Short Term Trip Philosophy

At The Austin Stone, we are convinced that every person has a role to play in what God is doing to redeem a people for Himself. As a church, our passion is for all people to know, love, and obey the true and living God. And as people redeemed by Christ Jesus, we are invited, by God, to be participants in the Spirit-empowered work of seeing people transformed from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light as the gospel is proclaimed throughout all of the earth. We proclaim Christ and his resurrection to our families, church, and city. And because God is worthy of all glory—and he will be glorified by people gathered around his throne from every corner of the earth—we take the glorious truth of the gospel and we proclaim it to the nations.

Our mission statement is to love God, love the church, love the city, and love the nations. In other words, the people of The Austin Stone are united in a shared effort to see God glorified in all of the earth. To that end, all partners (members) of our church are encouraged to go on a short-term trip at least once with The Austin Stone. These trips are designed to be opportunities to serve alongside local long-term missionaries (ministry partners) and church planters in urban and remote communities of the world who do not have abundant access to the gospel. Trips are generally seven to ten days in the winter and summer months to regions like Europe, the Caribbean, the Middle East, South Asia, and more.

We leverage the time and money necessary to go to the ends of the earth, believing that short-term trips can and will have long and lasting effects for seeing the Kingdom of God advance on the earth. The following article has been written in order to outline a few of The Austin Stone’s operating philosophies for short-term mission trips.

Long-Term Impact

Short-Term Trips are, by definition, short. Nevertheless, our goal is always aimed at long-term kingdom impact. Quantifying long-term impact is an imperfect science. For that reason, the leaders of The Austin Stone are strategic about the location and timing of every trip we arrange. And because long-term kingdom impact is the goal of Short-Term Trips, alignment with local missionaries and churches becomes an essential part of where and why we go.

Long-term missionaries are resource-limited with respect to time, personnel, and capacity. But like a shot of adrenaline, short-term trips can advance the efforts of a long-term team in a short, but effective, amount of time. Sometimes this looks like going to a place praying for God to move in extraordinary ways. Sometimes this looks like going out and meeting new people, sharing the gospel, and connecting them with the long-term team or church. Other times this simply means going for encouragement and prayer, remembering that long-term missionary work is often a taxing and wearisome task.

Spiritual Formation Opportunity

We evaluate long-term impact, not only as it relates to alignment with local churches and church planters, but also in regards to the people we send. A Short-Term Trip is a unique opportunity for people to grow to know, love, and obey God more through the spiritual disciplines that are taught and modeled during the life-cycle of the trip. In a short amount of time, people get to participate in the disciplines of prayer, service, fellowship, and evangelism. Furthermore, a person’s character is often tested as they face unfamiliar—often uncomfortable—situations such as support raising, international travel, and close and constant proximity to other people. Therefore, The Austin Stone views Short-Term Trips as an excellent opportunity for the spiritual formation of all who participate. 

Servants, Listeners, and Learners

Participants are expected to posture themselves as servants, listeners, and learners. This is in accordance with the Apostle Paul’s instruction that we ought to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”[1] Regardless of someone’s spiritual gifts, training, or past experience, all participants are expected to display meekness. This means taking on a disposition for listening and learning from the trip leaders as well as the local church or ministry team.

Strategic Risk

One of the reasons there are over 6,000 unreached people groups is because many of them are located in areas of the world that are politically and culturally hostile to the gospel of Jesus Christ. For that reason, Short-Term Trips are conducted in a shrewd manner, evaluated on strategic risk. We do not shy away from potential persecution for the sake of Christ’s name. However, we take significantly less risk for Short-Term Trips than we would with our long-term goers. For instance, it is more likely that a Short-Term Trip would go to a Syrian refugee camp in Germany than go to Syria during a time of war and political unrest.

Conclusion

Since we began participating in short-term trips, our international partners and receiving teams have reported about the incredible impact a small group of short-term missionaries can have when they are armed with the Holy Spirit and aimed at seeing the gospel proclaimed. We have seen God empower the work of short-term trips to reach the lost, connect people with long-term partners, and call even more workers to long-term ministry among the unreached. In this, we come to see that a Short-Term Trip has the potential to become a seminal catalytic moment, producing ripple effects that persist long after the trip is over.