How can you prepare for a short-term missions trip? What are the hazards to avoid and the opportunities to embrace? Veteran trip leaders Mack and Leeann Stiles offer practical advice, hard-won lessons, and hilarious stories to help you know what to expect as you get ready to see God in action in new ways.

Going on a short-term missions trip can be a life-transforming experience, but it can also involve weeks of physical and spiritual challenges. In this revised and expanded ten-week course, you will find a concise summary of crosscultural principles, help in facing spiritual warfare, tips on avoiding a tourist mentality, spiritual preparation through individual or group Bible study, and discussion and reflection questions.

With careful biblical exposition and keen cross-cultural awareness, Duane Elmer offers principles and guidance for avoiding misunderstandings and building relationships in ways that honor people in other cultures.

The gospel really is the best news anyone will ever receive. So why do Christians shy away from talking about Jesus outside of church? And, when they do speak of Jesus, why do they often get a disinterested or scornful reponse? Mack Stiles offers a wealth of answers, ideas and stories in this heads-up, hands-on evangelism handbook. His creative strategies for reaching an ethnically, culturally, economically, educationally, geographically and ideologically diverse world with the best news ever are drawn directly from his own work as an evangelist in today's student world. In Speaking of Jesus he shows readers how to keep their eyes open for "divine appointments," how to approach others with a servant spirit, how to cross relational barriers, how to simply tell one's own story of faith, and how to answer questions with honesty and confidence. Speaking of Jesus may well be an Out of the Saltshaker for the 1990s and beyond. With contagious enthusiasm, Stiles stresses that evangelism isn't about exhibiting superhuman courage or perfecting specialized techniques or exercising extraordinary gifts. Instead, he shows that people of faith can use everyday situations and everyday language to pass on the simple--and simply wonderful--news about Jesus.

Short-term missions expert J. Mack Stiles believes we can't separate who we are and how we live from what we say as we interact with people about the good news of Jesus. We need to live out the reconciling forgiveness of God as opposed to loving in the world's way. And when we leave things out of the gospel, not only is the message distorted but so are we as messengers. In this book Stiles shows us an integrated approach to knowing the gospel, living the gospel and speaking the gospel makes us whole, healthy evangelists.

Every local church should be engaged with global missions, even if most individuals in the church aren't called to go overseas. But what does this engagement actually look like? How can local churches train, send, and support missionaries well? Unpacking principles from the Bible and applying them in the context of real life in a local church, this new book in the 9Marks: Building Healthy Churches series is filled with practical steps and advice for supporting missionaries, forming international partnerships, sending short-term teams, and engaging with the nations here at home. This book casts a vision for the local church as the engine of world missions—for the joy of all people and the glory of God.

Revised and updated in 2017. How to Plan, Prepare and Successfully Complete Your Short-Term Mission (STM) will guide you through all you need to know about your STM. The author has been on more than thirty mission trips and has experience: as a team member, a leader and as a host. He has participated in the most incredible mission adventures, sharing the Word in Sudan, preaching in villages in India, supplying Bibles in North Africa, assisting the persecuted Church in Asia, and maintaining mission centres in Europe. The book Includes: • What to buy, take with you and leave behind • Who to go with, where to go and when to depart • To join a mission organisation or plan your own STM • The duration, destination and timing of your mission trip • Types of STMs – evangelistic, preaching or humanitarian • Medical issues, your passport, visa and travelling with money • Emotional and spiritual work before, during and on your return • Understanding culture, language and giving your testimony • How to get the money to go and setting a realistic budget • Food, drink, accommodation and working with the locals • Team dynamics, etiquette, leadership and the team • Security, wisdom and safety – being streetwise • Having a safe and successful STM Mathew Backholer is the co-founder of ByFaith Media (www.ByFaith.co.uk) and films and presents the reality mission series ByFaith TV which airs globally on numerous Christian networks. He has travelled to forty nations of the world and is the author of many books, including: Short-Term Missions: A Christian Guide, Extreme Faith: On Fire Christianity, Revival Fires and Awakenings and Global Revival: Worldwide Outpourings.

Hostility and hunger that's the response to the message of Jesus. The first is painful, the second is wonderful, and Rico Tice is honest about both. Short, clear, realistic and humorous, this book will challenge you to be honest in your conversations about Jesus, help you to know how to talk about him, and thrill you that God can and will use ordinary people to change eternal destinies.

Some of us fear moments when we need to defend our theology. Some of us seek them out. But we are seldom ready the way Jesus seemed to be ready. So how do we draw others to God in the midst of these ordinary conversations the way Jesus did? In Speaking of Jesus, Carl Medearis draws on his experience of international reconciliation between Muslims and Christians to remind us of the heart of the matter: Jesus. Here he gives us tools, stories, and the foundation we need to move beyond “us” and “them” and simply talk about the One who changes it all. As Carl writes, “While others are explaining and defending various isms and ologies we’re simply pointing people to our friend. The one who uncovers and disarms. Who leads people right to himself. The beginning and the end of the story. A good story indeed.”

Effective Engagement in Short-term Missions represents the single most ambitious effort to date to understand and improve upon patterns of ministry in STM. In six sections, the authors explore topics such as the links between STM and older patterns of long-term missions; engagement with people of other cultures; international partnerships; specialized ministries such as medical missions; legal and financial liabilities; and last but not least, the impact of STM on participants. The goal of this book is to improve the ways in which STM is carried out and to improve the understandings needed on the part of all who engage in the ministry. In short, this book attempts to provide a knowledge base for those who provide leadership within the short term missions movement. Youth pastors, mission pastors, lay leaders, college and seminary students, and missiologists will all find information that is helpful and relevant to their concerns.