Short Term Mission Trips

Motivated by the goodness and love of Jesus, we long to be a missions outpost. Around 24% of current long-term missionaries made the decision to go after participating in a short-term trip. The heartbeat of every global trip is to prayerfully consider how God is calling each disciple to respond long-term, so that the Great Commission is fulfilled and Jesus is glorified among all nations.

Short-term trips create lasting worldview change. When disciples spend a week or more in parts of the world with little or no access to the church or the gospel, it can revolutionize their perspective. Participants often return as global Christians—burdened for the lost and more deeply connected to God’s mission.

Short-term trips also transform how we pray. It can be difficult to pray meaningfully for the global Church when all we have are statistics or a map. But after spending time in Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, or other unreached contexts, your prayers become personal, informed, and fervent.

Global teams can add value and support to the ministry of long-term missionaries. Through evangelism, prayer, and service projects teams help with church planting efforts. Teams can also provide encouragement to endure and renewed energy to sometimes fatigued missionaries.

Greenhouse Church prayerfully and strategically chooses mission trip locations based on a few key priorities:

Long-term partnerships – We only go where we have trusted, vetted, long-term partners on the ground. These relationships ensure our teams can serve effectively and safely. We primarily partner with Live Dead and Assemblies of God World Missions for global trips.

Gospel access – We prioritize areas with little to no access to the gospel. We go to places where there are few or no churches, and where followers of Jesus are rare or nonexistent. We go where there is no gospel message and where Jesus is not yet glorified.

Strategic impact – We look for opportunities where short-term global teams can provide meaningful support through evangelism, prayer, service, and encouragement to long-term workers. We go to places where we can support the single and uniting mission of The Church: to bring glory to the name of Jesus among every tribe, nation and tongue.

Discernment and wisdom – Decisions are made through prayer, research, and conversations with global partners, as well as reviewing safety advisories from the U.S. State Department.

Every trip is designed to align with God’s mission to see Jesus glorified among all nations.

Greenhouse Church values the safety and care of every individual on our global trips. While The Bible makes it clear that we are not to make decisions out of fear, Scripture also calls us to to make decisions rooted in wisdom.

We only send teams to locations where we have long-term, vetted, and trusted partners on the ground who provide real-time safety and security updates. All global team members are required to have liability, medical, and evacuation insurance while abroad. This coverage, through the Assemblies of God World Missions provider, Ace/Chubb, is included in the total trip cost. Greenhouse will not send any team without this additional coverage.

Trip locations are selected after thorough research, prayer, and consultation with in-country mission partners, as well as guidance from the U.S. Department of State and Bureau of Consular Affairs.

All team members will receive detailed information about their trip, including safety and security protocols. Team members are encouraged to have open and healthy conversations with their parents, caregivers, or family as appropriate.

Global Trip Leaders and Greenhouse staff are available to answer questions from team participants directly, but they are not able to speak with parents or family members of participants who are legal adults (18 or older).

Applicants who are 18 or older do not require parental or guardian consent to participate in a global trip. However, we ask that individuals only apply if they are fully committed to attending. If a parent does not support the trip, and the applicant themselves is not unquestionably determined to go, we kindly request that they refrain from submitting an application.

Because spots on trips are limited, we give preference to applicants who call Greenhouse Church their home church and faithfully lead or are part of a microchurch, and serve in the church.

Each Global Trip has its own age requirements. Please see ‘Age Requirements’ for each trip.

Once you are approved for a global trip, your team leader will send you instructions on how to set up your fundraising page where people can donate directly to your trip and you can track donations and donors.

All global trips require passports with expiration dates ending at least six months past the last date of the trip. Applying for or renewing your passport is simple, but it does take time to be processed. Start the process now if you are praying about going on a global trip. You can start the passport application or renewal process online at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports.html/ 

Virtual trips do not require a passport.