New Resource on DYM: What Happened? What's Next?

As mentioned in a previous post, I have some resources that are going up on Download Youth Ministry, a site dedicated to provided resources to Youth Workers at an affordable price.  My first non-game went up on the site today.  What Happens?  What's Next? is a missions trip debrief packet.  I am incredibly proud of this resource due to the major role it has played in my ministry context.  We place a high value on debriefing the short term missions experience.  On more than one occasion, I have had students come to me and say thank you for walking through our debrief experience.  The reality is that a lot of youth groups do short term missions very poorly and it results in more harm than good on the place visited and the students visiting.  We have learned a lot of key elements to ensuring this does not happen through our IMPACT experiences.
 What Happened? What's Next? has been our key tool in making sure the short term missions experience is more than a moment for the student participating.  Here's the opening statement from the packet:

 It’s likely going to happen within an hour of your return home. Someone who knows you’ve been gone is going to approach you and say, “So, tell me about your trip.” 

What do you say, where do you begin, how do you explain everything that you have seen/heard/experienced, and how do you even know what or how much info the person is looking for? 

Because of these questions, you might be tempted to go with a response like these… 

RESPONSE 1 – “It was good/great/awesome/life-changing (or some other adjective).” 
RESPONSE 2 – “I can’t even explain it. You just had to be there.” 

Response 1 gives no justice to our experience. Response 2 is almost insulting to the person who is inquiring about your trip. So, where do you begin? How could you respond? What if you could find a way to sum up your experience in one simple but descriptive sentence? 

In the following pages, you are going to recount your experiences and eventually narrow them down to one clear, concise sentence that describes your experience. More importantly, in the process you are going to be able to see the major themes, lessons and experiences God has allowed you through this trip. 

To get there, let me ask you to do a few things… 

1. Give this your best focus and effort. This whole packet is going to help you take what God has done on this trip and see how you are going to take it home. 
2. Don’t jump ahead. You may be tempted to just jump to the top 3 and sentence. If you do, you will likely miss out on some lessons God taught you that you didn’t even realize. 
3. Take your time. We have given you plenty of time to work through this. 
4. If you get stuck, talk to a leader. We want you to make this your personal exercise, so allow your other teammates to work through their debrief materials. 

So, here we go. Let’s take time to see “What Happened” and what God has taught us! 

Check out the resource here.  Check out my other resources on the site here.