If you're a church looking for a good, affordable mission trip for teenagers or college students, I'll give you the short version first: CSM is a great organization to work with, and they've got sites in several U.S. cities (and in Toronto as well), making travel by vans or cars relatively easy.
If you'd like a few more details, here's the longer (but not too long) version: The thing I like most about CSM is their philosophy of ministry and missions: they partner with ministries that are already "on the ground," so you know that you're supporting ministries that have been serving faithfully before you got there, and they'll continue serving faithfully long after you leave. This is no "parachute" in operation where a youth ministry jumps into a situation, feels good about the perceived difference it makes for all of five days, then leaves without affecting any real change. That's a must for me when working with a missions organization, and it's a core part of who they are.
Another thing I really like about CSM is their staff. No matter how large of a group you bring, you'll be divided (by you, of course, not by CSM) into groups of 10-15 students and adults--for us it was 10 people per group. Each group serves together for the whole week, and has one CSM staff member (a "host") who leads the group's week of serving. The amount of organization that goes into planning a week of serving is incredible--not only does each CSM site build relationships with great ministries and organizations, but they have to make sure they schedule everything correctly to make sure the right people show up at the right places. Chad, our junior high pastor, commented that it would have taken us months and hours and hours of work just to schedule where we would serve during the week. The hosts do a great job managing our schedule, letting us know beforehand what each ministry site will be like, and sometimes making last minute modifications when something changes with the ministry site's schedule or needs.
Probably the only downsides to our week was some confusion in the pre-trip planning (mostly regarding the number of vans we needed and how many students we could bring), as well as some issues regarding our group's size. Serving in smaller groups was a HUGE win, but it made it tough to keep connected with leaders who weren't in my particular group (something I share the blame for). It also made for several confusing mornings and evenings, because there were times when our groups were literally going in five different directions, and there was very little time for us to be together as one large group and simply ask, "how's everybody doing?" As a youth pastor, I enjoyed my previous trip with CSM to Chicago more, where we brought six students and three adults.
After processing the trip for the past four weeks, I can safely say that we would use CSM again, and I definitely recommend them to any of my YM colleagues. It's a relatively inexpensive trip for what you get (for 2011, CSM charges $390 for six nights and five days, which includes all meals--check with them for special pricing for college students). Of course, other expenses are involved such as travel as well as parking/tolls when we were in the city.
If you've ever partnered with CSM before, I'd love to hear about your experiences!
