I Let Myself Be Overburdened by Short Term Mission Teams

I'm solo this week, reflecting on the many short term mission teams we hosted in the first five years of our church plant. While we had fun with all of them, I share how I needlessly let myself be overburdened by them and how I'd better utlize such teams now.

At minute [3:12] I mention the trip I took to Honduras. That was with an organization called Hungry for Life.

At minute [9:32] I talk about taking teams to tour Temple Square.

At minute [25:21] I reference Steve Sjogren's book Community of Kindness.* His other book I couldn't think of in the moment is Conspiracy of Kindness.*

At minute [27:47] I talk about the volunteer rate of Provo. This is an article from 2010 highlighting Utah as the state with the highest volunteer rate and Provo as the mid-size city with the highest volunteer rate. This is a more recent one from 2023.

At minute [34:09] I share a couple books we had mission teams read before visiting, Understanding Your Mormon Neighbor* by Ross Anderson and Mormonism Explained* by Andrew Jackson.

At minute [35:25] I talk about wishing I had better equipped teams with simple Gospel tools. I've made short videos explaining such tools here.

And at minute [46:07] I recommend two more books, The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness* by Timothy Keller and Essentialism* by Greg McKeown.

Send your church planting experiences, stories, anecdotes, and questions to desk@crosspointutah.com. Connect with me further here.

*This is an affiliate link with proceeds going to support our ministry here in Utah.