A WISER approach to SHORT-TERM mission trips
DIRECTOR OF CHURCH ENGAGEMENT AND MOBILIZATION
CHRISTIAN ALLIANCE FOR ORPHANS
MORE THAN CHRISTIANS TRAVEL ON INTERNATIONAL SHORT-TERM MISSION TRIPS EVERY YEAR, MANY OF THEM INTENDED TO BENEFIT VULNERABLE KIDS.
Service-focused travel during short-term missions trips can have the potential for great harm if not wisely led or prepared. These risks can be especially high when visitors seek to serve children, particularly those lacking the protection and connectedness of family.
The potential for good that short-term trips have calls for continued refining, correction, and improvement. To do this well, trip organizers and participants must have a clear sense of how to plan, prepare for, and carry out their service in ways that ensure safety and lasting wellbeing of children, families, and their communities.
In this guide are 8 principles of better practice that provide a framework for preparing, leading, and planning a shortterm missions trip. Along with these 8 principles, we point to a more in-depth document providing 10 alternative models and 6 case studies for wiser, more fruitful shortterm mission trips.
Safeguarding children from harm is the first priority. Ensure your organization and partners have established and consistently review a child protection policy. In the policy, include background screenings and reporting procedures for suspected harm to a child.
Support bonds between children and their parent or primary caregiver. Encourage children to seek physical and emotional affection from their long-term caregivers instead of trip participants, and teach trip participants how to redirect children to their parents and primary caregivers.
Honor the role of parents and primary caregivers. Spotlight the parent or primary caregiver as the hero in a child’s life, and be willing to take on a supporting role.
Support the communities surrounding vulnerable children. Consider activities that benefit the entire communities such as camps, clinics, or other training.
Make sure the trip purpose is clear and expectations thoroughly understood. Help participants to view listening, learning, and building relationships as more central than any tasks they may accomplish.
Anchor every trip in long-term relationships with quality partners. Long before sending trip participants, do the hard work necessary to investigate the potential partners thoroughly. Consider the quality of their work, local reputation, and standing with local and national authorities.
Commit to learning before doing. Training should repeatedly emphasize the primary role of parents and caregivers, the priority of local leadership, and that the long-term needs of each child must always take priority over the desires of visitors.
Share stories and images with care. Images that include vulnerable children should be taken and shared only with permission from the child and their primary caregiver.
To dive deeper into the principles and practices found in this booklet and to discover more, check out “Everyone Can Do Something,” a full-length book on launching and leading a ministry in your church, available for purchase on Amazon.
Jason Johnson is the Director of the Church Ministry Initiatives at the Christian Alliance for Orphans. With 20+ years of experience in church-based ministry along with his family’s foster and adoptive journey, Jason now spends his time speaking, teaching and coaching church and organizational leadership teams around the country on how to start, lead and grow ministries within their church or organizations.
Jason is the author of ReFraming Foster Care (for families and support groups), Everyone Can Do Something (for church and ministry leaders), ALL IN Orphan Care (small group based study for those considering) and he blogs regularly at Jason Johnson | Blog. Jason has a passion to equip churches and encourage families no matter where they are in their foster care and adoption journeys. He and Emily, and their four girls live in Texas and enjoy whatever it is they’re doing, as long as it’s together.
The Pure Religion Project, facilitated by CAFO members and the broader CAFO community, helps churches live out their calling to care for vulnerable children and families while growing closer to Jesus as His disciples. Simply put, the Project aims to inspire and equip God’s people to live the “pure religion” described in the book of James and invited throughout Scripture. Learn more at cafo.org/purereligion.