Life Changing Mission Trips edited by Patric Knaak

No Matter How Short, Your Next
Mission Trip Will Be Life-Changing

New devotional helps teams get the most
out of their trip and live on mission upon return

Anyone who has ever gone on a mission trip knows that the experience gives participants a unique opportunity to see and experience God differently than they do at home. While most people who take short-term mission trips describe them as life-changing, the truth is that after they return home, not a lot changes in how they live day-to-day, and the memories start to fade. However, Life-Changing Mission: Devotions for Your Short-Term Trip​(New Growth Press), a new resource from Serge, helps short-term mission teams get the most out of their trip, record their experience, and live on mission once they get back home. 

 Written by men and women who serve as missionaries and edited by Patric Knaak, Deputy Director of Mission at Serge, Life-Changing Mission offers ten impactful devotions from Acts for short-term mission teams that will help them prepare spiritually for their trip, stay connected to Jesus while they serve, and continue to expand God’s kingdom when they return home. All of the devotions focus on how the Holy Spirit works to motivate, sustain, and equip us. The expansion of God’s kingdom is recorded in Acts, but it continues today, and we are meant to be part of it. The same Good News about Jesus that we are bringing to the nations, is the same Good News that we ourselves need—even as believers—in order to love others.

 Knaak shares, “Mission trips play a significant role in the life of the church and individual believers. So many times people take a trip and experience God in unique ways, but then return home and forget about those experiences.  Serge believes that the gospel is the power and motive for mission so we want to help people be deeply transformed by God’s grace while they are on their trip, so that when they return home they continue to live on mission in their everyday life.”

 The devotions in Life-Changing Mission will help readers connect what they are doing each day to God’s big kingdom and see how God is using them, just as he did the early Christians, to bring hope and healing to the world. Each devotion emphasizes the power of God to use weak and needy people to bring the gospel to a broken world. The book also includes a pre-trip exercise and space for journaling about the unique memories, people, and experiences encountered along the way. There are also three debriefing sections for after the return home that give participants an opportunity to process all they saw and learned.

 “Even though the events of the book of Acts have ended, its story has not. The story of the expansion of God’s kingdom continues today. And you and I are part of it, every bit as much as Paul and Barnabas were,” Knaak, who is also the author of On Mission,​writes. “Life-Changing Mission was written to help you connect deeply with your heavenly Father as you join his ‘family business’ of seeing his kingdom expand. God is at work using weak and broken people to bring the message of his good news to those who do not yet know him.