Why should I take this course?

  • Understand Your Own Brokenness

    Recognizing your own brokenness helps break down an us vs. them mentality that can be harmful in your mission efforts of working with the materially poor. Acknowledge the ways in which all broken relationships between God, self, others and creation lead to a marred identity and spirit of poverty.

  • Get a Global Viewpoint

    To be involved in missions work, we must move past a myopic view of God's Church to embrace the global scope of how God is moving in the world. Widening our view recognizing the complexities of understanding and addressing poverty and equips us to respond appropriately.

  • Put Love Into Action

    A desire to love is not always expressed as love. Equip yourself with tools—especially when working with economically poor—so that love can be tangibly experienced by others. These principles will ensure your service with be harmful and not result in unintentional harmful consequences.

Course curriculum

    1. Welcome | Week 5

    2. Download Notes Page

    3. Intro Survey

    4. Meet Your Instructor

    1. Opening Brainstorm

    2. Brainstorm: Part 1

    3. Worksheet Response: Part 1

    4. Brainstorm: Part 2

    5. Worksheet Response: Part 2

    6. What's the difference?

    1. What is Poverty?

    2. Four Broken Relationships

    3. Reflect

    4. Beliefs & Solutions

    5. US vs THEM

    6. Chapter 2 Quiz

    1. Case Studies

    2. Case Study Response

    3. Review and Application

    1. When Helping Hurts

    2. Reflection and Application

    3. Identifying god-complexes

    4. One-For-One Campaign

    5. Viking Missions

    1. Case Study: Hurricane Matthew

    2. Assignment: Design a STM Trip

    3. Haiti Case Study Response

    4. Is this helping or hurting?

    5. Reminder: Why Helping Can Sometimes Hurt

About this course

  • Free
  • 37 lessons
  • Approx 1.5 hours

Course Instructor

Executive Director, Touch The World Jesse Kroeze

My name is Jesse Kroeze and I’m the Executive Director at Touch the World. Short-term mission trips have played an incredibly important role in my life since high school. It was through those trips that I was able to experience God in a tangible way, embrace my faith as my own and then step into my calling to serve in a longer term capacity. For 5 years, I helped lead and work alongside a team of Ugandan, Kenyan and American missionaries serving a rural community in Northern Uganda. Traveling and living abroad has taught me more about myself and about God. With that experience, I now serve on the Board of Standards of Excellence in Short-Term Mission and full-time day-to-day I lead Touch the World, a missions organization that exists to equip youth to live out the mission of God every day, no matter where they are and whatever role God has called them to.

Essential Training for Short-Term Missions

If we fail to learn about poverty before our STM trip, we may unintentionally do more harm than good. Especially if our service takes us to an economically impoverished community, it is essential for us to be equipped with best practices in poverty alleviation work.

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