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What is a Christian Gap Year?

You’re at a pivotal point in your journey. As you graduate from high school and make significant decisions for the rest of your life, you want to discover who God created you to be and how that should impact your choices. You’re not alone.

That’s why we created World Race: Gap Year, a life-changing Christian gap year program.

A Christian gap year is an opportunity to intentionally discover more of God, yourself, and your calling. World Race: Gap Year is a 9-month Christian gap year program of Adventures in Missions that allows you to serve missionary bases and ministry partners in 3 different countries. But it’s much more than that!

Serving Others on the World Race

1. A Christian Gap Year is serving others and making a difference.

With the Great Commission, Jesus called each of us as believers to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:18). People are waiting for someone to show up in their lives and display the love of Jesus.

The World Race: Gap Year is a Christian gap year program designed to give recent high school graduates the opportunity to fulfill the Great Commission. Along with serving others on your gap year, you will train in effective cross-cultural missions and learn to live on mission even after the gap year mission trip is over. You will see lives transformed with the love of Jesus and the hope of the Gospel as you serve others.

2. A Christian Gap Year is experiencing community the way it was meant to be.

Being the church is more than just a Sunday morning thing. On a Christian gap year, you will learn how to come together with other believers and be the church the way it was meant to be. You’ll spend your time on the World Race: Gap Year living like Jesus did with the disciples. You will live, work, eat, pray, and grow together on a daily basis. You will experience what it means to be part of something bigger than yourself. And you will become a family that uses your gifts and talents to serve each other and spread His love everywhere you go.

On the World Race: Gap Year, you’ll worship together, push each other toward Christ, and walk together as you grow. The community built through a unique experience like a Christian gap year is more than you’ve ever imagined!

3. A Christian Gap Year is growing in your relationship with God.

Our lives can often become so full that it’s hard to hear God’s voice or to prioritize relationship with Him on a daily basis. A Christian gap year provides an opportunity to step away from it all and go deep with Him. On the World Race: Gap Year, you will discover more of who God is and experience His love and power on a deeper level than ever before.

World Race Grow With God

You will learn how to hear God’s voice as you study scripture, experience how He’s moving in the world, and spend time listening to Him. As you grow in your understanding of who God is, you’ll also discover more of your God-given identity as a child of God who was created with a purpose.

4. A Christian Gap Year is preparing for whatever you do in the future.

Studies show taking an intentional year off from school can propel students into making the most of their college experience or whatever they decide is next. Gap year students also report feeling much more satisfied once in their careers. A Christian gap year focused on serving others and growing in your relationship with God is even more important as you set the foundation of your faith before you go to college and start a career. This is a transformative experience that will allow you to establish ownership of your faith.

The World Race: Gap Year will not only give you space to learn more about yourself. You will also help you discover more of your calling and how uniquely God has created you to meet the world’s needs.

5. A Christian Gap Year is living the adventure of a lifetime.

By the time you graduate from high school, you have spent a lot of your life learning about the world from inside a classroom. Without taking a Christian gap year, you could go straight to a college classroom, and then to a desk where you continue to see life through someone else’s experiences or a computer screen. Diving into a cross-cultural adventure like the World Race: Gap Year takes you outside into the real world.

You will meet new people, eat foods you’ve never tried before, and adapt to travel and sleeping conditions that will birth stories you will tell your grandchildren. You will leave your Christian gap year experience with a first-hand understanding of the world outside your day-to-day life and what it means to live life abundantly.

World Race Adventure

A Christian gap year with the World Race is not just a mission trip for recent high school graduates. It’s a life-changing adventure that gives its participants opportunities to grow, serve others, and fulfill the Great Commission.

Could a Christian gap year be the right next step for you? Take our quiz to find out!