AFTER Spring Break Ministry Teams

One of the best feelings in the world is being on the last leg home with a Spring Break Ministry Team.  I can remember getting on flights to Memphis when returning from foreign trips.  Immediately, I would exhale and my body would begin to relax.  We had made it. Everyone was safe and we had had some experiences God had used.

Then, it was Monday after Spring Break.  College Ministers are tired and can see the end of the semester and summer just over the horizon. Many are beginning new leadership teams and the excitement that goes with that, but also the hustle and work of trying to make sure "the trains run on time" in the on-going of the ministry.

In all of this, it is easy to forget about Spring Break.  But, I believe one of the values of doing Spring Break Ministry Teams is what it does in the lives of the students who go.  But, they also come back to getting serious about finishing a semester and finalizing or starting plans for summer.

Here's the deal.  We need to help them process their experience.
1.  What did they see and learn about a new culture or just how church is done differently somewhere else?
2.  What did they do they never thought they could do (Maybe eat something and keep it down...maybe share Christ one on one for the first time....maybe sing or speak in a worship event....put shingles on a roof???
3.  Is there something they did on Spring Break for the first time that they could be doing where they are now...on campus...regularly?
4.  Did it affect their feeling in anyway about God's call in their life?  Will they be a different kind of teacher now?  Or, is God possibly using this experience to lead them to some sort of full time ministry?

Don't go through all the pain, work, preparation, sleeping on a gym floor, or in a shack in a foreign country with students and then not process the experience.  That is a BIG part of why you did it in the first place.

I have gotten off a plane with a lot of students saying, "You know I could be a foreign missionary."  Maybe meeting with each student who went on teams is impossible, but maybe you could have a "After Spring Break Get Together" and share thoughts, feelings, experiences.  You never know what you might hear, learn, or see a next step you need to take with some students.