Snow mobiles in the drive-thru in Sweden, a giant chandelier in Ohio, the massive video arcade in Orlando, or a restaurant shaped like a Happy Meal box–McDonald’s has found a way for its stores to be unique yet at the same time consistent.
We saw in our last blog how organizations that lead short term international trips can learn a lot from the Golden Arches. Whether you sponsor one or one hundred annual trips, consistency across the trips is vital. Today we will look at three of seven areas where mission trips need consistency. We’ll tackle the other four in the next blog.
Team Leader Selection and Training
Do you have a set policy about who can lead mission trips from your organization and what kind of training that should/will have? This is especially an issue for organizations like churches that don’t conduct short term mission trips as their primary ministry, as they tend to not give as much attention to this as those that do it full time.
The experience, wisdom, care and administrative abilities of your team leader(s) will very much determine the success of your trips. People who have demonstrated good judgment are critical for mission trip leadership, especially when things don’t go as planned or there is some kind of an emergency on the trip.
Purpose
There should be a clearly stated purpose for why you do mission trips. In other words, from a big-picture perspective, what are you trying to accomplish through short term missions?
While each trip may have its own mission and fulfill different functions, they all should help fulfill your stated purpose. That purpose should be understood by every trip participant on every team that goes with you.
Participant Training
Every trip participant should undergo the same basic pre-trip training or orientation. Depending on the nature of the trip, additional specialized training may be needed, but every trip should have a core training component. If you have participants scattered geographically and it is not possible for them to physically attend, then consider including them through conference calls, video tapes, streaming Internet, etc.
As we noticed yesterday, ministries with certain consistencies in all their groups do better at attracting both initial and return trip participants. Team leader selection, establishing purpose, and training participants are a few of the areas where consistency is important.
We’ll explore four more on Monday…right after we grab a Big Mac.