In this Episode:

• Ed’s main responsibility at SEND is missionary recruitment. This means looking for, connecting with and engaging with Canadians interested in exploring God’s call for missions. Ed works with a team of mobilizers across Canada who visit college campuses, connect with pastors and churches, and participate in missions events.
• The number of individuals going on short-term missions every year is growing. Some estimates indicate that as many as 1.5 million individuals from North America go on short term mission trips every year.
• A recent survey from Evangelical Fellowship of Canada revealed that “76% of pastors agree that short-term mission trips are very good vehicles for the discipleship of the local church.” Discipleship of the Goer is one of the most important objectives of mission trips.
• Participating churches would be glad to raise the level of mentoring and discipleship taking place through a short-term mission trip.
• Simplistically Ed would like to raise the level of discipleship through two key elements – reflection and mentorship.
• A good way to enhance reflection is teaching short-term mission Goers to journal – before, during, and after the short-term mission.
• Journaling is an excellent way to record experiences, feelings and lessons during a short-term mission. People generally have a difficult time remembering what they felt or learned after the fact. Without a written record, memories fail and feelings subside.
• As users begin to write their thoughts down, they begin to see the bigger picture of what God is doing. Quite often, this will only emerge later when they reconstruct what happened through their journal. They begin to see the pattern of how God worked through various events and people.
• Mentorship for the Goer is provided by a more mature, experienced and trusted Christian leader or friend. The mentor helps the mentee to process his/her experiences during the mission trip and draw out lessons that the mentee can use to align their lives to God’s will.
• Often the most significant teaching or mentoring moment occurs after the individual Goer comes back from the trip. This is when insights about God, oneself and others are formed and applied. In many missions trips, not much debriefing actually occurs. Strategic teaching moments are missed.
• The purpose of debriefing is to analyze, process and rejoice in what the Lord has taught during a short-term mission and to see what God is doing in the world – specifically in the country and people visited.
• The key question that a returning mission trip goer should be asking is: what is the value of what I have just experienced on the field? Knowing what I know now about God, about myself and about other people, how should the way I lead my life change?
• Debriefing after a short-term mission trip can help formulate the answers to some of these questions and enable the Goer to better understand how God wants them to live their lives going forward.
• GOJOURNAL is a journaling tool for people who go on short-term mission trips. It is available in two formats: an electronic web app, and a paper version.
• GOJOURNAL has templates that include a set of questions that serve as a guide to help stimulate thinking and record experiences, feelings, impressions and lessons throughout the mission trip. There are templates designed for before, during, and after the trip.
• For the “during the trip” stage, each daily template consists of a devotional, and a set of questions to help record the experiences, and a set of questions to provoke thinking on what they are learning about God, themselves, others, and about what God is doing in the world.
• Check out Episode 22: How to Debrief a Short-Term Mission Team with Don Johnson and Episodes 68 to 71 about Standards of Excellence in Short-term Missions.
• The electronic web app is free. Visit gojournal.org for the current pricing of the printed version. Customized print versions can be made for a modest fee, depending on the complexity of customization.
• GOJOURNAL was conceived and developed by SEND Canada, with collaboration of a number of mission agencies including Christar, Ethnos, Team, and OMF. Resources from various sources were compiled, curated, and assembled to be used in the context of a short-term mission. For example, resources from Standards of Excellence in Short-Term Missions and experienced short-term mission experts were used.
• GOJOURNAL can be used by any person going on any mission trip.  
• Visit gojournal.org to learn more, to register for electronic journal, or order paper copies.
• If you have questions email Ed at info@gojournal.org or edv@sendcanada.org