STM Toolbox assists churches, schools and mission agencies in implementing effective short term mission as a part of their strategic kingdom callings.
A Letter from the Executive Director
STM Toolbox began with a simple question: How do you do short term mission? I had a new job at a new ministry, and someone had trusted me far beyond my skill set. I had travelled with numerous short term teams, but I quickly learned that these experiences did not prepare me to administrate a short term mission program. I found some written resources, but mostly I found people who were willing to share their insights with me.
Over time, the question I was asking shifted to How do you do short term missions better? Still later, the question moved to How do we coordinate our efforts in short term mission to maximize kingdom impact?
STM Toolbox will help you answer any of these questions, no matter which one you are asking at the moment. Our mission can be summarized this way: Equipping, Connecting, Serving You in Short Term Mission. Here are the ways we seek to do this.
Equipping means enabling someone to accomplish something. We offer training and resources to help you organize short term mission with excellence. We offer training sessions for multiple audiences, ranging from a creative What is God Doing in the World session to introduce people to God’s global plan to seminars in highly specialized topics such as risk management and contingency planning for short term mission.
Connecting means bringing two parties together. We function as a place where information helpful to short term mission can be accessed and distributed. I have found that most people are willing to share their insights and work quite openly for God’s glory. STM Toolbox provides a forum for these connections outside of conferences and localized networks. I deeply desire that interpersonal collaborations will flow out of the digital connections made through STM Toolbox.
Serving means helping where there is need. We provide the short term mission infrastructure to organizations which do not have it for one reason or another. Perhaps a small church desires to send a team but has only one pastor on staff with multiple responsibilities. Perhaps a school wants to engage their students with an alumnus serving internationally. There are many excellent organizations which help facilitate short term mission, but typically they provide the options for engagement to you. STM Toolbox enables organizations to go where they need to go, yet with full administrative support in regard to the often overwhelming details.
Whether you are a contributor or a recipient at STM Toolbox, it is my passionate desire that the engagement you have will fuel the proclamation of God’s magnificent glory among the nations.
David Bosworth
Executive Director
