A New Mission Trip from Resonate
Resonate Global Mission, the mission agency of the Christian Reformed Church in North America, has a new type of mission trip designed to equip churches and other groups to live missionally in their own context after returning home.
It’s called a Witness Trip, a short-term mission trip that sends small groups to a country or context different from their own to visit with Resonate missionaries and ministry partners, local churches, and other ministries.
“Witness Trips are designed to help you listen, learn, and reflect on your own life in a way that will change the way you practice mission in your own setting,” said Amy Schenkel, who leads Resonate’s Congregational Gospel Witness initiative for equipping believers to share the gospel locally.
“In some mission trips,” she added, “people go to try to fix something in the place where they visit. With Witness Trips, we first and foremost are going to learn from people who are experienced with putting mission into practice, and the goal is to bring change back into the participant's home setting.”
Witness Trips are recommended for any group—whether it’s a church group, youth group, or other ministry group—who want to live into God’s call to live and share the gospel in their own community.
Resonate’s Volunteer Ministries Team works with groups to help customize the destination and itinerary to fit each group’s needs, interests, passions, and skills. It’s possible that groups could visit any number of Resonate’s missionaries, church planters, campus ministries, and other ministry leaders—the mission agency supports more than 140 missionaries in more than 40 countries throughout the world as well as more than 60 church plants and more than 30 campus ministries in Canada and the United States.
“Witness Trips are a great way for church groups to visit and learn more about the missionaries and ministries they support, whether they support them directly with offerings or through their ministry shares,” said Gillian Bruce, Resonate’s Volunteer Ministries Program manager.
Resonate has piloted Witness Trips in destinations like the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, and Montréal, Québec. Groups have participated in walking tours and prayer walks through cities and have visited local schools, churches, and ministries to learn about anything from ministry with refugees to discipling children.
Rickiel Franklin, a Ph.D. student at Iowa State University, was part of a group of university students who visited El Slavador. “I was really curious to see how the people there express their faith,” he said. “It’s a totally different environment. They have a lot to teach us about how to live out the gospel and share Christ’s love.”
Throughout the trip, each group works through a guide adapted from Resonate’s Witness: Equipped to Share the Good News curriculum. Groups start and end each day together by praying, reading Scripture, exploring questions about mission, and reflecting on their experiences. Upon returning from the trip, Resonate connects each group with a coach to help them lead their congregation through the Witness curriculum and equip them for mission in their local context.
“There is nothing like seeing God at work in another context! It inspires, it encourages, it lifts you up. At the same time, being in a culturally different context grows your own knowledge of who God is and how God works,” explained Bruce.
Learn more about Witness Trips at resonateglobalmission.org/witnesstrip.
