Each October I attend an annual conference sponsored by the Fellowship of Short-Term Mission Leaders. We bring together leaders connected to this movement that has become known as short-term mission (STM) to learn, dream, and improve what has grown into a millions-of-people, billion-dollar-a-year enterprise.

We have people directing ministries, practitioners, senior and mission pastors, authors, team leaders, host receivers, and service providers. The only folks typically missing are youth pastors.

That’s right. The leaders responsible for sending a great percentage of our short-term people around the globe are not just underrepresented. They are not represented at all. There was not one youth pastor in attendance at this year’s conference.

Where are the youth leaders?

If you are like me, wonder why not one person responsible for leading and inspiring students felt it was worth their time to receive four days of training to be better international short-term missionaries.

So I started asking questions. At first, I didn’t get a lot of answers. Most people seemed to say that youth pastors are a busy group. Or the cost (about $1000.00 once you add travel, lodging, and meals) was too much. Some said that as a group, the people we charge with providing religious leadership for our students are just bad planners, or averse to commitment.

Then I asked my friend Don Johnson who serves with SEND International, a mission agency that sends short-term participants around the globe in support of their long term missionaries. He said his ministry was asking the same question. So they did some research using focus groups.

They brought in youth pastors from big and small churches, urban and suburban, rich and poor. They asked questions, trying to find out what their ministry could do to serve the youth pastors of America regarding short-term mission.

After a day of questions, conversations, and evaluation, Don, and his ministry got their results. The answers may surprise and upset you. Youth pastors:

- believe they are suffiently trained to do short-term mission.

- do not want to participate in specialized training

- believe that those who invest their lives in short-term mission have little to teach them

I don’t know about you, but I find this troubling. I spent the better part of my conference talking to other leaders trying to disprove these results. Surely, I thought, these leaders had come across youth pastors who were seeking out training and leadership in this crucial area of their ministry.

Nope. Those who regularly encounter youth pastors reported that they saw a need for cultural training, developing cross cultural ministry partnerships, or effective debriefing of their short-term mission experiences.

This means that the people sending more American Christians abroad than any other group believe they are adequately trained and in no need of additional insight from some of the top short-term ministry minds in the country. Is it any wonder people are questioning the effectiveness, and indeed, the very idea of short-term missions?

I decided I needed to get on the phone. I wanted to be fair to my ministry brethren, as I too started in professional ministry as a youth pastor. In fact my first short-term mission experience was as a young, untrained youth pastor.

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Short-Term Mission Leader: This specific guide is designed to help you provide orientation and basic training to someone leading a short-term missions team.

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