Canceled Mission Trips Expected to Have Long-Term Fallout

Without the typical influx of volunteers, ministries revise their plans and experts fear a COVID-19 kink in the missionary pipeline.

The sudden halt in mission trips has left some volunteers stranded, ministries scrambling for assistance, and missions organizations concerned about the inevitable long-term fallout of coronavirus cancelations.

Each summer, Cru sends up to 1,500 college students on international mission trips and about the same number on domestic ministry assignments. But this year, the COVID-19 global pandemic is changing everything.

Out of more than 100 Cru international mission trips once scheduled for this summer, “not one of them is going to take place,” said Daniel Higgins, associate executive director of Cru Global. Cru has announced it will suspend all international ministry travel through July 31.

In lieu of physical trips, the college-focused evangelism and discipleship organization is working to organize “virtual mission trips,” including virtual prayer walks using Google Maps and sharing the gospel with students at international universities through social media. Though optimistic about the push for online evangelism (one Cru website has recorded up to 2,300 decisions for Christ per day), Higgins acknowledges that volunteers on the ground are “really critical” for Cru’s work.

The story is similar at other mission organizations. Approximately 20 percent of all US-based international mission work each year is done by short-term volunteers, according to an analysis by sociologist of religion Robert Wuthnow. That translates to 1.6 million US church members annually going on international mission trips and doing work valued at $1.1 billion (not counting preparation time and travel days).

Yet that activity has ground to a virtual halt, with the US State Department warning Americans to “avoid …

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