The Business Side of Mission. Building Soft Skills on Mission

Mission and Business, two things that don't seem to connect and that people would not expect to intersect. What if I told you that going on mission can benefit you and your soft skills relating to business.

When you think of a mission trip what may come to mind is a church youth group building houses for less fortunate people, whether that is stateside or overseas. While this is a type of mission trip and is a good one at that, Mission trips are so much more.

I have had the pleasure of going on two different mission trips in my life so far. I went to Galveston, Texas during the spring break of my sophomore year of college and to North Myrtle Beach the summer before my junior year of college. While these mission trips differed in their overall mission, Galveston being a service-oriented trip and NMB being an evangelistic oriented trip, they had something in common. Over the course of each of the mission trips I learned invaluable skills that would translate to improving on my business soft skills.

When it comes to success in the business world soft skills are often cited as a necessity but are something that many people lack. Soft skills include but are not limited to leadership, communication, teamwork, adaptability, and work ethic. Having and growing in these soft skills and many others are key to bright future in whatever career path you choose. Unfortunately, many people don't get the opportunity to develop them.

One surprising way that you can build these soft skills is through a mission trip. Personally, my two mission trips have been the greatest contributor to the improvement of my soft skills. I saw development specifically in 5 main areas: Leadership, Communication, Adaptability, Work Ethic, and Teamwork

Me and some lifelong friends that I made on my summer mission trip (2023)

Leadership

Throughout both of the mission trips arose opportunities for me to lead people. I got the opportunity specifically in NMB to help lead an outreach team for a whole month. Through leading the outreach team, I got the opportunity to encourage and lead people in our daily evangelistic events. I also had the opportunity to develop, plan, and lead two different large group outreach events during the month. Both of the aforementioned experiences helped build confidence in the areas of mentorship, strategic thinking, and management of people. All of which are key aspects in Leadership.

Communication

Communication is a large daily part of mission trips, especially when it comes to evangelistic mission trips. The whole premise of the NMB mission trip was talking to and listening to random people on a beach. Going up to people every day for multiple hours a day really helped me develop my verbal and nonverbal communication skills. Asking questions to these people and learning about them helped develop my active listening skills, and sharing the Gospel with people help develop my presentation skills

Adaptability

Apart of going up to people to talk to them and ask them questions about life and spirituality is people saying no or not being interested. I'll be honest this happened a lot on my trips, often I would find myself discouraged after each one of the occasions, but regardless I had to keep on going each time, bouncing back and building resilience. Flexibility was also part of being on mission as often times things wouldn't go as planned and the entire team had to pivot in another direction, like the days when it was raining, and we couldn't go sharing on the beach and instead we decided to do online evangelism instead.

Work Ethic

While a mission trip to NMB sounds fun, and while I'm not saying I didn't enjoy a large part of it, it was still hard work and challenged me each and every day. It was tiring and overwhelming at some points There were days that I did not want to go out sharing, but I ended up praying about it, relying on God and got the strength and energy to stay discipled and go out and share. When it came to my service mission trip to Galveston, the workdays were long and tiring. The jobs being done were unpleasant and, in the heat, but none the less they had to get done, which helped me develop my reliability and discipline.

Teamwork

While on mission you are working with a team, I was blessed with two great teams full of amazing people. Going out with a group of people each day to share the Gospel together really helps develop collaboration. We had discipleship and bible study groups where we were expected to keep each other accountable. Not to mention that we also did team building activities like a softball game and multiple separate men's and women's times, where we learned to encourage and build each other up. Despite all of the good there was also bad when it came to relationships and teamwork, which is expected when you are in close quarters with multiple people for an extended period of time. These bad times were an opportunity for us to build up our conflict resolution skills as we couldn't go on successfully in our mission trip without first resolving our conflict.

Going on these two mission trips helped me greatly with developing my soft skills as you can see. During my junior and senior years of colleges and during my summer internship I could see evidence of major growth through presentations, projects, and classes.

If you were like me and are apprehensive about going on mission because you want to gain experience in the workforce instead, trust in God. Go on the mission, there can serve the Lord and also gain that invaluable experience you are looking for, while improving on your soft skills.

God Bless!

Whole Group Photo from My Spring Break Mission Trip (2023)