Making Travel Transformative
by Alan Howell
Director of Church Relations
Missions is certainly more than a trip. But the truth is that formative cross-cultural experiences often involve some type of travel.
Whether you’re going on a short-term mission trip, an international program for university students, a type of tourism that gets you out of your comfort zone, or if you’re a long-term kingdom worker, being in a new place can shake things up in powerful ways. Travel can change how we see our old patterns of doing things, and it can offer new scripts for living differently when we return home.
Unfortunately, though, travel alone does not guarantee transformation. We probably all know people who possess passports full of stamps, can tell entertaining stories, and have social media accounts overflowing with pictures, but who still live in ways that are self-centered and small.
So, how can we make the most of our international experiences?
What can make our travel truly transformational?
Let’s consider two shifts that can deepen the kingdom impact of travel both in us and through us going forward.
Shift #1 - From “Worldview Expansion” to “‘World Building’ Expressions”
Travel has the power to expand our worldview awareness by exposing us to new cultures, histories, beliefs, and ways of living. It helps us recognize that our assumptions are often shaped by our own experiences rather than being universally true. This kind of learning really matters as it cultivates humility, curiosity, and empathy. But by itself it can remain self-focused:
I become more informed.
I gain new experiences.
I broaden my perspective.
While this worldview expansion is certainly valuable, the deepest purpose of travel is not simply to enlarge our understanding of the world, but to allow God to reshape us for the sake of the world.
For followers of Jesus, the goal of any travel experience should be to move beyond merely increasing our worldview awareness towards ‘world building’—actively participating in God's work of New Creation by joining in the restoration of relationships, communities, and creation itself. World building is the intentional practice of contributing to the kind of world God desires, where justice, reconciliation, hospitality, and hope take root.
As members of the Kingdom of God, we do not travel merely to collect experiences but to become people who carry God's renewing presence wherever we go. The transformation that begins within us (sometimes cracked open through cross-cultural experiences) is meant to overflow into the lives of others, so that every encounter becomes an opportunity to bless, serve, learn, and help cultivate communities that more fully reflect God's coming kingdom.
One free resource that can be useful in this shift from seeing travel as mere worldview expansion to developing a world building posture is the Jesus Moves Inventory & Development Plan. It only takes a few minutes to complete and provides you with personalized results as well as a link to a workbook to help with putting the principles and insights you discover into practice.
Shift #2 - From “Back to Normal” to “Breaking in a New Normal”
Often, as soon as you get home, there is pressure to get unpacked, recover from jet lag, and get back to normal. Suitcases go back in closets and back under beds, and potential learning is put aside and often lost. Those people who leverage travel in transformative ways, though, are intentional about it because that type of learning and growth won’t happen by accident.
How could you make time to process and debrief after your trip? Making time to journal personally about your experiences is important. And creating opportunities to process stories with others where emotions and reactions (even strong or embarrassing ones) can be extremely helpful in doing the work that needs to be done to help you grow. It is good to remember that it may take multiple conversations over time to unpack what you’ve seen and heard. “Meaning making” isn’t simple and it doesn’t happen overnight. So please give yourself and others grace and space to “break in a new normal” instead of rushing back to your old one.
Here are some useful debriefing questions to help you and others process your travel experiences:
What are 2-3 “snapshots” or memories from the trip that stand out as significant?
What are some ways that this trip stretched you? Or how did you see God at work in ways that surprised you?
What are some “seeds” from this experience that you want to give room to grow in your life now that you are home?
What are some next steps for continuing to develop and grow into the kind of person you want to be or the type of community you want to be a part of? What are some lingering questions that you want to keep giving space for?
For Churches – How could this experience shape who we are as a church?
Leaning into these two shifts is an important way to be intentional about making travel experiences transformational.
For more on how MRN can help you and your church prepare for an upcoming trip, check out our free online short-term missions training course or for more on best practices before, during, and after your time serving cross-culturally, reach out to Alan Howell at alan.howell@mrnet.org.