Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

The past two weekends I’ve volunteered with Hour Children, an organization that works with formerly incarcerated mothers and their children. They teach job skills and provide housing and childcare and help the mothers readjust to life outside prison.

I volunteer with a group from Trinity, on their annual Mission and Service Trip, though the trip is really just a twenty-minute subway ride to Queens. If I still lived at my old apartment in Queens it would be a five-minute walk.

Trinity has organized these trips for three years now. Volunteers offer job skills workshops and work in their thrift shops, where the women work and which helps support the organization. The “trip” takes place over the course of four Fridays and Saturdays in July and August. Volunteers can participate for one day or several. It’s an effective way for the Trinity congregation to connect with Hour Children, and a model of a local mission trip that works well for several reasons.

More people can participate. There’s a lower threshold of time and money. Volunteers don’t have to give up significant vacation time or pay for plane tickets, and they don’t have to commit to a long period of time.

It builds local relationships. A local trip allows the church to build relationships with the organization, which can grow organically. After a couple of summers, Trinity has begun to hold workshops during the spring and some parishioners have developed personal relationships with the women of Hour Children. They have helped connect some of the women with job training opportunities, and a parishioner gathered and donated dresses (and they didn’t have to ship them across the world).

Summer programming. During the summer, when churches often cut back on programming, it’s a way to keep the congregation involved, especially those who aren’t taking long vacations. Some nonprofit organizations may also have fewer volunteers during the summer when their volunteers are on vacation, and may need a little extra help.

It’s a tool for evangelism. Making it local means that your community and city or town can more easily see the church at work in the world. 

Of course, there’s are still reasons to go to South America or Africa on mission trips, as many church’s do, but organizing mission trips into your own city or town can be a way for churches to connect and build relationships within the community, in a way that is relatively inexpensive and easy.