Sometimes I think people regret asking me what I do over the summer months. “So Gabe, what are you doing this summer?” I’ll casually respond, “Oh, you know, just traveling all over the country helping to put on mission trips that bring thousands of teenagers and adults together to grow in their relationship with Christ, and at the same time rebuild communities in need.” There is generally a long pause here.

You see, people have a hard time wrapping their head around why thousands of teenagers and adults all over the U.S. would choose to pay hundreds of dollars to serve others, and why hundreds of college students would devote their entire summers to traveling around to help make these trips possible. For me, these camps have been a huge blessing. After serving on six mission trips all over the country with my youth group, becoming a part of summer mission staff seemed like the next step. I completely believe in their mission and have grown closer to God and have truly been changed for the better through my participation. The truth is, when I applied to become summer staff, my idea of what it would be like didn’t even scratch the surface of how blessed I would be after a summer of service.

For me, I hardly think of being on summer staff as being a job. I feel strongly that I have been given this opportunity by God to be able to serve other people. My specific role is Program Manager. At each camp I set up, maintain, and run all of the projection, lighting, and sound equipment. I work with the speaker to put on quality worship and devotion programs. In addition, I get to travel to each project during the week and take photos of all of the mission trip participants to include in evening slideshows. This position allows me to not only work with technology, but also interact with people. In just one summer I have met hundreds to people who have each touched my life. I get to serve alongside three other summer staff for an entire summer who act as my family. We share our joys and concerns, challenge each other in our faith, and hold each other accountable. I meet dozens of volunteer staff at each of my camps who all share a fervent passion for mission and a heart for service. I interact with dozens of residents from all walks of life, some of whom believe in God, some of whom don’t. Some of my most memorable moments from being involved in mission trips comes from when residents come to know Christ through the work that all involved in these mission trips do for them. Lastly, I get to interact with hundreds if not thousands of junior and senior high school students and their adult leaders who have a heart for service and a longing to know Jesus Christ more deeply.

You see, being involved with mission trips doesn’t just end with the trip. The experiences and people you encounter stay with you for the rest of your life. You grow deeper into a relationship with Jesus regardless of the way in which you serve and he blesses that and gives you even more hunger for service. These trips change you and I definitely would not be who I am today without them. The best part is when you return after a summer of service, people start asking you, “how was your summer?” You get to share with them all of the people you met, and all of the life-changing experiences you encountered which in turn lights a spark in other people to serve. What did you do last summer?

Gabe Schott is 20, hails from Iowa, loves mission trips and is serving again this summer with Group Mission Trips

The activity level around our office has just been cranked up a notch (or 20).  Stuff is happening in earnest.

Final details or being, well… finalized.

Youth Groups are starting to send their forms into our office.

Lodging stuff is coming together.  Food, who’s preparing the food, who’s buying the food, where’s the food going to be stored?

Projects are in their final stages of preparation.  The organizations we partner with are making sure everything is ready for when we show – ready to serve.

The last touches on the spiritual growth programing and worship are being made.  Presentations being put together.  Tech equipment being tested.  All the outlines of the worship programs are gong to print.

There’s a lot going on.  Maybe we’re just cranked up to 11 (that’s for you Spinal Tap fans).  But it feels like we’re giving it all she’s got (Star Trek reference). 

And we know for you out there in youth ministry world, it’s just as crazy.

You’re busy wrapping up a another school year of ministry.

There’s graduation Sunday to plan for.

All your summer plans are now just weeks away (no longer months) and everything needs to be ready for summer camp, summer retreat, your mission trip, etc…

It’s busy and details for flying around your office also, just like ours.

Sometimes it feels like we’re all Iron Man (in the first movie).  Those first flight scenes where he’s bouncing off of everything and crashing more than flying or landing.  That’s how it can feel.  Controlled chaos… just barely.

And yet…

Isn’t that ministry.  All the hard stuff is done so no one else has to know.  All the crazy detail tracking and mountains of paper and sleepless nights – that’s because we just want to see our youth encounter Jesus and their lives to be changed because of that encounter.

The former leader of Group Mission Trips, my boss for 8 years, had a great, goofy analogy for all this.  He said we’re like ducks.  Ducks look like the smoothest, coolest animal in the world paddling around a calm lake.  But in reality, it’s a complete craziness of motion under the water.  Feels really true sometimes in ministry.

So to all you ducks out there – Paddle on!  God bless all of us as we scramble to get all the “stuff” done.

I’m going to miss sitting and dreaming with him about the future of youth ministry and how to best serve youth workers.

I’m going to miss coffee on Monday mornings (I’m not going to miss him telling everyone I never buy him coffee, not true btw).

I’m going to miss coming up with crazy, stupid promo ideas to get more stuff and events in youth workers hands.

I’m going to miss struggling together to build great organizations that do real ministry, pay their employees, and have enough money left over to keep creating awesome new stuff youth workers use to help students encounter Jesus.

I’m going to miss praying with him for you folks (youth leaders) – the reason we do all this.

I’m going to miss my friend.

God bless you ab.

Planning early comes in handy at some points and other times makes for great jokes…or maybe just jokes at my expense.

After preparing groups to attend mission trips for the past few years, I have found it helpful to:

1. Plan ahead. Really. Get the information out to parents and youth over the summer to be prepared to put their deposits in by as early as possible. The summer can prove difficult to get information to parents and teens as many are thinking of that summer, not the following summer when they are making their plans. I begin before we go to on the current year’s mission trip by telling people to expect the information about next year’s camp sometime in July or August.
2. Make room for the new kid. Inevitably we always have new kids that come over the summer and into the fall and don’t know about the crazy-planner-youth-director who has been preparing for a trip 365 days out. Plan for the new kids and communicate with new parents about the opportunities for the mission experience the next summer.
3. Allow God to work. Each year I am praying and fretting (I know, those two shouldn’t go together-no fretting!) about the adult leaders, numbers on the wait list and how much money we will be asking for to support the youth. What I’ve learned (and keep learning!) is that God knows who is supposed to be on which trip. God knows the adults that are good to bring and those that would be a detriment to the ministry. God knows the money figure and since He is Lord of all, He will provide in His time and in His way.

There are many more things I have learned over the past few trips. However these are my top 3 as I begin to prepare…a year and a half out from the trip. To God be the glory!

Tara Wolf has been in youth ministry for the past 12 years and lives in Williamsburg, VA with her amazing husband and Hungarian hunting dogs. Her first youth mission experience was in 2006 and she continues to encourage the youth and adults in her congregation to connect with God and His people through mission trips.

Just to let you know.    The lady we did work for had not had a refrigerator for 6 months.   When we got back to our church the next day 150 miles away…….we announced it in church and I had my youth all give a talk about what we did and what they thought.     Someone donated a almost new frig and we will be taking it to her….God is Good….thanks, for the opportunity to serve…

 Deana – Lake Wappapello, MO 

God is so good.  He calls us to serve.  And youth workers and youth ministries and churches do.  Over and over again.

Thanks for all you do serving people with needs near and far.  God bless!

In the many years of our youth going on mission trips, they have done a variety of activities to both prepare spiritually and financially for the week-long experience at work camp. One new activity the youth are doing to prepare spiritually for our mission trip to Wilmington, North Carolina this year, is joining with a congregation member to be “SOUL sponsors.” Given the new unique experiences and faith journeys of our Senior High youth, each Senior High youth has been paired with a congregation member who has similar interests both inside and outside the walls of our congregation. As a “SOUL sponsor”, the congregation member will get to journey with a youth in their faith walk, get to know them and do fun activities with them, outside of worship. In addition, other ways that our Senior High youth prepare for the work camp experience include: serving Easter breakfast and doing a summer rummage sale. Through their fundraising efforts, the youth realize that although it does take a lot of money to attend a mission trip, the sticker tag on the trip is nothing, when you compare it to the actual experience of working on a home, alongside other Christian teens.

Nothing excites me more after coming home from our mission trip experience, than the change the other adults and I see in our Senior High youth. Through our mission trip experience each year, our youth grow closer to each other, new friendships form, and each youth is strengthened in their faith. As previously mentioned, Christ has already set the example for us, serving others with tremendous love; we, as his disciples are called to live this out in our everyday lives. Each year, the Senior High youth come back home from the mission trip, with a renewed spirit and passion to serve others. Many times, the other Messiah youth leaders and I are surprised by the innumerable requests by the youth to participate in service projects. I cannot help but smile and work to organize the next service activity for the youth.

Samantha (Sam) Crowell has been involved in youth ministry for the last five years. I currently serve as the volunteer adult leader of the Junior High Ministry and the youth ministry communications coordinator. This year’s mission trip to Wilmington, North Carolina will be her ninth mission trip with the Senior High youth group.

Guess what?  It’s the same thing for you and your group’s mission trip!

How you handle and finalize all the details of your trip goes a long way to deciding whether your group has a great time.  Now is the time make sure those details are all ready.  Believe it or not, some mission trips are only 4 weeks away.  If you’re serving on a trip in June, it’s coming very soon.

OK, you can start breathing again…

Take the time now to double-check everything.  Projects, supplies, directions, lodging, food, worship, devotions.  Everything.  Double-check now to ensure your group has an incredible experience this summer.

Last year, my church became a lodging facility for Week of Hope – which means that we hosted teens from all over the country during the months of June, July and August. There were teenagers everywhere. Shower tents were setup in the parking lot, the dumpster overflowed with trash, on any given Sunday morning you were sure to find towels, t-shirts or boxers left to dry on the bushes. One day someone sat on a table and it split right down the middle. Another person stuck their foot through the glass door. On the very first Monday of the summer every single toilet and drain in the whole church over flowed….at once. As we were running around trying to stop the great flood of 2011 a burning smell came from behind the sanctuary and the power went out in one side of the building. A few weeks later the air conditioning went out. It was July. In Florida. This was not good. Our roof is now permanently littered with Frisbee’s and our once pristine parlor..well…isn’t.

It was fantastic!

If the fact that our almost 60 year old building survived isn’t proof enough of God’s divine intervention in the world, the reaction of our older members surely is. When arriving at our very traditional, stained glassed building on Sunday morning to find someone’s forgotten boxers lying across the courtyard wall, our senior members would smile, pick them up, bring them to me and say, “Looks like they worked their pants off this week.” When asked to move every single meeting and gathering of every single group in the church to another location for the entire summer, our oldest members said, “Well, let’s meet at Sue’s house and call it a party.” As I stood on the sideline I watched as my congregation opened their arms to strangers, happily changed their regular schedules and graciously over looked the crumbs in the classrooms, stains on the carpet and grease in the kitchen. Instead, they focused on the hearts opened, lives changed and love given.

Was it a challenge for my church? Yes. Was it difficult at times? Yes. Would it have been easier not to have so many teenagers living in our church? Yes. Would we do it again? Yes, in fact we are this summer. My church is a changed church. No longer a sub-group of the church, teenagers are now embraced and welcomed as a vital part of the larger church. As a result of this welcome, the number of teens in our church has doubled. The mission work of our church has moved from collections and check writing to personal, relational service. Our folks have been praying for this years’ teens, adults and staff all year long. Our focus isn’t on what might break or go wrong, but on all the ways God will show up in the chaos.

Jennyfer Norvell has been in youth ministry for about 20 years.  She currently serves alongside her husband at a church in downtown Orlando, FL.  She takes her students on a mission trip nearly every year and this past year led her church to become the host location for an entire summer mission trip experience.