Why Family Mission Trips

This post is written by Kara Powell and Brad Griffin from Fuller Youth Institute.

Both of us have a spouse and three kids. We also both believe in serving others in the name of Jesus, inside and outside the church. This value works its way through our marriages and parenting, but we’ve noticed something striking.

When our families of five serve, we usually serve in separate rooms or on separate trips.
We’ve also both led a lot of youth ministry service trips, so believe us when we say there’s a lot of value in 16-year-olds side-by-side hammering nails or teaching the Bible to children.

While those are valid and important ways to impact others, a unique strength emerges when family members serve as a team. Research has found that families who serve together grow in a host of other ways in their faith, too. As one mom told us in an interview for our recent project,
The Sticky Faith Guide for Your Family, “While I wish this wasn’t the case, when I talk with my boys about how I hope they are willing to serve the Lord, they sometimes roll their eyes. When we actually serve the Lord together as a family, they never roll their eyes.”

We have seen this in our own families, too. Serving together sparks all kinds of great conversations that may never have emerged otherwise. For example, serving recently in an outreach sponsored by my (Brad’s) church to local immigrant families helped open our kids’ eyes not only to the needs around them, but also to their own privilege and access to resources they take for granted. Being there as a parent to be part of those experiences and insights (that frankly I’ve often had with other people’s kids as a leader when they weren’t around) was priceless.

That’s why we are so excited to partner with YouthWorks again to support Sticky Faith Family Mission Trips next summer. These folks have made it easy for regular families to work a 2- or 3-day trip into their summer to serve side-by-side with one another in the name of Jesus. And as leaders, we’re impressed with how easy they’ve made it for congregations to register groups of families to share in the Family Trip experience together. Several of the congregations we’ve worked closely with have been so pleased that they hope the Family Trip becomes a summer ritual for parent small groups and parents in their children’s and youth ministries.

We’ve partnered with YouthWorks to create materials to help families prepare for, journey through and debrief on the other side of their trip. Drawing from the research behind Sticky Faith, these resources will support parents who will be navigating their kids’ first service encounters as well as those who are more seasoned in shared work.

Our research and our own family experiences tell us that an investment in family-based service will yield returns far beyond the time parents and kids spend together on a Family Trip.

To learn more about Sticky Faith Family Mission Trips click here.

 

To learn more about Sticky Faith click here.

 

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Kara Powell is the Executive Director of Fuller Youth Institute and a faculty member at Fuller Theological Seminary. Named by Christianity Today as one of “50 Women to Watch”, Kara serves as an Advisor to Youth Specialties and also speaks regularly at parenting and leadership conferences.  Kara is the author or co-author of a number of books including The Sticky Faith Guide for Your Family, Sticky Faith Curriculum, Can I Ask That?, Deep Justice Journeys, Essential Leadership, Deep Justice in a Broken World, Deep Ministry in a Shallow World, and the Good Sex Youth Ministry Curriculum.  

 

 

Brad Griffin serves as the Associate Director for the Fuller Youth Institute (FYI). Brad coordinates FYI’s research efforts, leads workshops, develops resources, manages FYI’s online presence, consults with youth workers, and manages the private foundation grants of FYI. He has co-authored Sticky Faith (youth leader edition and student curriculum, 2011-2012),Deep Justice Journeys (2009), and has authored or co-authored articles for the FYI E-Journal, Immerse Journal and YouthWorker Journal, as well as chapters in Middle School Ministry (2009), Deep Ministry in a Shallow World (2006) and Halos and Avatars (2010).