Tag: training

5 Factors to Facilitating a Mission Trip

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We are beginning to start our mission trip training for this summer. With two trips planned and two unique teams going, we need to make sure our students are adequately prepared and trained in order to best grow and serve. Our summer ministry rhythm alternates between doing some type of retreat or conference one year and a mission trip the following year. Regardless of whether it is a mission trip year or not, part of our vision for our program is to incorporate missional opportunities in all of our trips because of the mission Christ gave to all of His followers.

What that means is we are always approaching our trips with a mission-centered focus. In order to do that well, we must think through some key aspects. Mission trips that are just haphazardly thrown together are not all together a bad thing as opportunities may just present themselves. But the more intentional we are in thinking through how we can shape and facilitate the trip in an impactful and meaningful way, the better prepared we will be and our students will reap the spiritual benefits.

The points below are intended for those who are planning their own trips and not necessarily partnering with a mission organization. However, I believe these points translate into either type of trip. If you go with an organization some of the points may already be figured out for you. These are key avenues to engage during the very beginning of mission trip planning and are designed to help the main trip leader best prepare themselves and their team for the upcoming training and trip.

1. Know your objectives.

Mission trips are a wonderful opportunity to not only help your students grow spiritually but also to bless others through your actions and care. In order to achieve both of those realities, there need to be clearly stated objectives. If you know the objectives of your trip it allows you to shape and plan accordingly so you can accomplish said objectives.

Your objectives can be focused on the spiritual growth of your students, skill sets that need to be learned, tasks that need to be accomplished before and during the trip, building relationships within the team and with the community you’re serving, or whatever else you see as a goal for your trip. When you have your objectives focused and spelled out, you will then be able to guide and shape your trip and team accordingly.

2. Clearly communicate expectations.

Whether you are setting up team meetings, explaining guidelines for the location, sharing team member requirements, or detailing work expectations on the trip, the ability to clearly communicate expectations will help set your team up for success. This is true even when you are advertising the trip to your students. The clearer and more concise your communication, the more apt your people will be to understand and follow what you are asking of them.

When it comes to expectations for your students, never assume they know what they are even if you have taken them on prior trips. Each mission trip will be unique which means the expectations will be as well. So be clear, concise, and direct with expectations in order to set your team up for success.

3. Utilize team training.

Training for mission trips is a must. Without training you will be setting your team up for dysfunction and potential failure. Training allows the group to grow and deepen relationships, engage in team building, grow in the skill sets needed on the trip, have a better understanding of how to minister to the community you are serving, and to help each team member know more about themselves personally.

Training can include activities to simulate what you will be doing, practice or organize different elements needed for the trip, complete personality assessments, or engage in prayer times, team building, or evangelism and prayer training. It can also include watching videos or reading helpful books, bringing in teachers to help equip your team, or whatever else you find beneficial. These do not need to be exceedingly long or every week, but I would recommend starting training sessions 4-6 months before you are to leave and averaging 1-2 a month.

4. Highlight flexibility.

If you have ever led a student trip before you know the importance of flexibility. But often times our students never see that part of the trip because they are only engaging the trip not serving behind the scenes. That’s one of the key differences between a retreat or camp and a mission trip. On a mission trip students are serving and leading, not simply consuming. So helping your students understand flexibility, why it is necessary, and how it may look on the trip will help to strengthen and equip your team to do their best work and be for one another and the community you are serving.

5. Build your leadership team ahead of time.

As you are beginning to prepare for your trip it is important to recruit the necessary leaders for the trip before you begin to advertise it to your students. This allows you to have the appropriate student-to-leader ratios and it also helps you to have the leaders needed for the trip. We all have amazing leaders who serve in our ministries but not all of those leaders may want or be able to serve on a mission trip. So figuring out who can and should go ahead of time allows you to be better prepared for the trip by having your leadership team in place.

The Importance of Training Leaders

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March Madness is in full swing and we love it in our house. (Let’s go Hawkeyes!!) As we have been watching it there are segments about the teams, players, and coaches that highlight how they made it into the tournament. In almost every single segment there is a focus on the training and community that the players and coaches have, and it highlights how necessary those components are to a championship level team.

The same can be said of our leaders: without the proper training and community we will not have the higher caliber teams we desire to help disciple our students. We must intentionally focus on generating training for our leaders in order to help them grow and mature in their skill sets and talents so they have the best opportunity to lead and pour into their students. But the question we need to think through is this: what is drawing our leaders to participate in training?

Today, I want to highlight some key reasons why leader training is important and necessary. These are aspects you can communicate out to your leaders in order to generate excitement and anticipation for the training you will be hosting. If you’re looking for ways to make leader training more than “typical training,” check out this post for some helpful resources.

It values our leaders and what they are doing.

When we host training opportunities it communicates that we see our leaders and value them enough to care about their growth and development. Training tells our leaders we desire for their gifts and strengths to be developed and we want to encourage them to be stretched and grown. Training shows them that they aren’t simply a warm body but a needed and integral part of the ministry and you want to help to develop them as they serve the ministry.

It encourages of growth.

Good leaders replicate leaders. When you are growing and developing it will be replicated to your people because you have seen its worth and value and want to share that with your team. This mentality will help your leaders to not only be excited about training but to also see opportunities for personal growth and development.

It allows us to share the “why” and the “value.”

Training allows you as the ministry leader to highlight why you are doing what you are doing, and the importance and value to what you are doing. There will be moments or seasons in every leader’s life where they ask, “Why am I still doing this?” It may be because of a tough interaction with a student, or a difficult season with a small group, or not seeing change in the lives of their students. Discouragement can happen to anyone. Instead of resting in it we need to help our leaders remember why we are doing what we are doing and the value of pouring into young people. Reminding them of these aspects will help to encourage, strengthen, and challenge your leaders to persevere and continue to pour into their students.

It builds community and unity.

Typically, teams are made of very different and unique people which is probably true of your volunteer leaders. I know I have people with different personalities, ages, backgrounds, influences, and skill sets and when you ask them to lead together it may seem like a tall task. But when you host trainings it allows you to help your team build community and unity by bringing them together, highlighting different gifts and skill sets, and allowing them to have fun together.

One of the things I love to do at our trainings is have food, partly because I like to eat but also because food fosters conversation and community. There’s a reason people tend to be more chatty around a table or at a restaurant. It’s because food helps us to lower our walls. So having food is a great opportunity to encourage community. You can also add in a mixer or some type of activity to get your group engaging with one another, and you can incorporate trainings that highlight unity and working together through differences. These types of atmospheres will help your team grow closer together as you unite to reach your students with the Gospel.

It allows us to answer questions our leaders have.

Our leaders are always being peppered with questions from students or they have questions for us about topics students raise. I try to be as helpful as I can during our programming, but often that doesn’t present the adequate amount of time needed to address questions. I have also noticed that if one leader has a question, whether their own or one raised by their small group, other leaders tend to have the same or similar questions as well.

Trainings allow us to go in-depth on questions our leaders are being asked. It also gives you another opportunity to help foster community and unity as leaders realize they aren’t alone in dealing with these questions and topics. These opportunities allow us to provide insight, guidance, and resources to our people to help them work with and love their students well.

I would also encourage you to utilize different voices when answering these questions. You may have veteran youth leaders who have already dealt with these topics and inviting them to share will do amazing things for your other volunteers. Also, consider bringing in outside personnel if applicable to help handle some of the questions and topics that are outside of your skill set or expertise.

It provides an opportunity to focus on your mission and vision.

When we take our leaders through training opportunities, it allows you to continue to drip your mission and vision into all that you do. You can help your leaders focus and remember what the ministry is striving to do. So as you walk through your training objectives, remember to bring it back to how these trainings help to embrace and advance your missional philosophy.

It allows your team to have fun together.

I love getting our leadership teams together because it provides an opportunity to hang out and enjoy life with one another. We are blessed to have leaders who enjoy spending time together and these trainings allow extended opportunities for them to fellowship and have fun. This happens over meals, through team building activities and icebreakers, and by creating intentional moments of community at each of our training events. These moments help your team to truly gel and have a good time with one another while still being on mission together for the advancement of the Gospel.

7 Ways to Prepare Leaders for Trips

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Whenever you go on student ministry trips, you are probably taking leaders with you. Whether it’s one or two or maybe thirty, having leaders on a trip is essential. They help make sure everything goes as it should, they invest in your students, and they are the people who allow the trip to actually happen.

But if we don’t prepare them well for the trip, we will actually be hindering them and ourselves. We are the ones with all the details and knowledge of where we are going because we have been in contact with the host location. What we need to be doing as ministry leaders is preparing our leaders well so they can truly succeed and have the greatest impact in the lives of our students.

Today I want to share with you some ideas and tips on how to best prepare your leaders for upcoming trips.

1. Prepare and communicate in advance.

One of the best things you can do for your leaders is be prepared and communicate to them well in advance. The more they know ahead of time the better suited they will be to fully contribute and care for students. Make sure to communicate dates and times, location of the trips, what they should bring, and what you’re bringing like supplies, games, snacks, Bibles and pens, fidgets, devotionals for students who follow Jesus, and even things like power strips.

2. Have a leader meeting before you go.

One of the best things you can do for your leaders to help prepare them is to have a meeting before the trip. Being able to walk through who is going, room assignments, the schedule, expectations, and allow time for questions will help your leaders feel more at ease about the trip and will give them confidence as they go.

3. Prepare a leader packet.

Preparing a packet for your leaders gives them not just information but helps them to know what is happening and what is expected of them. When you put together a packet, include things like a site map, packing list, sleeping arrangements, small group assignments, schedule, questions for small group time, contact info for the camp, and all the leaders’ contact info so everyone has it.

4. Set up a group text for your leaders.

This is one of my favorite things about going on trips. We always set up a group chat to share information and pictures throughout the trip. There are lots of gifs and jokes between leaders, but also moments where we share prayer requests and praises. It also allows for information to get out quickly and everyone to see what is happening throughout the time at camp.

5. Go over expectations.

Sometimes on trips we just need leaders to hang with their students because the location handles everything else. Other times leaders need to be more hands-on and have various roles. The clearer you can outline those expectations and share them with your team, the better prepared they will be to lead and shepherd your students.

6. Find ways to bless them.

Whether it’s a personalized card, a leader gift bag, or a Starbucks gift card, something to encourage them and let them know they are loved and valued is wonderful thing to do for your leaders. By blessing your leaders you are showing them how much they mean to you, the ministry, and your students. This is a tangible and intentional opportunity for your leaders to know they are seen and valued.

7. Spend time praying together.

When you prepare your leaders ahead of time, spend some time praying for them, your students and families, and the trip. These moments allow you and your team to intentionally pray for all aspects of the trip and to pray specifically for the students who are going. God moves powerfully through prayer and by praying before the trip we are intentionally asking God to do big things in the lives of our students. By praying for God to work in the lives of students, it allows us to see how He intentionally and divinely moves in the lives of our people and the change that comes about.

How do you best prepare your team for trips? What are your best practices for doing this?

Making Leader Training More than Just Informational [Part 2]

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Last week we kicked off this two-part series by thinking through a few ways to make leader training more than just informative. Information is helpful and beneficial but it’s important to do more than simply focus on giving information. If all people do is receive information there can’t really be any transformation because there’s no care, practical application, or really any reason for your people to keep coming.

My hope with these two posts is to encourage you to think about how and why you do leader training. The ideas we are presenting are meant to help you think outside the box. And perhaps incorporate new aspects that will not only generate better leaders, but will help develop leaders who develop leaders, all while valuing and caring for them holistically.

Pray together.

Prayer is something I cannot overemphasize enough. I think every ministry has this intention and every ministry leader, hopefully, prays often for their ministry. But when was the last time you prayed together with your volunteers? Is it consistent? Is it allowing the Spirit to guide and direct you, your team, and ministry?

When you gather for training this presents the perfect opportunity to pray with and for your team. This is an exciting opportunity to engage in prayer in new and different ways. You can pray all together for the ministry, or you can pray in smaller groups for one another. You can go on a prayer walk around the building praying for where your students gather and for the entire church, or you can even spend some time in silence praying. Trust me when I tell you that if you consistently pray with your team, be prepared to see God move in powerful and bold ways.

Practice spiritual rhythms and formation.

This runs hand-in-hand with prayer while moving past just one rhythm, and seeks to engage your team holistically from a spiritual perspective. Often training sessions can focus on how to lead small groups, caring for students, safety requirements, and other areas that are very important. But when was the last time you stopped and intentionally trained on spiritual rhythms?

Training your leaders on prayer, spiritual gifts, fasting, journaling, time with Jesus, and various other aspects is hugely important. I think it is easy to assume our leaders know all of these things and further still we may assume they are practicing them. But if they were never taught them, how can we expect them to teach and lead our students through these rhythms? Let me encourage you to take time to actually walk through spiritual rhythms and help your leaders grow in formational ways so they can lead your students deeper in their walk with Jesus.

Change locations.

This is an easy idea but not often one we think about. It is easy to default to trainings at church or in the youth room. But what if you moved it to someone’s home? Better yet, a home with a pool, or a fire pit, or a backyard where you could play games together. Being able to take training offsite or outside of where you meet normally allows you to be creative in your training, it gives your leaders freedom to think and process in a new environment, and it provides a change of scenery which can often lead to new thought processes and perspectives.

If you can’t meet offsite, consider changing the environment you train in. Move things around, bring in comfortable seating, change the lighting, make it comfortable and inviting with decorations. These little touches help you to show intentionality and change a space that perhaps we have become used to.

Provide resources.

Resourcing our leaders is a great way to both help them grow personally and get something into their hands that will be beneficial going forward. This could be handouts and studies from Barna Group, devotional guides for them to use with their small groups, a podcast, helpful tools and resources from Fuller Youth Institute, various assessments like DISC or spiritual gifts, books to read as a team, or even resources specific to your own ministry. These resources aren’t meant to just be things you get into their hands but resources that will help them grow and continue to excel as the leaders God has designed them to be.

What aspects do you make sure to include in your leader trainings?

Making Leader Training More than Just Informational [Part 1]

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We just finished hosting annual fall training for all our student leaders and it made me reflect on how our structure of leader training has changed throughout the years. We have gotten into the rhythm of hosting quarterly trainings and while they all differ in focus, the heart and vision remains the same. Each session will focus on some sort of training or equipping, but will also incorporate other elements to make them more engaging, fun, relational, and formational.

Today I want to share a few easy ways to make your leader training more than just informational. I am not arguing for the elimination of information and equipping, but instead would argue that we need to make our training more holistic in its approach. We should think about the information but also the relationships, the spiritual formation of our leaders, and the element of fun.

Provide food.

One of the best ways to make leader training inviting, relational, and community-focused is to have food. Food is attractive to people and also helps to break down barriers. There is reason that Jesus taught around a meal or used imagery of food to help people understand what he was talking about. Food just makes gatherings warmer and more inviting.

So have snacks, share a meal, provide coffee and donuts. Be intentional with the food, don’t just throw out leftovers from youth group, but show your leaders you care in a very tangible way. You don’t need to blow your entire budget on the food, but be thoughtful with what you get.

Have fun.

I think fun is drastically underrated when training happens. Often when we are training we focus on information, policies, and making sure everyone is on the same page. Perhaps you have noticed like I have, how those types of meetings cause people’s eyes to glaze over or they start nodding off. But what if you threw in some fun activities as well?

Try incorporating some type of group game like charades or Scattegories. Set up a volleyball net or 9 Square and just play together at different points. Or set up a church-wide scavenger hunt for your leaders with prizes. These moments help take a mundane, typical training and make it more inviting and fun, which encourages your leaders to continue to come and participate.

Incorporate team building.

Team building can get a bad rap at times. I know I have definitely been at trainings, conferences, and gatherings where the team building was actually more traumatizing than informative and unifying. If you have ever done team building with mouse traps, you know what I am talking about. But there are so many more options to make team building actually focused on building a healthy team.

There are classics like the human knot. There are some newer options like doing a Shark Tank-themed game. You could present challenges to the team that they need to accomplish with certain limitations placed on them. There is the activity that has a teammate leading another teammate who has a blindfold on. A quick Google search lists many different options including ones that focus more on unity, ones designed to make you think and problem solve, and even ones that require little preparation and are easy to run. These are all great ideas and can lead to healthy interactions, debriefs, and unification of your team.

Bring in someone new.

Sometimes a change of the speaker or leader helps in great ways. We have a cool opportunity to work with a local school that is focused on providing education free of charge to families in financial need. We have many students from that school attend our program, so we brought someone in from the staff to share about how we can best minister to and care for those students. It was awesome and so much fun, and frankly better than anything I would have said about what we could do.

So who could you bring in? Maybe it is a volunteer to talk about how to lead small groups, perhaps it is a parent or another youth pastor, or maybe you could bring in a school employee or a local counselor. These new faces will allow your leaders to see the benefit of hearing from others and hopefully help them grow and become better leaders.

What sets your trainings apart? How can you encourage your leaders to attend them?