Culture is changed when we create more culture. And for two and a half years, I’ve been working with some amazing friends and colleagues to change culture in a crucial area: the way the North American church does short-term mission trips overseas. The result is our brand new DVD Round Trip, a documentary film-based curriculum for short-term mission teams.

I’m incredibly proud of this project. I don’t think anyone has done this before: document not just an North American team going to Kenya, but a Kenyan short-term team coming to America. We got some of the best thinkers and teachers on the planet to give us deep insights into the best way to build lasting partnerships in short trips: Lisa Espineli Chinn, Tim Dearborn, David Livermore, Oscar Muriu, and Ruth Padilla DeBorst. We worked with two churches, Mavuno Downtown in Narobi and Chapel Hill Bible Church in North Carolina, who have learned deep lessons about partnership in mission, not least because of the leadership of a UNC professor named Jim Thomas who has founded an innovative nonprofit called Africa Rising.

Behind the scenes, I got to work again with Nate Clarke of Fourth Line Films and director of photography Jeffrey Pohorski (who both worked with me on Where Faith and Culture Meet), plus an amazing crew including a great Kenyan cameraman we met named Ken Oloo. And the soundtrack was produced by one of my musical heroes, Charlie Peacock. The Leadership Media Group at Christianity Today International created outstanding leaders’ and participants’ guides for short-term teams to use in the months before, and after, their trip.

If your Christian community is seeking to build deeper international partnerships, if you want short-term trips to be more than just “Christian tourism,” if you are curious about the promise and peril of the short-term trips that millions of Americans take each year—check out Round Trip, and spread the word!

—Andy Crouch