STEP 1 (DISCERNMENT): NOW?
DEEP DESIGN PROMPT
How could he get his 14-year-old son to be grateful for all their family had? How could he help Curtis see the extent of poverty and how it affects people near and far?
Curtis’ dad decided the best way to open his son’s eyes to the contrast between how much their family had and how little most of the world had was to take him on a weekend service trip. Along with six others from their church, Curtis and his dad spent two days serving a rural family who lived on a farm in their county. They did whatever needed to be done—from milking cows to painting barn walls to (you guessed it) cleaning up after the horses.
As they drove back home on Sunday night, Curtis’ dad asked his son, “What did you think of the trip?”
“It was great.”
“Did you see how poor people can be?”
“You bet.”
“What did you learn?”
“I saw that we have one dog at home, and they have four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of the garden; they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lamps in the garden; they have the stars. Our patio reaches to the front yard; they have a whole horizon.”
The father was speechless. After a few seconds, Curtis added, “Thanks, Dad, for showing me how poor we are.”
Given the story I’ve just shared, you might guess that I’m biased when it comes to mission trips. And you’d be right. I love mission trips. If a student is able to attend only one youth ministry event in a summer and wants my opinion about what it should be, I’ll point the student toward a one-week trip to Mexico. Mission trips combine all the great dynamics of sweeping kids away from “normal life” (just like retreats and camps) PLUS chances to grow as they interact with those in different communities and from different backgrounds.
I’m also biased because of the significant role mission trips have played in my own life. I met my husband on a mission trip. We got engaged on a mission trip. (No, not the same trip!) One year into our marriage, we signed and faxed legal documents to purchase our first house while serving together on a mission trip. Other than the births of our two children, most of the significant events in our marriage have been somehow connected to cross-cultural service.
Creating space for God’s transformation: Being in different and unfamiliar contexts.
Creating space for God’s transformation: Service and mission trips come in different shapes and formats.
Whether you’re 15 or 55, there’s something intrinsically powerful about being in a different and unfamiliar context. Whether it’s a Saturday morning at the local children’s hospital, a weekend with an inner-city homeless ministry, or a week in Zambia serving children affected by HIV/AIDS, mission trips offer opportunities to deepen our conceptions of life, God, and people. We realize our corner of the world is actually pretty tiny, and the world itself is actually pretty enormous.
Creating space for God’s transformation: Service and mission trips stretch our view of the world.
In the midst of all of our “good” service trips, every once in a while, we’d end up with a truly great trip. Students shared everything with one another—from pesos to prayer requests. The boundary between who was giving and who was receiving was jumbled as the high school students from our group and members of the community we were visiting served one another. The students’ comments about how they were affected transcended the more typical statements about being “grateful for all I have” and focused instead on being “grateful for the God I serve.”
Creating space for God’s transformation: Most trips are good.
Hindering God’s transformation: Few trips are truly great.
What separates a “good” service or mission event from a “great” one? What allows “good trip memories” to become “great life change”? We are often so busy preparing and packing for trips Now that we never stop to ask and answer those questions. By checking out the New findings of other researchers and youth workers, we can wrestle with these questions until we pin down some satisfying answers.
DEEP DESIGN, STEP 2 (REFLECTION) : NEW?
If you’ve ever planned a mission trip, you probably followed some basic steps. Figure out where you want to go. Develop a plan for what you’ll do there. Work out logistics like food, housing, and transportation. Come up with some way to pay for it all. Encourage students and adults to sign up. Mix it all together, and you’ve got yourself a pretty decent trip.
But if you want a great trip, you’re probably going to need a whole New missions calendar. Most of the ingredients I listed above relate to the two days or two weeks you’re gone. Deeper mission trips require a much larger sense of “calendar.”
Research: Great mission trips have a much bigger sense of “calendar.”
Most youth workers tend to think of a mission trip in a single phase: the trip. New research suggests we need to expand our view of trips into three time phases: before the trip, during the trip, and after the trip.
Research: Mission trips have three time phases—before, during, and after.
9.1
If you’re planning a one-week trip to an urban area two hours away, your time frame might look something like this:
9.2
If you’re planning a three-hour visit to the local homeless shelter, your time frame might look more like this:
9.3
No matter the length of our service or missions events, we will go deeper if we recalibrate our calendars to think in terms of three phases, not just one.
Why all that “extra” time?
The primary reason for the additional time is quite simple: it’s mainly to give our students time and space to process what they’re experiencing.
Imagine yourself and a vanload of students on a Saturday Service Blitz for the senior citizens of your church. Five different seniors contacted you the month before your Saturday event with needs ranging from moving boxes to raking leaves. The fifth house was further from the church than you realized, so now you’re not sure you’re going to make it back on time. Given that you were 10 minutes late returning from last month’s Saturday Service Blitz (and parents are still ticked about it), you know you’re going to get some angry stares if you pull into the parking lot late again.
You’d planned to sit down with the kids over blended mochas on the way back to church and ask them what they thought and felt about their time serving. But now you have a choice: you get back to church on time, or you sit and talk about your service.
The thought of the parental glares makes the choice easy. You speed past the coffee shop and head back to church, thinking maybe you can lead a discussion while driving. You crane your head toward the back of the van and ask, “So, what did you guys think of what we did today?”
A few students answer, “It was cool.”
“I liked it.”
“The cookies at that last house were great.”
Trying to take it a bit deeper, you say something like, “I’m really proud of you for how you served today. Jesus was the ultimate servant, and when we serve, we reflect him to others.”
You’re wondering if anyone is going to comment further, or if you need to ask a question when the decision is made for you—from the back of the van someone says, “Oh, man, I hate that pizza place we just passed. Last time I ate there my sister got sick and threw up all over our table.”
Multiple moans of, “Eww, gross,” as students try to top that story with their own vomit tales, told in 3-D detail.
The golden moment is gone. There’s no way to reclaim the conversation now. You didn’t have much chance to process with the kids, but at least you’re back to church on time.
Research: Reflection is the link between service and learning.
What did you end up with? A good (but not great) Saturday Service Blitz.
Scripture: Reflection is often a key step in our growth path.
We who want truly great service and mission trips have much to learn from the field of service-learning. Service-learning is a growing academic discipline that helps students learn from service as part of their coursework. One of the prominent service-learning researchers, Janet Eyler, writes, “Reflection is the hyphen that links service to learning.”61 As a follower of Christ, I would modify that to say Holy Spirit-inspired reflection is the link between service and learning. (See Chapter 12 on focus groups for more on the Holy Spirit.)
To read more about the latest research on service and short-term missions, check out a free resource at www. cyfm.net.
The Holy Spirit often uses reflection as a key step in our path to growth through service. From the wisdom of Peter at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 to the compelling power of Paul’s speeches and reason in his journeys, we see that mental engagement is a major force in our spiritual development.
Research: We’d probably be better off doing less “work” and more reflection.
Looking back at the Saturday Service Blitz example, those students would probably have learned and grown more deeply if you had helped four seniors instead of five and spent that extra 45 minutes talking over blended mochas. Sure you would have accomplished less work. But if less work means more reflection and transformation, then put down that rake and take a seat with some kids.
Scripture: Jesus used questions to help others reflect.
Maybe you’re already convinced of the importance of reflecting with students about their service, but you’re not sure how to actually do it. A great way to help students process what they’re experiencing is to follow one of Jesus’ strategies and ask questions. Before, during, and after both major and minor episodes in his life with the disciples, Jesus often posed questions to help catalyze their thinking. In the midst of the Sermon on the Mount, he asks, “If the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?” (Matthew 5:13). As the disciples feel threatened by a storm they think spells doom for their boat (and them!), Jesus asks, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” (Matthew 8:26). When he’s alone with the disciples, he asks them, “Who do the crowds say I am?” and later, “Who do you say I am?” (Luke 9:18, 20).
Scripture: Jesus asked questions in the context of service.
In light of this chapter’s topic, it’s interesting to note that Jesus also uses questions in the midst of one of his supreme acts of service before his death. Just prior to the Passover Feast, Jesus gathers with his disciples for dinner. No servants are present, and none of Jesus’ disciples volunteered for the lowly task of foot washing, as they would be considered inferior to all the others. So Jesus volunteers. When he finishes, he puts on his clothes, returns to his place, and asks, “Do you understand what I have done for you?” (John 13:12). While Jesus goes on to provide the answer himself, his question must have gotten the disciples’ mental juices flowing.
Research: Try reflecting by asking three questions: What? So what? Now what?
The questions you ask students to consider don’t have to be complex. One very effective way to get your kids reflecting on a service opportunity is by asking three simple questions:
What? So what? Now what?
The beauty of this three-question reflection is that it helps students move from shallowness to depth by jumping from the tangible to the abstract and from the general to the specific.62 By asking “What?” students have a chance to talk about what they actually saw, heard, smelled, and felt. In asking “So what?” students have the opportunity to think about the difference this experience can make in their lives. By reflecting upon “Now what?” students can think about how they want to live, act, or be different when they return to their so-called “normal” lives.
If you’re serving with students who struggle to process their feelings or experiences (can anyone say “middle school boys”?), then you may get just a few morsels of conversation at first. Answers may range from “I don’t know” to “What he said.” That’s okay. Sometimes it’s taken me months—even years—to get to the point where students are able to truly join in the reflection. With some students we never got to the point of truly deep conversation. But I’ve tried to model patient listening and simply being there with them in the meantime.
Reflection is something that should happen before, during, and after your mission trips. The following chart should give you New ideas on how you can use What? So what? Now what? to facilitate truly great discussions with your own students.
Phase One: Before the Trip
DISCUSSION TOPIC
WHAT? SO WHAT? NOW WHAT? QUESTIONS
HOPES
1. What hopes do you have about our trip?
2. So what do these hopes say about you and your view of service?
3. Now what can you do to make sure your hopes are realized?
FEARS
1. What fears do you have about this trip?
2. So what do your fears say about you and your view of service?
3. Now what can you do to make sure you address and even overcome your fears?
TEAM DYNAMICS
1. What type of relationships do we want to have on our team?
2. Given that, so what are some ways we need to treat each other?
3. Now what can we do to make sure we treat each other those ways?
SPIRITUAL GIFIS & ABILITIES
1. What are your spiritual gifts and abilities?
2. So what are some ways you can use your gifts and abilities during your service?
3. Now what can you do to maximize your gifts?
CULTURAL ISSUES
1. What are some ways the people we’re serving are different than we are?
2. So what should we do while we’re around them to honor and serve them well?
3. Now what can we do to prepare ourselves to be around those who are different?
9.4
Phase Two: During the Trip
DISCUSSION TOPIC
WHAT? SO WHAT? NOW WHAT? QUESTIONS
HIGHS & LOWS
1. What was the best and worst part of the service for you?
2. So what have you learned from these highs and lows?
3. Now what should you do differently when you get back?
FEELINGS
1. What about the experience made you mad, glad, sad, or scared?
2. So what caused you to feel that way?
3. Based on your feelings, now what are some steps you should be taking?
GOD SIGHTINGS
1. What did you see that was clearly of God?
2. So what caused it to make such an impression on you?
3. Now what difference do you want this to make in your life?
LEARNING FROM THE COMMUNITY
1. What did you learn from those you served?
2. So what makes that significant for you?
3. Now what difference do you want it to make in how you treat others?
9.5
Phase Three: After the Trip
RESOURCES-MONEY & TIME
1. Based on what you experienced, what do you think you should be doing with your resources, like your money and time?
2. So what would be different if you did that?
3. Now what would you like to do about it this week or this month?
RELATIONSHIPS
1. What did you learn about relationships as you served?
2. So what makes this insight important to you?
3. Now what are some ways youd like to treat others differently?
THE WORLD
1. What are some insights you gleaned about the world around you?
2. So what makes these insights important to you?
3. Now what are some ways you’d like to view, treat, or interact with the world differently?
9.6
These conversations could take 15 minutes, or they could take two hours. In general, the shorter your service experience, the shorter your time of reflection.
Sometimes circumstances make it impossible to wrangle enough reflection time. Occasionally we don’t budget our time well. Even the best-laid plans fall prey to unexpected traffic jams or broken-down vans. When (note I say “when,” not “if”) that happens, look for other opportunities in the next few weeks to try to process the experience with kids. Whether in person at church or during small group, or over the phone or e-mail, even just asking the simple question, “What memories of our service are most vivid for you?” can help those experiences leave a more lasting impression.
From catching fish for them to teaching them to fish
Experience: We’re often unsure if anyone other than our students have benefited.
There’s a common, sometimes subconscious, belief that when it comes to mission trips, it’s more about what our students learn than how those we serve are changed. When I ask youth pastors about recent mission trips, they often make statements like, “It was GREAT for our kids, and I think we helped the people there at least a little bit.”
I want trips to change our students’ lives. But I also think it’s our responsibility to maximize the changes in the people we serve. It’s not enough to “hope we do more good than harm” when we go to Mexico or the dump in Guatemala City.
It’s relatively easy to swarm around a construction site for four days and leave a 300-square-foot house for a family that used to huddle each night in a cardboard shack. It’s much harder to view that four-day trip as a chance not just to serve but also to build the capacity of that family so they can keep improving their situations.
Research: Deeper mission means capacity-building.
Rich Lerner from Tufts University suggests a New developmental paradigm that helps youth groups deepen the capacity of people they serve. According to Lerner, empowering others involves increasing their:
Competence in academic, social, emotional, and vocational arenas; Confidence in who they are becoming; Connection to others; Character and a strong sense of values and morals; and Caring and compassion.63
Research: We can build capacity by increasing their competency, confidence, connection, character, caring, and contributions.
Another researcher, Karen Pittman, suggests there is a sixth “C”: Contribution to their families, neighbors, and community.64
If you want to apply these “Six Cs” to go deeper with your next service event or mission trip, here are some New ideas:
Competence: Instead of acting like a posse of benevolent Santa Clauses who unload gifts and treats from your fleet of minivans, involve those you’re serving in whatever activities you’re coordinating. Ask them to make decisions with you. If you’re short on paintbrushes, give them yours and cheer them on as they improve their own community.
Confidence: Instead of viewing yourselves as group of Divine Supermen and Superwomen who “rescue” others from a life of misery and hardship, try affirming all they are already doing to benefit their own lives and communities. Discuss with them a vision and strategy for how they can continue to shape their community after you leave. Recognizing with them how much they’ve overcome to create what order and beauty there is in their environment will help.
Connection: Instead of just connecting with one group, your arrival might serve as an opportunity to work with other churches, ministries, and nonprofit organizations they normally don’t talk to. Invite other local leaders to join together in hosting a children’s recreation day or a special dinner for the community. Your presence and intentional invitations might convene partners who would otherwise remain isolated.
Character: Instead of helping only with the physical needs in the community you serve, think ahead of time about what you can do to strengthen the morals and integrity of those you serve. Maybe you could study the fruits of the spirit together or discuss various leaders in Scripture who learned how to trust in God’s faithfulness in the midst of life’s roller coasters.
Caring: Instead of you doing 100 percent of the caring and serving, identify ways your hosts can care for you in return. Perhaps they could cook you a meal or provide snacks in the middle of the day. Instead of you leading the worship time at the end of the day, allow them to minister to you through their own worship, music, and art.
Contribution: Try to make it clear that you want to learn from them also. Your trip should reflect mutual giving and receiving, so that all experience the dignity that comes from being a partner, not a beggar. You might have some construction expertise and the finances to buy the soccer balls and tacos, but you are in their hometown as their guests and need their hospitality in many ways.
From teaching them to fish to helping them own the pond
Research: True capacity-building helps them not just fish for themselves, but own the pond.
If you’re interested in building the capacity of those you serve in even deeper ways, then it’s time to think about community capacity-building so your service won’t be needed a decade from now. As seen in the diagram below, you move beyond teaching others how to fish for themselves to empowering others to build and own the pond.65
CAPACITY-BUILDING CONTINUUM
This type of large-scale capacity building is not something that can be done in one trip, or even in one year. It takes multiple visits over a number of years and is probably best accomplished if you team up with other youth ministries or groups in your own church. It means you don’t just bring down doctors for a week and leave medical supplies, but you help the community set up its own health center. You don’t just encourage other businesses to invest in the community, but you help the people come up with their own business plans and start their own local businesses. Such efforts take plenty of blood, sweat, tears, and TIME—but if you feel God leading you deeper in your service and mission trips, you won’t regret it.
DEEP DESIGN, STEP 3 (OBSERVATION) : WHO?
Sandy Moy Liu has been pastor of youth and children at Chinese Bible Church of Greater Boston for the last 16 years. She has developed a deep missions philosophy and program that involves more than 50 students annually. Whether her students are serving locally in inner-city Boston, cross-culturally at Native American reservations, or overseas in Asia, she creatively structures her ministry calendar to give plenty of time for students’ preparation and debriefing, as well as focusing on building the capacity of those they serve.
What impact has mission work had on your kids?
By God’s grace, students who have gone on our mission trips are fervent in their walks with Christ, give to missions when they become adults, and sometimes even work overseas after they graduate. It’s so moving to me when some of my graduates of top colleges choose to work and serve in Asia, Europe, or Africa because they recognize the great needs outside of the United States. They say part of their desire to serve overseas sprang from their experiences in our youth group.
What type of training do you provide for your trips?
Our training is pretty extensive. For five months prior to the trip, we send them into an elective Mission Sunday school class to understand a biblical perspective on missions, how to share their faith, and cultural issues they’ll encounter. During class breakouts, our specific teams include students in logistical decisions about what we’ll do and how we’ll do it, so the students own the trip. We may also have one or two overnight lock-ins for each team for bonding and preparation. Those have been mini-simulations of what we’ll be doing on the actual trip. To prepare our Hopi Mission team to rough it in tents in the open Arizona desert, we pitched tents in the church lobby overnight. We also run through whatever dramas, games, or programs we’ll be doing on the actual trips, so kids feel more comfortable with their roles.
Five months and multiple overnighters is a big commitment for a high school kid. Do students try to get out of coming to the training events?
Not usually. We give them plenty of goof-off time during the training and retreats, so they actually look forward to it. We spiritually challenge one another to pray diligently for the trip and our life concerns in general. Kids enjoy getting tight with their team.
Often parents are the ones who are hesitant to let their kids make such commitments because they’re concerned about their kids’ busyness, or homework, or they just don’t want to have to keep driving them to meetings. How do parents respond to what you’re asking of their kids?
At the first meeting, students are challenged to sign up for a mission team only if they can give it top priority among all their activities. Some have given up sports or music lessons or school clubs to focus on the mission. Especially in my culture, this is a family decision, not a personal decision. Our church believes in family missions, not merely youth missions.
It’s been super-encouraging seeing God work on parents’ hearts. Some who were initially resistant have ended up in tears and said things like, “We see the power of God working in our children, and we feel honored now.”
How do you think the fact that your kids and families are primarily Asian affects their willingness to make that commitment?
It’s definitely a factor, but it’s more than just an ethnically based willingness to work hard. It took us years to create the type of missions culture we have in our youth ministry. In the early years we were mostly planting seeds with kids, parents, and church leaders. We’d have only a few training meetings and maybe one or two parent meetings, and that was it.
How do you choose where to serve?
The key for us is developing a true partnership with the site and its leaders. We try to go back year after year to the same sites. That way we really get to know the people there as well as the local church leaders. We stay in touch with them during the year through e-mail, letters, and phone calls. We’re especially committed to encouraging those in the community to be grounded in their local churches, so that’s a constant theme in our communication with them. When the local kids and families grow in their faith and lead others in their community to Christ, we feel like our mission is successful. It may take years or decades to see these prayers answered.
In research language, we call that “building capacity.” What else do you do to build the capacity of those communities?
We leave them all sorts of resources. If they need books, we bring them books. If they need sports equipment, we leave them every piece of equipment we bring down with us. We’ve left guitars, CDs, Bibles, and anything else useful to further their local ministry.
Often what these communities need is vision. A few years ago, we worked with youth in a London church that had a pretty small vision for how God could use them. They felt ill-equipped and unqualified. Working with a local mission agency, we encouraged them to think about reaching out to others in Europe—and after we left, their youth group actually did it. So here is this group from Boston that somehow mobilized a group in London, who in turn is spreading the gospel throughout Europe. To me, when the “mission field” becomes the “mission senders,” that’s the ultimate form of capacity-building.
How do you debrief your trips?
Our ideal adult-to-student ratio is to have one adult for every four or five students, both for mentoring and supervision. During the trips, we hold hour-long daily debriefings and prayer with small groups of students. Students give and receive feedback, refocusing, kudos, and support during these daily times.
At the end of the trip, the team spends two days in intensive fun and thorough debriefing. We ask questions such as What are the best things we learned or witnessed on our mission? What could have been better? What did each member of the team do well? What are some suggestions for each member of the team to serve even more effectively? These are our deepest team moments when we all laugh and cry together. So much took place during the mission, and each of us sees a part of it. It’s at the debriefing where all the pieces of the puzzle come together.
You’re obviously very committed to preparing kids and debriefing with them for long trips. Do you also debrief your two-hour trips to inner-city Boston to feed the homeless?
We debrief everything! We ask questions afterward such as what went well today? What was God doing? Did you see God doing what we thought he was going to do? Actually, the question of trying to discern what God is doing is a theme in all of our preparation and debriefing, no matter what trip or event it is. We want our kids to have their internal radars tuned to try to figure out what God is up to.
We also make sure our students are heavily involved ahead of time. When we take kids to serve a meal at a homeless shelter, we meet with them a few weeks ahead of time to involve them in the preparation process. We ask them to help us figure out what food to serve, and why that food would be more suitable than other choices. Sure, it takes more time, but we see the results as our students take responsibility and leadership.
Your church must be pretty supportive of youth missions. What’s made them so supportive?
God is merciful! After one particular parent-leader joined a team and was quite moved by the Lord, he became a positive influence and recruited other parents for missions. We’ve found that when several key leaders from the church become enthusiastically active in missions, the rest of the church is more likely to get on board.
When it comes to missions, what are you still trying to figure out?
You know, I still wrestle with a lot of deep questions about missions. Why, Lord, is there so much global poverty and suffering when we Americans have so much? How can we Americans go and see others’ spiritual and material needs, and then come home and go back to life as normal? These are tough questions, and I don’t have any easy answers.
What would you say to encourage someone who wants to help students go deep in missions but isn’t sure how to start?
Pray with your students, and listen for God’s calling. Help your students develop hearts for the lost and a passion for sharing the gospel. Hold a few training meetings and a few hours of debriefing. Then in the future, perhaps add a few additional training and debriefing opportunities.
Missions is much more than merely a “trip” it’s a real-life laboratory for our faith. God’s work has exceeded even our biggest dreams, and he’ll work in your ministry, too.
DEEP DESIGN, STEP 4 (APPLICATION): HOW?
Application Questions:
How have mission trips and service events helped you or your students grow deeper in the past? What do you think of the suggestion of debriefing by asking What? So what? and Now what? How might you use those questions in your next trip or activity? Which of the “Six Cs” do you think you could focus on in your next service event or mission trip? What would you gain by doing that? What would you lose? When you look at the Capacity-Building Continuum on Chapter 9, where do you think you fall? What could you do to move further to the right? How is your ministry similar to Sandy’s? How is it different? What can you apply from this chapter and Sandy’s story to take your service and ministry to a deeper level?
How are we going to go deeper in our service and missions?
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