Youth Ministry, Discipleship and Short-Term Missions

I write a little about short-term missions over at another blog called "notes from dave." Last month I posted on the lack of training many youth pastors, and by extension, youth ministry participants receive prior to participating in short-term mission work. You can read that post here. As a result of that post, I have been asked to expand my thoughts and submit an article to a major U.S. Christian magazine. It will be published, I hope, in January, so I am now in the process of some final research. One of the people I have asked for input is Seth Barnes of Adventures in Missions. Seth has been involved in short-term mission at many levels in his more than 20 years AIM. Here is what Seth had to say. And yes, I am the unnamed guy who is "going to write an article." I got an email from a guy who is going to write an article about how training for short-term missions is inadequate. I replied,"The problem is not that youth leaders don't have access to training, but that they don't value it, have time for it, or have pastoral support for it." He wrote back: "How do we break the cycle as it applies to youth ministry?" Well, that question opens a can of worms. To see into his can of worms, click here. And then let me know what you think.