By Shane Bennett<\/p>\n
Here in my corner of the world, spring is gloriously breaking out all over the place. With it comes the proliferation of three things:<\/p>\n
The number of requests you receive may correlate closely to how much money you have given in response to past requests. So, if you\u2019re complaining about the stack of letters on your kitchen counter, realize it\u2019s like a war veteran whining about the weight of the medals on his dress uniform. You did this to yourself. But now, what to do about it?<\/p>\n
What if this year we all made a concerted effort to really help the short-termers who reach out to us? The Great Commandment (love God, love people) may apply even more than the Great Commission.<\/p>\n
Here are five ways you might show love to mission trippers.<\/p>\n
This is why you read Missions Catalyst, right? For surprising, unforeseen insights such as \u201cgive money to someone who\u2019s raising support to go on a short-term mission trip.\u201d Of course this is a way to love them!<\/p>\n
But seriously, there\u2019s only so much of this kind of love to go around, right? How do you choose how much and to whom? Consider these options. You\u2019re smart; pick the criteria that seem best to you.<\/p>\n
God alone knows how large a donation has to be before it outweighs heartfelt prayer, but I suspect it\u2019s more money than I\u2019ll see in my lifetime. You know prayer matters! You also know it\u2019s easy to check the prayer box to say you\u2019ll pray, and then forget. (Unless that\u2019s just me?)<\/p>\n
Make your prayer commitment meaningful by asking for regular prayer requests. Maybe daily ones for a trip that\u2019s two weeks or less, weekly for a longer experience. With a little thought, most can come up with such a list prior to departure.<\/p>\n
Some good buds recently participated in a huge, multi-day prayer gathering for unreached peoples and sent out this crazy great prayer guide<\/a> in advance. Check it out. It might serve as an inspiration for you or someone you\u2019re helping to go.<\/p>\n You could also show love by writing your prayers in a text or email or calling them and praying live. What about taking their prayer requests to an ongoing group you are part of?<\/p>\n I know, I know, you\u2019re thinking, \u201cWhat advice do I have about missions?\u201d Or maybe, on the contrary, you don\u2019t want to break your new year\u2019s resolution to stop telling other people how to live their lives (again!) But you probably do have some words of wisdom. And can I tell you something? If you deliver them right, they will even bless your friend.<\/p>\n Your advice may be as simple as, \u201cRead this article, Nine Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Mission Trip<\/a>. You\u2019ll benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n You can also think for a moment of a key way God challenged you during a short-term trip and share that, or even a way the Lord has spoken to you in a sermon or your devotions recently.<\/p>\n You may want to provide a word of warning or counsel. You know: don\u2019t fall in love with your team leader or local translator. Do consult with your team leader before going off with a friend or starting a multi-day fast. Give ongoing attention to how God is using your experience to transform you. Drink more water if your pee gets dark and smelly.<\/p>\n Over the course of my career I\u2019ve gone from frantically throwing tokens in a Turkish pay phone for a once-a-summer, 90-second call, to now enjoying leisurely, multi-participant video chats at will! Technology allows for\u2014to the point of almost demanding\u2014instant global contact. This does cause some problems (\u201cStop chatting with your girlfriend back home and pay attention to this local person we flew across the ocean to hang out with!!\u201d)<\/p>\n While keeping that in mind, consider reaching out and communicating with the person you helped send. A ping or two over the course of a week-long trip or weekly for a summer-length project wouldn\u2019t be intrusive but could be super encouraging.<\/p>\n Simply let them know you\u2019re thinking of them. Use the communique to tell them how you\u2019re praying. Pat them on their virtual back and say, \u201cYou\u2019re doing good, kid!\u201d<\/p>\n Finally, one of the best ways you can show love is to follow up with the short-termer after they get back. I\u2019m thinking a coffee-centric event in which two things happen:<\/p>\n Here are four easy-to-remember, worthwhile-to-answer, debrief questions:<\/p>\n Ask those questions and the follow-up ones that emerge from their answers and your short-term bud will feel the love.<\/p>\n Ministry people debate the value of short-term missions ad nauseam. You could probably argue both sides of the debate intelligently. But maybe, like me, you feel it\u2019s often a waste of time. The goofballs are going to go! And some of them are not even goofballs. God will delight to use them. And they\u2019re going to ask us to help them succeed.<\/p>\n This summer, let\u2019s go above and beyond. Perhaps we\u2019ll be honored to play a small part in a mighty kingdom harvest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Shane Bennett Here in my corner of the world, spring is gloriously breaking out all over the place. With it comes the proliferation of three things: New life, thanks be to God. Allergies, thanks to the Fall. Short-term mission-trip funding requests, thanks to the upwards of two million short-term-mission participants sent out each year … Continue reading Five Ways to Love Those Short-Term Mission Goofballs<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":8475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-practical-mobilization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8476,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8474\/revisions\/8476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}3. Give them advice.<\/h3>\n
4. Give them a shout.<\/h3>\n
5. Give them follow up.<\/h3>\n
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Conclusion<\/h3>\n