What is the World Race?
The World Race is an 11-month Christian mission trip to 11 different countries around the world, and it’s not your typical missions experience. It’s a way for twentysomethings to abandon a traditional lifestyle in exchange for a paradigm-shifting experience. Through adventure, ministry, community, and self-discovery, World Racers develop broken hearts that propel their hands to move for God’s kingdom around the globe. And the best part of the World Race is it’s merely the beginning of a greater life-long adventure…
Adventure
The is a little bit of adventure every day on the Race. Whether it means finding yourself attached to a bungee cord above a ravine or lost in the streets of Bangkok, each day proves itself unique in bringing you opportunities to make new discoveries.
Ministry
Ministry on the World Race isn’t your typical “mission trip” type of ministry. Of course there are plenty of opportunities to execute your well-polished VBS skills, but you will also get to do things that you’ve never done before. When was the last time that you walked into a bar full of prostitutes or crawled into a box with a leper in India just to have a conversation?
What’s unique about ministry on the World Race is that it actually allows you to get your hands dirty, and you’re not only doing things that you know how to do; you’re learning how to serve in a completely new way.
Community
One of the best parts of the World Race is community-the deep, hard, beautiful kind. Within your squad of 50 or so, you’ll be put on small teams of 5-8 people and spend the 11 months together serving as Christ’s hands and feet. It’s an amazing journey of becoming family; in fighting, laughing, and crying through the issues that arise, you will come out of the process as a much better version of yourself than before. And the best part of it is you walk away with real family.
Self Discovery and Growth
Under the layers of titles, responsibilities, and pressures, most people have no idea who they really are. On the World Race journey, God walks you through these things and brings you to a place of real intimacy and empowerment by the Holy Spirit.
As a World Racer, you will have coaches walking beside throughout the year. They come visit you every few months and bring teaching, encouragement, and counseling. Coaches desire to see a generation rise up and claim its kingdom inheritance. They focus on seeing you become part of the movement and awakened into your destiny.
Many people look at the World Race and get the wrong idea. We believe that it is one of the most powerful missions mobilization tools to come along in years!
Why do people sign up for the World Race?
Everyone wants to find their place in the world. They want to better understand what God is doing in it and how to join Him. And many want to go on a journey and pit their wits against a challenge that asks more of them than they’ve asked of themselves. They are hungry to measure themselves against that challenge.
They have a well of compassion that has barely been tapped. They want to be poured out as they see and touch the world’s needy. They are already on a pilgrimage to understand what God made them for, and they understand that the metaphor of a journey, especially a long one, fits the traveling and searching that they’ve been doing.
They are representative of an entire generation that has a sneaky suspicion that maybe they’re on a path that is too easy. Maybe they’ve been tempted to sell out to a career track and a lifestyle that doesn’t or shouldn’t define them. Maybe the versions of themselves that the world is starting to see is not the best one.
Not just a few wild eyed adventurers are looking at this and thinking, “That’s it, that’s what I need to do!” Thousands resonate with the idea, maybe dismissing it as impractical, but secretly wishing they could say goodbye to society’s expectations for a year and go on a pilgrimage.
Why “The World Race”?
What we’re offering is not just another mission trip. The World Race taps an ancient human compulsion to take a spiritual pilgrimage. Aussies have their walkabout and Muslims have theirHaj. American college students have an abbreviated bacchanal – a week’s trip to Ft. Lauderdale in the spring that barely gives voice to the urge to go somewhere and do something different. A whole new rite of passage is waiting to be born and a million young people are
waiting to respond. They are under-challenged and ultra-coddled. They didn’t sign up for the future they’re being handed.
Once the World Race is broadcast to a broader audience, this generation will respond in numbers that overwhelm us. We owe it to them to gear up and do it right. We owe them not just this experience, but the opportunity it represents to tap their deepest yearning to not sell out, at least not before they’ve given a wild alternative their best shot.
The World Race
A Note from the Executive Director
When I went off to college, I knew that my future lay in overseas work. I was convicted by God’s heart for the poor and oppressed in Isaiah 58 and determined to commit my life to helping them.
During my senior year, the Khmer Rouge was killing nearly two million of their countrymen. The Cambodian people were fleeing to the Thai border by the hundreds of thousands. So, I went to work in a refugee camp.
As shocking as the situation in Thailand was, it inspired me to go deeper in pursuing a life of ministry, which eventually led to the formation of Adventures In Missions many years later. As AIM moves forward into the future, new ministries like the World Race hold particular promise. God’s showing us how to reach our world. There’s a generation of young people who deserve a higher calling than the risk-averse life of compromise that the church has given them.
God has called us to raise up a generation of radically committed
disciples of Jesus. We’re inspired by Jesus’ own example and
seek to follow the methods by which he imparted abundant life
to His disciples. That’s the vision, that’s the mission.
Seth Barnes
Testimonials
I can sum up my World Race experience in one word: Kingdom. Because in that word is the depth of true community, God’s heart for the orphaned, widowed and sex-trafficked, a hope-filled way to engage the world and the fullness of God which is the love of Jesus. And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is nothing else I want to give my life to. Nate Evans, January 2008
For those who may see The World Race as just another missions trip, I would have to disagree. It’s a classroom where the gifts God gives people and the realities of how those gifts were intended to shape and shake the world come together, completely changing a life, spanning the globe through relationship after relationship. Brian Alonzo, July 2008
God has a massive heart to love, forgive, and bring freedom, and he has given me a glimpse of it- I now hurt when someone hurts, I have passion for people in ways I can’t describe these days. I love deeper than ever even though my flesh wants to sometimes reject, but Gods love has completely overtaken me. Robby Riggs, January 2008
Q: What do we actually “do” on the Race?
A: Every day on the World Race will look a little different. Some days will be packed full with construction, VBS, building relationships with orphans, or praying for the sick at a hospital. Some days could be slower where you shop for groceries at the market, cook for your team, and spend time praying for the community you walk through. Every day will be focused on being a part of God’s Kingdom work, in every way that could look!
Why Support Raising?
Support Raising is a part of your journey and is ministry just like feeding orphans, preaching in churches, and visiting hospitals. You need both the financial support and prayer support from family, friends, and church partners and they need you to share the stories of what God is doing all over the world. Your supporters send you out as an ambassador to nations. They send you out with the love and good news of the salvation and hope that is available in Jesus Christ. It’s time we changed our thinking about raising support. It’s no longer about finding and getting the money to pay for your airplane tickets. Support raising is about connecting the entire Body of Christ to minister in every nation. As the one who is going on this trip, you are responsible for proclaiming God’s good works to those who are investing their prayers, time, and money in sending you out. You are building a network of people who are doing ministry with you and Adventures in Missions. We ask people to support us because we want to invite them to be a part of the ministry. Support raising is about the body of Christ joining together to see God’s Kingdom come.
Training Camps
Once you’ve decided to embark on the World Race, you and your teammates will come together for a week of intense preparation for your journey. Throw away your expectations because what you think you may need for a trip of this magnitude is probably not what you will end up experiencing at Training Camp.
This week will be filled with cultural training (how to dress, eat, communicate) and ministry skills training. We’ll ask questions such as:
- What is the Gospel?
- How can relationships open doors to introducing people to Christ?
- How will the Spirit of God lead us to these opportunities?
The first thing we are going to do is shrink your world.
- Who are you?
- Who does God intend you to be?
- How has your journey brought you here?
Next we help grow your world back the right way – by bringing those supporting you into your sphere of relationship.
- Who are you traveling alongside?
- What does God-centered community look like?
- What can your friends and family do to support this endeavor?
Finally, as we look at the final expansion of your world we begin to discuss the Kingdom of God.
The world is so much bigger than we give it credit for. We’ll discuss the underground church, the legitimate travesty that is human trafficking, the AIDS epidemic in the countries of Africa and the desperate need for churches around the world.
This week is not for the faint of heart. Come ready to rough it, get your hands dirty, live in close quarters with people that will soon be considered family and come ready to allow the Spirit of God to move in a new way.
God broke me. It was the most horrifying, yet amazing, thing I have ever experienced. He knew that if I did not allow healing for the pain in my heart now, I would be of no use to him out in the world. I would always have this part of me I could not turn over to him, and he wants all of me. Lindsey McDonald, September 2007
