Missions on the Frontline
a ministry of WorldVenture
"Short Term Missions: why they don't measure up to their fullest potential"
We've heard so much about short term missions! Effectivity, purpose, problems, results, missions exposure vs vacation, etc. In my training of Filipino young people for cross cultural missions, I have found that one very effective key is HOW we prepare them for their STM. Young people join our ministry team called "180 Degrees Music Team" because they love music and they want to grow musically. We also tell them up front that they will be trained in cross cultural missions. When we are preparing for our "outside the country" STM, we ask them to go with this question in their mind: "Is this a country God might be calling me to, or "what am I going to do with what I am learning?" Any other question is secondary to that. Yes, we want to help the nationals in that country. yes, we want to encourage the workers who live there, yes, we want to help them build bridges for future ministry after we leave, yes, we want to catch a vision, yes, we want to share the gospel, etc
Those may be good reasons to go, but what happens when they return from that STM without the number one question being answered? The trip ends, people feel good, they are exposed to another part of the world, they are grateful for what they have in their home country, but then what? WHAT LIFETIME ACTION WILL COME OUT OF THIS EXPENSE OF MONEY AND TIME TO SEND THAT PERSON TO ANOTHER COUNTRY?
A key factor here are the leaders of the STM. The leaders must fully understand the tremendous importance of INTENTIALITY in every part of the preparation process. The leaders' main goal in leading an STM is to make sure the short term team members themselves are well prepared, culturally sensitive, but most importantly, spiritually tuned in to hear the voice of God in their life. We love to help people, but if that is all we are told to do, we are falling short of the purpose of the short term trip in the first place. God wants to reveal Himself to the team through every experience they have.
In our preparation for 180 Degrees youth to go cross culturally, we require them to complete the Condensed World Missions Course and other trainings such as Cat and Dog Theology. We need to have them see the world from a global perspective BEFORE they arrive at their first destination.
I believe God will raise up many more harvest workers IF we prepare our Short term teams to have a long term mentality. God wants us to be involved in one of six ways in world missions. Any STM should cause each and every participant to move forward towards the niche God has planned for him for the rest of his
life: it might be GOING, SENDING OTHERS WHOM GOD HAS CALLED, MOBILIZING FOR MISSIONS, INTERCESSORY PRAYER FOR THE WORLD, GIVING, SENDING OTHERS, And WELCOMING (INTERNATIONALS WHO COME TO YOUR HOME COUNTRY).
To me, this is often missing in Short Term Missions. What do you think?
Those may be good reasons to go, but what happens when they return from that STM without the number one question being answered? The trip ends, people feel good, they are exposed to another part of the world, they are grateful for what they have in their home country, but then what? WHAT LIFETIME ACTION WILL COME OUT OF THIS EXPENSE OF MONEY AND TIME TO SEND THAT PERSON TO ANOTHER COUNTRY?
A key factor here are the leaders of the STM. The leaders must fully understand the tremendous importance of INTENTIALITY in every part of the preparation process. The leaders' main goal in leading an STM is to make sure the short term team members themselves are well prepared, culturally sensitive, but most importantly, spiritually tuned in to hear the voice of God in their life. We love to help people, but if that is all we are told to do, we are falling short of the purpose of the short term trip in the first place. God wants to reveal Himself to the team through every experience they have.
In our preparation for 180 Degrees youth to go cross culturally, we require them to complete the Condensed World Missions Course and other trainings such as Cat and Dog Theology. We need to have them see the world from a global perspective BEFORE they arrive at their first destination.
I believe God will raise up many more harvest workers IF we prepare our Short term teams to have a long term mentality. God wants us to be involved in one of six ways in world missions. Any STM should cause each and every participant to move forward towards the niche God has planned for him for the rest of his
life: it might be GOING, SENDING OTHERS WHOM GOD HAS CALLED, MOBILIZING FOR MISSIONS, INTERCESSORY PRAYER FOR THE WORLD, GIVING, SENDING OTHERS, And WELCOMING (INTERNATIONALS WHO COME TO YOUR HOME COUNTRY).
To me, this is often missing in Short Term Missions. What do you think?
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Rod & Angelika Ragsdale on -
You are right on. Have you heard of Delta Ministries International ? There are doing a wonderful job in preparing short term teams and also in following them up. They have a curriculum called "The Next Mile". We try to have all our short term team go through their prep training and see a huge difference of those who come prepared by Delta Ministries. Angelika Ragsdale
-
Permalink Reply by Ramona Simons on -
Yes, I know of Delta. Glad to hear of their "Next Mile" curriculum. This encourages me to recommend Delta to churches as we move around on this HA. Ramona
-
Permalink Reply by Christine Murray on -
I think you're right. When I look back at the short term trips I've taken (mostly in junior and senior high), there was never any push for those on the trip to think about long term missions, whether it was going themselves or supporting someone else who was going. That's obviously something that's desperately needed in the short term process. Thanks for bringing it up.
-
Permalink Reply by Andrew Finzel on -
Without a doubt, in my experience, a lot of the reasons kids go on short term missions trips is to "see the world." I wouldn't go as far as to say they have no interest in actual missions, or spreading the gospel, but those things are most certainly not the only reason many young people are traveling overseas.
-
Permalink Reply by Ramona Simons on
-
Right!!! :) Don't want to make sweeping generalizations.
-
Permalink Reply by Chris Wynn on -
"WHAT LIFETIME ACTION WILL COME OUT OF THIS EXPENSE OF MONEY AND TIME TO SEND THAT PERSON TO ANOTHER COUNTRY?"
This is a huge issue to wrestle with. I have to say this one question left me very negative to Short Term Missions for a number of years.
During that time I was also wrestling with the giant responcibility of the U.S. church, i.e. one of the most affluent churches in the world, to our sister churches in places like Africa and India. Not that I thought it was better to just send the money over there and not the people. I've seen enough projects in Africa implode or stall in effectiveness due to insufficient involvement and accountability. But the fact that even at the poverty line in the U.S. (which as a student I was) I still remained in the top 10% of the world's richest people. If I made twice poverty here ... I would jump to the top 5% of the richest people in the world. http://globalrichlist.com/
This broke my heart.
So while I wrestled with my responciblity towards this, I became hugely negative toward extravagant U.S. church expenses, church buildings, excessively high paid pastors, and "missions vacation" experiences.
I think I've grown out of my overly black and white view of all these things ... but I appreciate the responciblity you take with training and hosting these short term trips. I owe a great portion of my own passion for missions to many short term trips and the people that invested to send me on them.
-
Permalink Reply by Justin and Leah Conley on -
It is truly amazing how much people are ingrained with this short term mindset. For example, one girl that my teammate was talking to said that she wanted to do church planting in Israel among the Jews there long term. Thinking that sounded great, he asked about how long she thought she would be there. Her reply was that she expected it would take a couple years, literally about 2 years. Unfortunately, he could have handled it better than blowing up and saying she will not learn the language let alone the culture in that amount of time, or even begin the relationships that would be necessary for such an endeavor. But we are learning how to deal with this problem in more cordial ways.
Also, whenever I tell people that we are doing bible translation among an unreached people in Mali, Africa, the whole Bible for those that currently do not have one, a common response is for them to turn to my wife and say, "Are you going with him?" At first I completely didn't understand this, but I suppose it is because they think that full Bible translation must also fall into the only category for missions that they know; short term.
-
Permalink Reply by Ramona Simons on
-
Sounds like there is a lot of education needed for these people who respond to you this way. An uphill battle.
-
Permalink Reply by Richard Sturz Jr on -
Thanks, Ramona, for a very relevant topic. While the nature of hands-on missions has changed immensely, both on the frontlines as well as in the "sending" cultures, models that worked well in the past are trying to play catch-up. Intentionality from a Kingdom perspective, as Ramona so aptly pointed out, is a key issue that must be addressed at all levels. It feels as if "Missions" is at times seen as a corollary, a sidebar, a summer experience, or, at best, a department of this thing we call "church". Kingdom thinking sees missions as the central nerve-center out of which the vast richness of the Christian walk flows into all areas of life, sacred and secular. The STM experience is one way which participants can be opened up a bit further to a radical paradigm shift.
Ramona, I am very interested in knowing more of what you folks do as far as training - how, when, what materials, etc. I host ST teams every summer and could use your tips to be more intentional. Thanks!
-
Permalink Reply by Ramona Simons on
-
If you host ST teams, then you just get the teams when they are already prepared in their home church etc. I can tell how great Leon Hill did when our team, 180 Degrees, went to Japan. He gave us orientation to our ministry there and all the practical ground rules, etc but he also included a very good talk on the needs in Japan that some from our team might be called to do later on. Since our team is young people, ages 13-21, who sign a 2 year covenant to be in the ministry, much of what they could do would be down the line. Challenging them intentionally to consider Japan as their goal for a missions career. was a great seed to plant! It helped them focus from day 1 on that question in the back of their minds.
We haven't really hosted STMs in the Philippines, but that would be one strong input you could give to the STMs coming your way. As we are now preparing to go to Cambodia next April, we are already spending time studying the culture, the killing fields impact on the country, some language, learning at least two songs in Kmer. talking about cross cultural and what that means, and very very importantly, spiritual preparation, stressing that we are serious about what we are doing and that this is part of their training for LIFE.
Of course Delta Team has already been mentioned and it sounds like they have studied how to best prepare STMs to go out.
One of our supporting churches in Wilmington, DE has an applic process for their STM. After applying and being accepted, they are required to do a number of hous of ministry in the chruch before they go, as further sign of their seriousness and readiness.
-
Permalink Reply by Aram Haroutunian on -
Thanks Ramona and all for raising these questions. As a pastor, I am challenged by the need for more deliberacy and intentionality in challenging folks who go on STMs - too often I think we're neglectful in, or afraid of, doing this. I know I certainly could do a lot better in this area. I think people (especially young people) DO want to be challenged - but unfortunately they never are. [Ironically, to this point: today I had lunch with my 23 year old daughter. She told me that lately she has preferred to be reading books written by "younger adults". "Why?" I asked. "Because they write with a sense of adventure, whereas older adults seemed to have lost that and simply write about the human condition." I was intrigued by her comment. My point is that younger people indeed are yearning for adventure and to be challenged out of their comfort zones]. But having said that, I wonder if this is a matter of semantics here. Just what constitutes a "lifetime action"? Does it have to mean direct involvement with that country in a future context? A change in life vocation? As a pastor I have seen great benefit from trips which indeed "expose people to the world" - particularly the third world - which helps change the myopic lense from which we view our world. For me, for example, my STMs have deeply impacted my hermeneutic and how I preach. Whenever I now preach, I have the cumulative experiences of my STMs which challenge me to ask, "Would the core of what I am preaching fly with the folks I know in Africa or the Dominican Republic?" Or am I preaching this text through a "White, upper middle class North American lens?" My daughter, who went on STMs to the Dominican Republic and to Mexico, did not make any significant "action" changes to her life after her trips. But was she changed? Dramatically - and it has and will impact her vocation as a filmmaker and how she tells stories.
So do we simply need to be honest and maybe call these trips something else, like "cross cultural exposure trips" or something? When my daughter went on these trips, she was 14 and 16, respectively. She wasn't yet sure or ready to make a decision on what she wanted to do with her life. At that moment, I don't know if any of us can know what lifetime action or change might come from such a trip. But these experiences shaped her soul and have deeply impacted who she is and will be as a filmmaker. In that respect, I think it was a great investment and experience for her. But please hear me: I do understand and agree with the basic premise of Ramona's point -of investing in more preparation, training, and intentionality in how we do STMs. Thanks!
-
Permalink Reply by Chris Wynn on
-
Just what constitutes a "lifetime action"? - Aram
Aram, this is a fantastic question. You could write your next book on it. It asks for meaning, which I believe is the heart of the desire for adventure in the current generation. These redeemed youth have the same Spirit of God that I have. That same Spirit causing me to want God and not the world. And I think the desire for adventure can have an honest Spirit guided heart.
I remember my first mission trip at 17. I spent two months working on Logos II with Operation Mobilization ... working on this ship for God. It was hard. I was challenged. Humiliated. But then I stopped over in the Bahamas for two weeks to visit with a friend and vacation. I was bored out of my mind. I did whatever I wanted, each day, in a fantastic place with endless beaches and clear water, and I hated being a tourist. I wished I was back doing the hard, meaningful work on the ship.
I think that longing for adventure in me might have been born from affluence and a lifetime of television, but God has redeemed that "lens" so that if I can't contribute some portion of my life to His work in Africa ... my heart will break.
That wouldn't have come without short trip exposure.
© 2012 Created by Chris Wynn.
