About Us
In the year 2000, Dr. John Farquhar Plake (MI's founder), began working with short-term mission teams, helping them perform better and achieve more in foreign cultural contexts. At the time, most missionaries and even missionary educators believed that short-term mission teams really couldn't learn enough about culture to make pre-field training worth the effort. Consequently, short-term mission training was brief, boring, and unhelpful. Some STM teams did a great job, and others were spectacular failures. Most were just...average.
Through a great partnership with Assemblies of God World Missions, John created the Destination...Asia Pacific video series, which provided over five hours of pre-field training for Christian mission teams traveling to the 32 nations of the Asia Pacific region. Additional training materials are available for other nations and regions of the world. In fact, wherever your team might be traveling for the purpose of Christian mission, we can help you understand the culture, connect with the people, and tailor your message so it is understandable and meaningful in the host culture.
More recently, through a partnership with Renovo, Mission Insights has developed the University Spiritual Life Survey, which helps campus ministers and institutional researchers understand how their students develop spiritually while attending their university. Based on a mammoth, multi-year, nationwide study of churchgoing adults (n > 425,000), the University Spiritual Life Survey highlights students' Spiritual Beliefs, Spiritual Practices, Spiritual Values, and Faith in Action. Through advanced analytics, the University SLS report helps administrators understand which of their ministry programs are most (and least) beneficial to students overall Spiritual Vitality. This survey has been used by over 10,000 unique students at more than a dozen universities. New institutions are adopting the University SLS each year. It's a very exciting tool!
Finally, Mission Insights works with non-profit organizations to design and deploy custom research. Let's face it, when you're busy doing the work, it can be difficult to take the time to properly assess the work. Still, assessment is invaluable for focusing and refining our efforts in order to accomplish our missions. Assessment requires a special set of skills and tools. We can help.
In short, Mission Insights is about making you better at what you do. We have years of experience and some of the best tools available anywhere. Give us a call. We'd love to help you accomplish your mission!