The beautiful two-story restaurant is a showplace for the Ohio city of Independence. The white columns out front and brick veneer give it a colonial American look, reminiscent of something you would see in Philadelphia, PA. Inside, the restaurant is adorned with a huge chandelier and beautiful murals.
In Dallas, TX beside a busy freeway is a restaurant shaped like a giant children’s lunch box. The two story edifice is brightly painted and catches the eye of everyone driving past.
What do these two restaurants have in common? They are both McDonald’s.
Whether you are on a snowmobile in the McDonald’s drive-thru in Pitea, Sweden, or playing video games at the huge arcade inside the Orlando McDonald’s, there are some things that you can expect at any McDonald’s anywhere in the world.
You can expect the Big Mac to taste the same. You can expect that the restroom usually will be clean. You can expect certain items on every menu, even if you are eating at the Lafayette, Indiana store, which at one time offered 120 unique items. The locations may be different, the architecture unique, and the menu varied, but McDonald’s is still McDonald’s.
With this analogy in mind, think about the different mission trips your ministry leads. Whether you are a missions agency conducting dozens of annual trips or a church leading just a couple each year, is there consistency with your trips? Are there some things that participants should expect regardless of where they go and who actually leads the trip? Do you have some consistent or universal elements that are true of every trip you do? Are those elements in writing and does every trip leader know what they are?
This is important for many of the same reasons that McDonald’s strives for consistency in their operations. They want their customers to have a great experience no matter where they go. So, if that means raising their own cattle in Russia in order to have the quality of beef consistent with the rest of the world, then they do it.
Think of those who go on your trips as “customers.” True, you’re not in business and it’s not about making a profit—but it is about making sure that you impact every life in the best way possible.
Should trip participants who travel with one staff member have a more rewarding experience than those who travel with a different staff member? Should one team have better training than another? Should individuals in one group have to arrange their own airfare while another group has a coordinator do it? Should national leaders get follow-up funds from one of your groups but not from another?
Experience has shown that ministries with certain consistencies in all their groups will do better at attracting both initial and return trip participants. Each trip can still be unique, but like McDonald’s, “customers” should come to expect certain things to be true no matter where they go or who on your team they go with.
In our next blog we’ll explore specific elements to consider making universal for all of your trips.