Coming home is bitter-sweet.

Returning home from a short-term mission or spiritual retreat can be difficult. On the one hand, you have this odd desire to keep travelling, embracing the nomadic servant leadership lifestyle as a permanent gig. On the other hand, you crave the comforts and security that come with getting home to family and friends.

This is amplified when you travel and serve as part of a team. While on the trip, you share in an incredible discipleship experience and find true community through acts of outreach and evangelism. You never expect to be challenged and changed as much as you are once you step off the bus or plane on that first day.

Strong unity is established.

Throughout the trip, the team becomes more like brothers and sisters, than peers or friends. It is so hard to give that up when the trip is over. I can’t help but wonder how the disciples felt. Did the disciples get homesick? Or were they too excited about the calling and adventure that Jesus had set before them?

It certainly wasn’t the safe decision to follow this Rabbi that would be their Messiah. As they travelled, living the disciple-life, did they get a few months into the discipleship and consider the fact that they may not ever get home again? Did their team become family? What did that look like or feel like, following Christ from town to town, serving and leading people to faith?

What if we didn’t have an end date?

Almost every ministry trip or retreat has a set schedule. There’s a date on which the experience will conclude and everyone will be returning home. What would happen if we didn’t know when we would return? This was the disciples’ experience; they had no promises of when or even if they’d see their homes again.

Perhaps this was the key to Jesus’ call to the disciples; the unknown! The fisherman story is the best from my perspective. These guys simply dropped their nets and followed Christ. They gave up their entire trade and livelihood to embrace discipleship. Their call was simply to follow and embrace the mission that Jesus was calling them to.

Think about it; that’s crazy!

I would like to say that I could do that, but I doubt it. Realistically, I have to be honest and realize that I often want to control my environment. I crave the securities of schedules and agendas to depend on. Knowing when I get off the bus and when I get back on. Leaning on the assurance of going home.

Now that I’ve written that bit of honesty, God may challenge it. Maybe one day, our family will be on a mission trip somewhere and God will call us to stay. Maybe Jesus will call us to not get back on the bus.

Join the Conversation, Share Your Thoughts

• Have you ever been on a short-term mission?
• How did that experience impact your life and ministry?
• Did you ever consider not getting back on the bus?