About Experience Mission
Who is Experience Mission?
Who is Experience Mission?
Experience Mission (EM) is an interdenominational Christian nonprofit that has provided service-learning group mission trips, IMMERSION and Gap Year programs, and disaster relief & recovery opportunities since 2003. More than 40,000 volunteers have served alongside EM's local partners in communities across the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
Mission & Vision
Mission & Vision
EM exists to create service-learning mission trips and extended cross-cultural programs that help people serve alongside local communities, learn to love God through loving their neighbors well, and grow in faith through a posture of humility, dignity, and relationship.
What We Do
What We Do
EM coordinates 4 kinds of service-learning missions programs, each built around local partnership:
1
Group Mission Trips
6-10 day trips for youth groups, churches, schools, families, and adult groups of 6 or more volunteers.
2
IMMERSION
1 to 9 month cross-cultural programs for young adults who want to serve, learn, and grow in community.
3
Gap Year Programs
6 or 9 month programs for young adults that combine service, discipleship, and cross-cultural learning.
4
Disaster Relief & Recovery
Volunteer teams supporting the long work of rebuilding after disasters, guided by local recovery leaders.
Where Does EM Serve?
EM serves in partner communities across the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia. In each community, EM works alongside local churches, ministries, and leaders with a passion to reach out and love their neighbors.
Explore All Mission Trip Communities
Our Approach to Service
Our Approach to Service
We desire to participate in God’s shalom that brings wholeness, reconciliation, and justice. That will not come from what we do so much as how we do it.
We desire to participate in God’s shalom that brings wholeness, reconciliation, and justice. That will not come from what we do so much as how we do it.
7 Healthy Service Principles
EM's missions approach rests on 7 principles based on the example of Jesus that shape how volunteers prepare and enter a community to serve:
We release the desire to make this experience about ourselves.
We choose to approach each opportunity for service and community involvement with open hands, letting go of our expectations (both intentional and unintentional) about what we think will happen. This includes everything from our desire to accomplish big things to our hope for how each personal interaction will play out. This is an act of humility that removes ourselves from the center of the story and allows our eyes to be open to all the unexpected ways God will move in and around us.
We remember we are visitors and guests, not consumers and tourists.
When we travel anywhere to serve others, we enter an established community of people as visitors and, hopefully, as welcome guests. As respectful guests, we choose to intentionally assimilate into a community's overall function, pace of life, orientation to time, and way of doing things, rather than expecting the community to bend to what makes us comfortable. We show up eager to listen and learn from hosts, partner ministries, and local community members instead of asserting our own agenda or insisting on being the loudest in the room. This will come with a level of discomfort that we are willing to embrace. We see the difference in cultures as beautiful. Though something may be different, it is no less valuable. We will honor it, learn from it, and value the incredible God-breathed diversity of our world.
We view this experience as a privilege, not a purchase.
It is from a position of privilege that we are able to travel and serve in someone else's community. We choose not to view this experience as transactional—to be consumed or checked off of our bucket list—but instead as an opportunity to learn, serve and grow while giving our time, attention, and resources to the work and ministry of local community partners and Experience Mission.
We prioritize people over projects.
People are the most important part of every service experience. We will remind ourselves that every person we encounter is our equal, living a life as complex as our own, with hopes, dreams, giftings, mistakes, ambitions, sorrows, value, worth, and dignity. We will take time to be thoughtful about those we are serving and acknowledge our propensity to push people aside in order to be problem solvers. We will be curious and ask questions when we don't understand and resist the urge to make a judgment and forge ahead on our own. Genuine human interaction will be our priority over the completion of a project or the expression of our ideas.
We trust God is already present.
We acknowledge we do not "bring God" anywhere. We come with open hearts, to see, experience, and participate in the beautiful ways God is and has always been present. We remember that many communities have experienced historical trauma caused by Christian missionaries in the past. Because of this, we engage expressions of faith different from our own with respect and wonder, as opposed to judgment and correction. We tread sensitively when sharing our personal views about expressions of faith and theology (or our opinions about social issues and life in general), trusting that God is working in ways we may not always see clearly or understand.
We resist the temptation to tell simple stories.
As humans, we all have struggles. Some struggles are more visible than others—like poverty, lack of education, substance abuse, or living without a home—while others are hidden inside our hearts—like pride, greed, prejudice, apathy, or self-centeredness. By being transparent with the struggles present in all of us, we acknowledge no one is "better" or "worse," but rather on an equal footing with each other. We all fall short of the life we were intended to live. Understanding our common human struggles allows us to learn and grow together, making space for God to bring hope and change in our lives through our honest interaction with one another.
We recognize and honor the image of God in everyone we meet.
We cherish the richness and diversity present in all of humanity, each of us bearing the "Imago Dei" (image of God) given to us by our creator. This compels us to see all people as God does—with compassion, empathy, and love—and makes it impossible to write people off, look the other way, or ignore injustice present in their lives. We let the truth of God's love for all people in all places work in our hearts and cause us to seriously consider what it looks like to bring the Kingdom of God from heaven to earth.
EM's Healthy Service Training, available to all volunteers who sign up for an EM trip, prepares participants to come as guests, ready to listen and learn as much as they serve.
Who We Are
Experience Mission was founded by Chris and Kristy Clum in 2003. The idea took shape when Chris led volunteer teams serving Kosovar refugees in 1999 and realized the families they met valued their presence as much as the supplies they brought. EM grew from that conviction: people always come first.
What makes Experience Mission a Trustworthy Mission Trip Organization?
EM has operated as a Christian 501(c)(3) nonprofit since 2003, led by its co-founders and a small team of dedicated staff. Over this time, more than 40,000 volunteers have served with EM alongside long-term local ministry partners. Review these pages to learn more:
- Commitment to Healthy Service - Based on EM's Healthy Service Principles
- EM Trustpilot Reviews - 4.7 out of 5 TrustScore from more than 180 reviews
- Health & Safety Plan - Field staff training, emergency response, and team requirements
- Background Checks Policy - Requirements for participants 18 and older
- Registration and Payment Policy - How registration, deposits, and payments work
- Statement of Faith - What we hold in common with Christians across denominations
- Reviews & Accountability - What past volunteers say about EM
Explore mission trip resources and stories from across the U.S. and around the world.
Common Questions About EM
Is Experience Mission a nonprofit?
Yes. Experience Mission Inc. is a U.S.-based, 501(c)(3) Christian nonprofit organization founded in 2003.
Where is Experience Mission located?
EM's administrative office is in Port Hadlock, Washington. EM's service-learning mission trips and longer-term programs connect volunteers to local partner ministries in communities all across the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia.
Who can serve with EM?
EM's week-long group mission trips welcome youth groups, churches, schools, families, and adults of all ages in groups of 6 people or more. IMMERSION and Christian Gap Year programs are created for young adults, age 18-30, to join a team of peers for 1-9 months. Explore upcoming trips for specific age ranges accepted for each program.
More questions about partnering on mission trips with EM?
Check out the full FAQ page!
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