Mission Trip Recap

A week after our trip returned I see a different group of kids at our church. They are overjoyed to be part of life here at St. Paul. Students who were friends are bringing parents to worship, there are rows of students sitting together each week, there are group leaders getting mobbed after church with hugs, and oh the facebook chatter that I see! It's amazing what God has done with our group.

Because of this blog, I've been reflecting about what made this trip so special and impactful. In my history of youth trips, this wasn't the most spiritual, it didn't have the best service components, it wasn't the best destination, but it was transformational for our group and one of my favorite trips for sure! Here are some of my conclusions, specifically, 7 things that we did to make this trip such a success:

1. Student Recruitment. I would call this, the importance of invitation. Many of our students said during the week they didn't want to come on this trip initially, or even the days leading up to the trip. In reality, if I had given them an option to back out just before the trip, more than half of them probably would've backed out. There were so many students on this trip because they each received a personal invitation from me, and at one point or another were convinced to say yes. For some students it was the lure of 6 flags, others it was a week away from their house, or a week of doing service project to complete service hours for school, and for others, it was simply because we had a relationships that they said yes. I know that regardless of the why, powerful things happen when you give God your time. The yes you say to the group (or to Andy) becomes a yes to God's work, a yes to a deeper relationship with God, and a yes to our next event Bible study or small group. This year all those yeses will be a powerful influence as students expand their service to our community and congregation.

2. Family and work groups. The most common question in any youth event is "who is coming?" Unfortunately that question determines the attitude coming into a trip and often makes the decision about attending the trip in general. to complicate this issue, "who will I be with" becomes a second question asked by students once on the trip. They want the security of their friends throughout the trip. Caving into their wants though can really spoil the trip, so for our trip we created two types of small groups. One called the family group, a comfortable group for the students where they and their friends were paired with a leader who would look out for them, share experiences, and become their go-to leader when problems happen. The second group we created was the working crew. This was more of a challenge group that served all week together and purposely mixed ages, genders, schools and abilities. The work crew allowed the evening family groups to share a wide range of experiences during evening check-in times, and prevented students from seeing friends too much. I often see friendships develop in the most unusual circumstances in the work groups and consequently see those friendships integrate new people into the group very quickly.

3. Bus Ride Games. The bus ride was incredible for students. I've taken a lot of trips with minivans adn 15 passengers, but the bus is the best! The microphone allowed me to lead the group in games, reflections, ice breakers, and crystal clear instructions. For our first bus ride, not a single person knew everyone's name on the bus, which is both scary and a little intimidating for our students, but we started by sitting in our family groups, which meant sitting with people we knew well, in our comfort zone. And after about 2 hours, we stopped for a short break and randomized the seating. I had students line up alphabetically by first name, another time it was by birthdate, another time it was with someone you don't know. We used the bus to deepen our friendships and break the ice. Each time we sat down with new people we shared names and a whole slew of ice breaker questions with the microphone. At one point I passed the mic around and let the kids ask would you rather questions from a book, another time we shared jokes. We also played games like telestrations, shared a tackle box filled with friendship bracelet string, and played two truths and a lie. We used the bus to develop relationships that really affected the way that our group got to know each other and process the trip.

4. The Thank You Circle. On Wednesday night I introduced a group process time called the thank you circle. In lieu of a normal family time, our group sat in a circle (all 49 of us) and spent an hour telling each other what we meant to each other, thanking individuals for the ways they reached out to us, and loving each other through our words. It might seem that Wednesday is too early to do something so emotionally charged, but for this group, it was time. the emotions were bubbling already and I was truthfully worried that our Thursday night would be too much if we didn't diffuse a little of the emotion. It worked so well. The thank you circle allowed our kids to process the trip and their relationships, so that Thursday's work day and evening foot washing was much more spiritually focused. It was awesome!

5. Hug Circle.The hug circle was new to me but it's a camp shalom tradition and it was so beautiful that we'll do it forever. We got into a giant circle and beginning with one person they started walking around circle giving hugs to each person. As soon as they hugged someone, that person to join them creating kind of a chain of hugs. This allowed each person to speak words to each other, thank you's, inside jokes, and good byes. Especially on Thursday night, after such an emotional ride with the foot washing, this was the conclusion that we needed to solidify our emotions and prepare for our journey home.

6. The last reflection. On the way home we processed on the bus right and that made big difference for the group, but what really helped us reflect on the trip was when we stopped at a park and spent about 90 minutes remembering each day. I had ordered pizza and we just sat around picnic tables in a large group to remember every single day. I began each day by giving a few highlights about what we did as a group and what might jog different memories, and then the kids shared with the large group what they remembered. Their stories reminded others of stories, it was a beautiful mixture of laughter, tears, and emotion. The words they used to share memories stick in my head and I'm sure crystallized their memory of the trip better as well.

7. Story Sharing. The final conclusion to our trip was a time of story sharing. As soon as we got home, we unloaded the bus and walked into the sanctuary to share raw stories with parents, family, and congregation members. They weren't necessarily the most spiritual, or be most eloquently packaged, but it went well. It gave parents some talking points with their kids, it showed the congregation how much energy and life we had during the week, and I think most of all, it started the very important step towards sharing this incredible God-adventure with the normal life. Two days later we met at church at 11:00 for worship and all together we stood up and acknowledge their mission trip with a few stories shared. It was a great conclusion to a great trip.

My final reflection about the trip, something I don't want to forget... One of my students that I worked with all week said something to me on Thursday night that I'll never forget and will be words I speak to other leaders when I remind them about the holy call to youth ministry. After sharing with her how grateful I was to have worked with her all week and that I had chosen her to be my work crew because I just really enjoy being around her, I told her that she was one of my favorite students. She responded by saying that I treat everyone like they're my favorite and that it must be hard, but she really appreciates it.  And she was right. I want every student in my group, every person that walks through the door, to feel like they are my favorite student/person. It is hard, there are a lot of hard-to-love people but I think that's one element of my ministry that makes me a good youth minister, it's deeply embedded in my personal theology. I think everyone deserves to feel like they are a favorite, I think it's how God wants us to feel because it empowers us to be more confident, generous, and joyful.