Typical Day – Serve At Home Trips
This schedule is an example of what you might expect on a Serve At Home YouthWorks trip. Because every community is different, the schedule may vary at some sites and on certain days.
Pre-Trip Resources
We’ll provide you with:
- Five sessions of specialized content to prepare your students for your Serve At Home service experience
- Access to all of our traditional YW mission trip resources
- Leader guide, including trip processing questions, group outlines, evening activity planning guides and post-trip ideas.
Monday through Thursday
Adult Leader Meeting
Each day, Adult Leaders will attend this meeting with the YouthWorks Staff. This time allows the staff to hear how things are going and communicate what happens next. It’s also a great time of processing and sharing. (These meetings may be held in the afternoon, depending on your group’s preference).
Morning Programming
Every morning, students will have time to connect with God and process the week. YouthWorks staff will start this time together through the use of video programming and staff stories. Each student will receive a YouthWorks Trip Journal, a resource that will connect students with Jesus and their experience during the week; it does this by using the YouthWorks Serve At Home theme. To help leaders further process devotion material and for leaders who want to lead small group devotions, we’ve provided a Small Group Devotion Guide.
Following the devotional time, YouthWorks staff will provide learning activities and give orientations for service sites, helping students and adults better understand how they will be serving the community each day.
Service Day
After orientations, crews of youth and leaders will depart for ministry sites. (These crews, selected by Trip Leaders, will be together all week at service.) Lunch is around noon at service sites, and leaders can use this time to ask optional processing questions.
Afternoon Processing Time
The staff will host a large group time of processing the day, using large and small group discussions and activities to connect the service experience with God and with life beyond the trip. After the large group time, groups will get together to process their day and discuss the day’s theme. YouthWorks considers this the most important programmatic aspect of the day. We will provide groups with a Church Group Time Guide, which contains questions and ideas to help leaders facilitate this time. Groups have the option to extend the afternoon processing time to fit their needs.
Optional Group-Led Activities
Groups have the option to plan and lead their own afternoon and evening activities that will help students interact with the community (and each other) through cultural, educational, recreational and fun activities. While our staff will not be leading this time, YouthWorks will provide resources for planning and leading these optional events.