Short Term Mission Training

Short-term outreach is an important part of reaching out in His name. MAT wants to encourage as many people as possible to take advantage of short-term opportunities. MAT recognizes, however, that short-term teams can never substitute for those who will go to live long term in a culture, incarnating the gospel of Christ (John 1:14).

The value of Short-Term Ministries:

  • Short-term opportunities can provide valuable experience for those considering longer-term involvement.
  • God can use short-term workers to introduce people in other parts of the world to Christ.
  • Short-termers can sometimes take greater risks in evangelism than longer-term workers.
  • Short-term experiences can have a major impact in the lives of those who go when they are able to work with and learn from veteran workers and national leaders.
  • When short-term teams return home, they bring valuable cross-cultural experiences and new enthusiasm for global outreach to SWHBC. This helps keep global outreach at the forefront of our purpose as a church.
  • Short-term teams provide opportunities for our people to develop faith and confidence in God as they learn to minister through the enabling power of the Holy Spirit.

Priorities for Short-Term Teams:

  • Our Global outreach leaders are constantly looking for new individuals to recruit for a short-term mission outreach experience.
  • Training that the key goal of a Short-Term Teams is to bring glory to God by making disciples of Jesus Christ both locally and around the world.
  • Have adequate provision for follow-up on the field after our short-term workers have returned home. Providing debriefing opportunities for individuals to share successes and struggles they encountered on the Short-Term mission outreach.
  • Provide short-term workers with the greatest amount of hands-on ministry in cross-cultural situations.
  • Provide the greatest exposure, and potentially most effective ministries, for the lowest financial cost.

Short-Term Team Qualifications - Candidates for our teams generally should: 

  1. Be at least 16 years of age and have parental approval, if living at home.
  2. Be an active participant in church life for at least a year. ( It’s best if those going on short-term teams have had prior experience with our local outreach teams for evangelism training etc.)
  3. Have a demonstrated interest in evangelism and discipleship
  4. Show strong evidence of a consistent Christian walk.  
  5. Be a couple years removed from any traumatic events and certain addictions in your life.
  6. Fill out on-line STM applications form and schedule a meeting for MAT evaluation and approval.

Short -term mission outreach guidelines for raising support:

The following information is a suggested method to raise your support for a short term mission outreach.
1. Pray that God will provide you names of individuals to contact for the financial support needed, and other methods to raise support.
2. Write down the names of the individuals to contact on a “contact list”. Note: You should try to develop this list with the majority of contacts being individuals outside the church you attend. (The church already asks those who attend to give to the overall missions budget. If all of the short term participants begin to solicit these same church members, it can be overwhelming and counterproductive for the missions efforts of the church). An exception to this would be family members, close friends and members of your small group. Some suggested contacts for missions support include grand parents, siblings, uncles and aunts, cousins, close family friends and neighbors, members of your small group at church/Sunday school class, sports coach, music teacher, dentist, doctor, family attorney or accountant, employer, mentors, and store manager of businesses your family purchase from frequently.
3. Write down the other ideas that come to mind to raise support besides support through support letters. Others have used fund raisers to include pop can recycling drive, yard sale, sell discount coupon books, car wash, work for donation, bake sale, flower sale, gift wrap for pay, pizza sale, cook and host a meal for donations, and Athlet-A-Thon events. You can come up with other ideas as you pray for guidance.
4. Commit to paying a portion of the trip out of your own finances, 15 – 20 %.
5. Draft a letter to send out to the individuals on your list.

Download the document here.