When the pandemic suspended their short-term mission trips indefinitely, churches responded at home and abroad. Here are three alternatives they’ve discovered.
By Justin Horey
Just weeks into the new year, Riley Weaver sensed that 2020 might be an unprecedented year for his ministry. He didn’t have a premonition about the pandemic—quite the contrary. Early in the year, Weaver thought 2020 could be the first year on record that he didn’t have to cancel, postpone, or reschedule a single short-term mission trip.
It was an exciting thought for Weaver, the global and local impact minister at Plainfield (Indiana) Christian Church. Plainfield had planned to take almost a dozen short-term mission trips to a variety of international destinations this year. But when President Trump declared the COVID-19 pandemic to be a national emergency, the church canceled those plans, including a “vision trip” to India and a trip to Ukraine. In fact, Plainfield Christian canceled all of its short-term mission trips through the summer of 2021.
Weaver hasn’t ruled out all mission-related travel, but Plainfield has no current plans to conduct any group trips.
“I might travel to visit missionaries before the end of the year,” he said, “but that’s a big if.”
Plainfield Christian Church isn’t alone. Churches across the United States have canceled, postponed, or rescheduled untold numbers of traditional short-term mission trips due to COVID-19. While the pandemic put an end to the familiar rhythm of small groups raising financial support and traveling to foreign countries to serve alongside established missionaries for times ranging from a few days to a few months, three alternatives have emerged: local benevolence, deeper involvement and communication with missionaries, and virtual mission trips.
Serving on the Local Mission Field
With short-term mission trips suspended indefinitely, Weaver and the team at Plainfield Christian Church quickly shifted their attention to serving their immediate neighbors who had been affected by the pandemic. The church started a COVID-19 relief fund by encouraging the congregation to give above and beyond normal tithes and offerings. The relief fund quickly raised more than $50,000, which the church put to use helping dozens of local families and small businesses.
Plainfield’s COVID-19 relief program has offered help in both big and small ways. Weaver said the church paid rent for residents unable to meet their monthly obligations, and it also distributed thousands of dollars’ worth of Walmart gift cards for families in need of food, prescriptions, and gasoline. Plainfield even provided a few grants to small businesses in town.
At its peak last spring, PCC’S COVID-19 relief fund was helping 10 to 12 families per week. The church’s program has been so effective that the city of Plainfield asked the church to provide assistance to some residents who had requested support. The number and frequency of the inquiries have slowed, but Weaver expects the church to receive more appeals when local landlords begin attempting to evict delinquent tenants and when utility providers resume the practice of disconnecting customers for unpaid bills.
Building Better Connections with Missionaries
Like many other congregations, Connection Pointe Christian Church of Brownsburg, Indiana, canceled its upcoming short-term trips when the first COVID-19 shutdown orders were issued. Ironically, Teddy Haubner, Connection Pointe’s global impact pastor, reported that communication between Connection Pointe and the church’s global partners improved almost immediately when those trips were abandoned. Once the possibility of international travel was eliminated, Haubner and his team began speaking with the church’s missionaries more often. Haubner is now, for the first time, connecting weekly with all of Connection Pointe’s global partners, and those conversations have become even more significant.
Under normal circumstances, most calls with missionaries are primarily informational—preparing for trips, working out logistics—but Haubner said the lack of travel planning has allowed him to have deeper conversations with the church’s global partners. Because of this improved communication, the Connection Pointe team knows more about their missionaries’ immediate needs, both practically and spiritually.
“We feel more connected than ever to our global partners and missionaries,” Haubner said.
Haubner and the other pastors at Connection Pointe are not the only ones forging deeper connections with the church’s missionaries. Every missionary that Connection Pointe supports is assigned a “care team” of volunteers from within the congregation who assist missionaries with schooling and other practical needs. Those care teams were already in place prior to the pandemic, but Haubner believes they were underutilized prior to 2020.
“We didn’t truly understand how important our care teams were until this happened,” he said. Now Connection Pointe is actively recruiting more people to serve with those teams.
Connection Pointe has not just increased its connections with missionaries and global partners in a relational sense. The church has also increased its giving to missionaries during the pandemic, demonstrating its commitment to supporting missions in any way possible. The church has begun using videoconferencing tools like Zoom or WhatsApp to chat with overseas partners and it has provided cell phones to some missionaries in Africa who didn’t already have them.
“Right now, our missionaries have become more important than ever,” Haubner said.
Conducting Virtual Mission Trips
In addition to serving locally and increasing communication with global partners, Weaver and Haubner have both explored ways to use technology to conduct “virtual mission trips.”
Connection Pointe investigated the possibility of hosting such digital trips so the congregation can see and hear directly from people on the mission field. Haubner is hoping to schedule virtual worship gatherings and virtual prayer nights involving participants from Indiana and partners from overseas.
Earlier this year, in lieu of a previously scheduled trip to Austria, Plainfield Christian Church hosted a Zoom call with church members and the team on the ground overseas. The videoconference allowed Plainfield attendees to “meet” the staff serving in Austria, even though an in-person trip was not possible. Weaver sensed it was mutually beneficial.
“These circumstances actually provide a great opportunity for missionaries to meet with supporters in the U.S.,” he said.
Plainfield also has explored virtual mission trips through Lifeline Christian Mission—an international mission organization that serves communities around the world. Lifeline, which is one of Plainfield’s partner organizations, began developing virtual mission trips in February, just before the first stay-at-home orders were issued.
“God’s timing was certainly in that,” said Keith Dimbath, Lifeline’s vice president of global mobilization.
Lifeline’s first virtual mission trips were developed for Haiti because the organization’s leaders determined it was not safe for short-term mission teams to travel there because of political unrest. Now Lifeline is offering multiple virtual mission trips each month to Haiti and Honduras, with more locations coming soon.
Dimbath said virtual trips appeal to people who have been on short-term trips in the past as well as those who have never participated in one. Supporters who have previously traveled appreciate the opportunity to stay connected to overseas missionaries they care about. First-timers are able to see and hear directly from mission teams overseas through emails, videos, and videoconferences; these serve to introduce many participants to the realities of life on the mission field.
On a seven-day virtual mission trip, participants receive daily emails that include photos, videos, devotions related to the country, prayer requests from the field, and more. Each week also includes at least one videoconference with overseas missionaries, plus Lifeline employees from the United States.
American church members are grateful for the opportunity to participate in these virtual trips, and Dimbath has also received positive feedback from missionaries in the field. “They miss being able to host short-term teams,” he said. “It’s meant a great deal to them to know that people want to stay connected with them.”
Missionaries work alongside Lifeline staff to develop the program for each virtual mission trip.
“They ask themselves: If short-term teams were here in person, what would they like to see?” Dimbath said.
Anyone can sign up to attend one of Lifeline’s virtual trips. Registration is available for groups or individuals. And unlike traditional short-term trips, there is no limit to the number of people who can attend a virtual mission trip in a given week.
Lifeline has been running virtual trips every month since March, and there is no end in sight. Because of the value they offer to Americans and overseas missionaries alike, “I anticipate we’ll continue our virtual mission trips in some fashion even after we’re able to travel again,” Dimbath said.
Benefitting from New Approaches
Despite the positive results churches and missionaries alike are observing from local benevolence, improved communication with missionaries, and virtual mission trips, make no mistake—church leaders are eager to begin taking teams on short-term mission trips again.
“As soon as we can resume short-term mission trips, we will,” said Teddy Haubner of Connection Pointe.
“[But] what will short-term mission trips look like?” asked Riley Weaver of Connection Pointe.
However and whenever that question is answered, churches, missionaries, and international organizations agree that missions work is benefiting in many ways from the creative approaches introduced this year.
“One thing that excites me,” said Weaver, “I think this is a great time for churches and partner ministries overseas to rethink their global missions.”
Justin Horey is a writer, musician, and the founder of Livingstone Marketing. He lives in Southern California.
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