So what is it that sets Mission Adventures apart from those other short-term outreach ministries? Here are three things that make us distinctive:
Customer Service
A big selling point for us is that we offer a customer service oriented short-term mission trip. We go to great lengths to do as much as possible for the youth worker. Our goal is to make the trip easy for them. We want the youth worker to show up with his kids and we will take care of the rest. We focus on taking care of the logistics of the trip so the youth worker doesn’t have to deal with all the little things. The three big things are food, housing and transportation. If we take care of these things, the youth worker can focus on leading the team and caring for the kids. This is a big deal in that most youth workers do not have administrative gifts. They are pastors. They are people-people. They’re not interested in how many hamburgers to cook for 200 people. They are interested in kids. So if we take care of the details, that means they are free to operate in the gifts God has given them. This is an incredibly freeing thing for them. Youth workers have said to us that the Mission Adventures trip is the first time they have ever had when they were free to focus on their kids. Most of the time they have had to run the show. Our advertising slogans emphasize this point: “Maintenance Free Missions” “Full Service Missions” “We’ll do the work so you can do the ministry” “Bring your kids, we’ll take care of the rest.” “Out of this world service, right here on planet earth.”
Training
We’ve found that the Mission Adventures program is unique in its focus on training. Most other short-term mission agencies do not offer live training as part of the mission experience. Many of them don’t offer any sort of training at all. YWAM is gifted in the areas of training and evangelism, so it is natural for us to offer training with all of our trips. Many youth workers have commented to us that the live training is what made them choose Mission Adventures over other programs. We have found that most youth workers do not know where to begin training their kids for outreach. They are very grateful when we offer to do it for them. We’ve also found that many youth workers are unprepared to lead an outreach team. So we train the youth leaders as well.
Growth
Have you ever been on a date where the other person only talks about himself or herself? There’s a temptation in advertising to do the same thing. Some ads just talk about your company or your product. But the customer wants to know what benefits they will receive for choosing your company or product. So far we’ve been talking about how we take care of the youth workers. But the greatest benefit of a short-term outreach is the spiritual growth that happens in the participants’ lives. James 1:22-25 says that when we do what the Word of God says, we will be blessed. We believe that when people make themselves available to God and do evangelism, they will grow spiritually. So we advertise this benefit.
Check out our home page here to see how we’re promoting these selling points right here on the site!