Every Nation - Ten Days Missions

Ten Days Missions

Baja, Mexico

Building a church in Baja

Ten Days Mission Experiences Director Gregg Tipton sat down long enough to answer questions about the world missions ministry, Ten Days. We recently caught up with him in between his arriving from Baja, Mexico last June and his leaving for another trip to Baja this August.

1. How did you get saved and how long have you been on the mission field?

I got saved as a senior at the University of Hawaii in February 1987. I started in campus ministry in January 1988 and took my first mission trip the summer of 1995 to Manila to help start a church at the University of the Philippines in Quezon City. I’ve been taking students on short-term mission trips ever since.

Handing out Spanish Purple Books

2. How did your mission trips evolve into what we now know as Ten Days?

It was in 2006 while planning a multifaceted trip to Bogota, Colombia where we began to think about creating mission opportunities for all Christians, not just for the youth or college students. We were a total of eighty-eight participants from eight cities on that trip doing youth outreaches at schools, athletic outreaches, coaches clinics and business professionals outreaches; we had a medical team and a construction team! I was convinced that there was a need for mission opportunities that anyone could join, regardless of their background.

3. Why “ten” days and not “twenty” or “twelve”?

I had just been invited to move to Nashville to help develop short-term mission efforts for the Every Nation North American churches and campuses. I was doing my first 40-day fast and it was on the tenth day that I realized that short-term missions were all about transformations in ten days: ten days to change your life, change your church, and change the world. Short-term missions were always in my heart. I knew it was the greatest tool for discipleship that I had personally encountered and felt that it would be a great way to develop Christ followers.

Ten Days Mission Trip in Baja, Mexico

4. Where has Ten Days been and where else in the world is Ten Days going?

I’ve been on trips to the Philippines, Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, Riga, Latvia, St. Petersburg, Russia, Bogota, Colombia, Cape Town, South Africa, and Baja, Mexico. Under the banner of Ten Days Mission Experiences, we’ve been to Bogota, Cape Town, Baja, and Haiti.

We’re palnning to go to Baja and Monterrey, Mexico, Sudan, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Brazil, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone.

5. How many participants join a mission trip on average?

Bogota had eighty-eight from eight cities, Cape Town, forty-seven from six cities, Baja, 170 from fifteen cities, and Haiti, twenty-five from four cities. That’s a total of 330. They’re from different backgrounds, ranging in ages from ten to fifty-eight year old grandparents.

We work with local churches and ministries at both ends, sending and receiving. We’re excited what Ten Days produces in our participants! They become much more engaged church members!

6. How does Ten Days change a life, change a church and change the world?

The sixteen week Ten Steps preparation and process change the participant from within. This is clearly our number one objective: “Change me as I serve in missions.” As God changes a person who joins Ten Days, the effect of this is that they return home and apply what they’ve learned in a local context — how they see their neighbors and how they become more involved in local church opportunities. The ultimate goal is to produce better Christians which in turn produce stronger churches. A disciple who captures God’s heart for people changes the world!