Purpose Unpacked: We see Jesus’ Great Commission passage (Matthew 28:19-20) more like Jesus’ Everyday Commission for every Christian.

●All Christians should be witnesses. Some are called to be missionaries to foreign people groups.

●Sending teens on mission trips is a part of our student ministry “make disciples” strategy.

●The main outcome of discipleship is spiritual growth and helping teens catch the vision to be disciple makers.

Matthew 28:19-20 (NIV) “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” 

Acts 1:8 describes how Jesus says our missionary efforts starts where we are and extends to the uttermost part of the earth.

●Our family, neighborhood, school, and City is our Jerusalem.

●We see in-country ministry as our Judea.

●We see out-of country teen mission trips as our Samaria.

●Our “utter most part of the earth” we see as un-reached people groups which are usually in the 10/40 window (google it for more)

Acts 1:8 (NIV) “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Strategy: We design mission trips at different discipleship levels. Then we place students on trips with individual and group discipleship goals in mind.

As a general rule, we place younger students at their discipleship level and older students at their level.

Older students and/or more missions experienced students may be directed toward more advanced trips and have greater leadership responsibilities during the trip.

Here is an example of how we see different discipleship trip levels:
● Cherokee – Entry level trip focused on whole family participation especially for but not limited to elementary and junior high age.

● Lummi – Intermediate level in-country trip for students going into 9^th grade and older. This is a semi cross-cultural trip to a non-Christian community.

● Ecuador – Intermediate level out-of-country trip for upperclassmen students. We’ll also take underclassmen who have prior mission trip experience.  This is a cross-cultural trip to semi-Christian community.

● In the future we hope to have an entry level advanced trip to Guatemala. Students going on one of the above trips as apprentice leaders would be more of an entry level advanced trip.

● An intermediate advanced trip for students would be going into the 10/40 window on a family based trip or as college age student usually on a young adult trip to the 10/40 window.