380. Mission Life

Last year, when I was responsible for organizing and structuring the joint Mission trip preparation, I didn’t have a clear picture of how I should view this time (which was about 3 months). I had some of these questions: Is it just the time to prepare for ministry in the mission field? What if the ministry or trip itself gets cancelled? Then, is all the preparation good for nothing? I had experience with both campus missions with para-church and also church missions but didn’t have a clear picture.

But I had a thought that helped me to get a clear picture of how I should view it. It was “Mission Life”. Just as we have Life bible study series (such as Living Life) that usually run for about 3 months with homework and exams, I felt Mission trip preparation could be structured that way. The preparation period would be focused on learning, and the trip itself would be like the final exam where we get to apply what we learned. Once I got a clear picture, it was easy to do the rest.

So I structured the 3-month training into three different levels of training: Physical, Spiritual and Language. So each week, members would get assigned a physical assignment (15 minutes of physical activity at least 3 times), a spiritual assignment (Daily reading of the Bible), and a language assignment (Spanish). When we got together every week on Saturday morning for training, we would go around to check each other’s progress to keep each other accountable. Then we strengthened ourselves through Word sharing and prayer, learned Spanish, and prepared for whatever ministry we planned to do in the field.

This solved one of my big questions about viewing the training period just for ministry “in the mission field”. Even if the mission trip gets cancelled, the 3 months we spent on mission training would not go to waste, as we had the valuable experience of preparing ourselves as short-term missionaries. We trained our body, our spirit, and our linguistic ability to communicate with the people we want to minister to. Though this is not to say it is now set in stone, emphasis on training has reaped some positive benefits among members as well, even before going on a mission.

Committing to a mission trip is to commit to the mission preparation. What often makes a good mission trip is not the trip itself but the preparation. Just as we encourage members to take Life Bible study series again after a few years, if you haven’t gone on the trip in a while, consider taking the “Mission Life” next year.