“This is a tool we plan on using for all our short-term mission trips,” remarked John Richardson, Missions Coordinator for Adventure Christian Church in Roseville, California. “It’s helping us communicate short-term missions and engage more people in the process … I love it!”
I visited Guatemala while working for Medical Ambassadors International (now LifeWind) back in early 2000. While I was in country, there were many images I’ll never forget, but one stands above all the rest. Watching people draw water — drinking water no less — from a black 55 gallon drum … water that was a hue of brown, green and black. It literally made me sick to my stomach.
Fast-forward to 2011 and a God ordained meeting with Bryan Hyzdu (Highs-d0). Bryan met me at a Startbucks to talk MissionMakr as a resource to help him communicate and impact people with short-term mission trips.
Here’s what he said …
The best way to communicate short-term missions in the local church combined with the ability to donate to a mission trip right from within MissionMakr … what do you think of that?
We think that’s pretty cool … a Donation Widget, and it’s right around the corner.
Communication and Donation? All in one place? Yep …
Who doesn’t want their mission dollars to go farther these days? I know I do! Here’s four practical ways you’ll save money when you sign up to use MissionMakr.com.
Let’s keep this simple …
1. Marketing or “Getting the Word Out” Costs – Once you decide you’re going to host a short term mission, the meter starts running, right? Create this, design that, print this and, oh, get ask the website guy or gal to put something up on our website. That all takes times and … money. I mean someone is getting paid by the hour to create all this stuff. But once it’s created, then comes the job of actively getting it out there for people to see, read and respond.
Traditionally, short term missions is just that … short. For all the work you do to plan, prepare, to get people involved and engaged and to raise the prayer and financial support necessary, your mission to (insert your location here), is often here and gone before you know it.
Yet there are so many opportunities along the way to engage people — the very people who ultimately catch a vision for and support missions within your church all year long.
Sitting in a Missions Network meeting recently in Central California, one man (with white hair and some wrinkles which equals wisdom) said, “Short term missions is for the whole church … the whole church benefits when a team heads for the field … but we’ve got to find ways to engage them.”
After a short term mission is over, rare is the church that’s still actively talking about and finding ways to connect people to the summer mission to (where ever you went) 2 weeks — let alone 2 months — after you return.
Everyone is looking for a return on their investment these days, and the church is no exception. When it comes ROI (Return on Investment) — the kind that matters to God — for short term missions, MissionMakr is the communication and impact tool you need to pull it all together from beginning to end (and then some).
When do short term missions have long term impact? When …
(more…)
If your church sent a team to the field in 2011, you’ll find this post a great resource to enhance the way you communicate short-term trips.
Calvary Chapel, Modesto’s, Dave Abbey sat down to give me his take on using MissionMakr.com as their communication and impact tool for their recent short term trip to Austria.
Previous to using MissionMakr, I was invited by Matt Phillips, Missions Pastor, to show them how MissionMakr could enhance the way they communicate and impact people with short-term missions.
“I loved it,” Dave said. “I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars!” Be sure to read to the end, and we’ll tell you how we’re getting the other half a star.
In a nutshell, here’s what earned us our stars …
There’s a saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” Well, I’m happy to report that none of the features and improvements listed below are because MissionMakr has broken. Nope. In fact, I’m encouraged to say that MissionMakr is working just as it was built to work … as a powerful tool to help communicate and create impact for short term mission trips.
Thanks to input provided by our users across the country, we’ve gone back and tweaked a few things that will make the user experience even better.
Here goes!
Approving and dropping multiple users at once.
Now, with the click of your mouse, you can approve or drop MissionMembrs (those going on your trip) and MissionSupportrs (those following your trip) with the click of a mouse.
This is a big time saver! If you have 50 people sign up to follow your trip, you can simply click on the checkmark next to each person’s name and click Save.
Viola’ … all 50 people are approved to follow your trip instantly!
What’s we’re working on: the ability to automatically approve MissionSupportrs after your trip leaves for the field. That way, people who sign up can be automatically approved to follow the trip without delay.
Fact: on average, we have 180 – 220 people following any given trip as MissionSupportrs. That’s 180-220 people that have said, “Hey, I love missions and want to know what’s happening.”
Thanks to my good friend, Rick Lowe, at Wayside Chapel Evangelical Free Church in San Antonio, Texas, we want to make available to those of you who do house building trips a powerful devotional that’s focused on lessons about the home and family during construction.
Special thanks to Rick for allowing me to make it available to others!
Here’s his first of 4 simple, but profound points …
1. Unless the Lord builds the house, those who labor, labor in vain. Psalm 127:1.
a. We talked about who King Solomon was and how God had charged him to build the first temple.
b. Then, we looked at the efforts that so many were giving to make this house a quality work (straight walls, plumb corners, water tight roof, level floor) and how God asks us not just to pay attention to the physical details of the construction, but also the spiritual details of our lives. In particular, the foundation that we build our lives upon. Is it upon God and the work of His Son Jesus, or other things?
c. You can also refer to Jeremiah 22:13 and the spiritual attributes of justice and righteousness that should accompany our lives and interactions with our neighbors.
The devotion has four complete points with Scripture references to both the Old and New Testament. It’s perfect to prepare the head and the heart before the hands get moving!
Thanks again Rick! Download it here
My favorite birthday was when I turned 8. My best friend, Amy, had a relative who had a chimpanzee as a pet. I’m giving away the era (and my age), but it was when kids actually showed up to your birthday party with gifts and not gift cards … and everyone had to wear the pointy hats with the rubberband under your chin. Anyway, as soon as the kids at Carroll Fowler Elementary learned a real chimpanzee was on the guest list … well, let’s just say we ran out of cake.
Not much could beat that birthday, but the fact that MissionMakr celebrates 1 year of being out in the real world helping churches make more out of missions — well that’s pretty exciting.
Hi, I’m Shelly Walker, and I’m just your average church employee and lover of missions. I don’t work for MissionMakr, and I don’t stand to profit by telling you why I think MissionMakr is cool. But I DO think MissionMakr is cool. And I want to tell you why I think it is cooler and more effective for short term mission trips than Facebook.
If you want to keep your family and friends informed and up-to-date with stories, videos, and pictures about what you’re doing while you’re on the mission field, you could use Facebook … it’s the go-to social platform, but let’s look a little closer …
Somewhere between the “Quiz” and Aunt Betty’s cat photos …
Using Facebook, your posts will show up amidst old Aunt Mildred’s latest recipe, cousin Betty’s cat photos, and the results of the “which super-hero” quiz your nephew just took. If your friends and family are Facebook friends with anyone between the ages of 13-19 they may have a really hard time finding anything you post, thanks to Twitter, “check-ins,” Instagram, and any other assortment of applications with strange names.
