If you are ready to give up your small ambitions to explore God's will for your life, a short-term mission trip may open a world of opportunities. But its important that you go with a ministry that has a record of creating positive experiences. Perhaps that will be your local church, or it may be another entity.

Most short-term mission experiences provide a specific type of ministry, such as medical or other humanitarian work, children's ministry, construction or evangelism. Make sure you understand what type of ministry you will be doing and that it matches your interests and giftedness.

Your answers to the following questions will enable you to make a good choice and to communicate your expectations to the mission organizers.

1| Why do you want to go on a short-term mission trip?

Perhaps you just want to do something to help the poor or underprivileged. Or you may want to share the message of hope with those who do not know Christ. You may even feel God is leading you to be a career missionary but would like to use a short-term experience to see if this is really something you feel God is calling you to do. Exploring your expectations will help you choose the most appropriate short-term experience.

2| What type of evangelistic experience do you want?

If you decide to be a member of a cross-cultural evangelistic mission, understand the limitations of your efforts. Short-termers working cross-culturally without foreign language abilities probably will not personally experience many people becoming Christians. But their impact may still play an important role in a process that brings those individuals to accept Christ's lordship over their lives.