Posted in
Short-term Missions by Seth Barnes on 2/22/2007
Are short-term missions becoming faddish?
That's
a rhetorical question. The answer is:
YES. I estimate that 75% of STMs are
done poorly (that is, not meeting many of the standards of excellence referred to below).
Robert
Priest estimates that as many as four million a year go on STMs. You do the math on the waste there.
Those going are increasingly ill-prepared and what they do
is of questionable value given the resources invested. Sadly, many participants are
narcissistic, they have little cross-cultural perspective, and often their
experience does little to advance the Kingdom.
I'm an advocate for STMs, but only if they're done
well. I run AIM, a mission agency that
specializes in STMs. We've taken on the
order of 70,000 people to the field over the years. I used to defend the movement against critics,
but I've come to believe that it is time for the pendulum to swing in the other
direction. Far more churches need to
look at the STMs they've got scheduled and re-think their policies.
In the last three years, I've observed an interesting
phenomenon at AIM. People are waiting
longer and longer before they sign up for projects. It used to be that all of our summer signups happened
before the end of the year. That gave
most people a good half the year to prepare for their trip.
Now, about a third of all participants wait to sign up after
the end of the year. This means that
they are taking a more casual approach to preparing. The STM project is just one more thing to put
on your calendar a week after you've gone to summer camp or Epcot.
Crazy stuff is being offered. Consider these examples:
- A
short-term missions cruise. A man called me proposing this. The idea was
that at each new port, the cruisers/missioners would pour down the
gangplank and distribute tracts to the locals.
- A ministry sponsors a
trip for pre-teens to Australia
costing $3000!
- Radio
station-sponsored trips where participants aren't screened.
- High
school class-sponsored trips (where no one was responsible for discipling
participants).
- Women's
project to China
where a major attraction for going is the shopping.
- Drama or
sports projects to Europe where a major
attraction is the sight-seeing.
- Churches
working with the same overseas partner year after year, eventually fostering dependency (one called me up recently that had worked with the same church for ten years!).
These are all bad ideas that give a black eye to all those
doing STMs. They are the result of a
faddishness that has taken hold resulting in mixed motives and priority placed on the private agendas of
participants.
The reality is greater numbers of short-term groups are
spending money with little missiological impact. Participants and leaders are not being held
to account by missions committees and church leaders. Missions committees don't ask tough questions
about fruit being produced through the trips.
How do we turn this around?
First, check out the Seven Standards of
Excellence for STMs. If you're responsible for a
church group, get a missionary to assess the quality of your STMs using these
guidelines. I helped form the committee that came up with these standards and I'll offer my own standards for missions excellence in tomorrow's blog.
If you're an individual going on a mission trip, ask
yourself these questions:
- How
much preparation am I being asked to commit to?
- How
much experience does my trip leader have?
- Will I
be discipled along the way?
- Are we
working with a local leader who will follow up on the ministry we do?
- How
long has the mission been partnering with the local person - does trust
exist?
- If
this is a first-time experience, does it cost more than $400/week?
The irony is, STMs are the best discipling tool in the
church's toolbox. They have the
potential to change lives like nothing else on the calendar.
For more on this subject, check out Why STMs work. And if you're interested in how to ensure excellence on short-term mission trips, check out this blog: What Does an Excellent Mission Project Look Like or check out The Case for Short-Term Missions.
You wake us up when we are asleep, you challenge us when we are too comfortable, you make us think beyond the box when we've already made up our minds. Thanks for the challenges. Thanks for AIM and its ministry around the world. Thanks for teaching our young people so they can teach others.
TA
If I were a missionary and some church approached me about a STM team that wanted to come to our site, what screening criteria would you suggest I use to make for an effective expereince?
"The reality is greater numbers of short-term groups are spending money with little missiological impact."
How can you measure 'missiological impact'? How many people were saved? How many orphanages were built? It just seems impossible to put a measurement on how a STM could have an impact...even a poorly managed one.
All youth groups are on different spiritual levels. Some are more spiritually mature then others and are able to contribute more, some less. STM are 2 way streets, the purpose is to go and to serve and to bring glory to God. Those that are doing the serving, receive a spiritual benefit and there's nothing wrong with receiving that benefit or even seeking it. Perhaps those trips that are poorly managed and organized are serving another purpose in growth?
I don't know, I'm just trying to see the positive in it all.
When you use a five year time frame you can bring it back to the central criteria of "disciples made." If disciples were made, then the proof of the pudding will be that they themselves are making disciples. This notion of measuring those who were "saved" is a peculariarly American evangelical invention that does not stand up to the biblical test of Lordship.
The only people who really benefit from stm are the people who go on them. They are really just junket trips for the ego or for the self.
If people REALLY were concerned for the people they go to visit then they would donate their airfares, travel expenses, etc to a recognised charity doing work in that area.
If you want to help the people in a poor nation then donating money to build their infrastructure (schools, homes, churches) or donating money to support indiginous workers (pastors, teachers, workers, educational opportunities) is the ONLY way to be "self sacrificing".
Sure go on a stm if you want but don't think your 'sacrifice' is any more noble than a holiday with some altruism thrown in.
Sure it might extend your world view, or expose you to new experiences, but these are all 'self' advancing activities.
Tpically in the west even in charitable works we try and get the best deal for ourselves first.
The question is not whether to do STMs or not, that is biblically mandated by our Lord who said, "follow me."
The question is how best to do them.
Do your own STM and save the money for projects and donations to those local foundations that may allow you to work with them.
Don't go far from home. I'm sure there are SO many opportunites in your own state to work.
Take the time and effort to plan the trip yourself. Pick up a copy of The Essential Guide to the Short Term Mission Trip from Moody and plan ahead. It's a great reference.
Step out on faith and trust that God will guide you with the trip...if you do the appropriate legwork.
Allow the youth to plan worship and devotion themselves. Help them pick topics and scriptures and step back...but not too far. As always be there for there questions. Trust the Hebrew Scriptures...the Prophets, Major and Minor.
Buy your own food and cook it yourselves. It's a great team building activity in it's own right.
I've been doing this for years with adults and am taking youth with the adults this year as their youth pastor. As opposed to spending $300-400 for a week our cost is $100 per youth...and they sell "Stock" for most of that. We travel to the Boot Heel of Missouri (125 mile drive) and stay at a local church, shower at the local high school, buy our food from the local grocery store and our materials from the local lumber yard. If you need to buy tools, buy them there. Support the local economy whenever possible. The region may need it. Job sites are chosen by the county agency in service to those living in poverty. They provide material lists and work through HUD so much of the materials are paid for.
These trips are wonderful springboards for personal discovery. They are also directly responsible for the changing of lives of those we touch...LONG term. Relationships last for years as well. Many of the families we have served in the past keep in touch and we see the changes in their lives.
If your sick of Canned STMs then step outside your comfort zone, do the background work, do the planning and do it yourself. But be kind...I learned to do this work when I was 16 in Appalachaia through Appalachia Service Project, a QUALITY mission group. It changed my life. That was 38 years ago.
1. The number of times my teams are re-doing bad work by previous teams. This ranges from new roofs that leaked again at the first rain to decks stained in an obviously slap-dash way so that the crew could make it to rec on time.
2. The number of local churches and agencies that beg us to come back, because "you're our best" or "We save the tough ones for you and there are too many tough ones backed up"
3. The number of needy folks and local workers who say "Y'all aren't like most of the teams. They kind of treat us like they're better'n us."
4. When we get home and the kids are clamoring for a chance to do work locally, how hard it is to find folks who'll work with us, even for a weekend.
5. I can wait until January to apply because I get my pick of dates.
One thing I'm not certain about - why shift the site? In our case, I have one church I work with regularly because the need is consistent and severe, I know what to expect and can plan, and because the kids are able to establish real relationships with the people we serve (we tend to go back to the same hollers and even the same homes because ther's ore work than one summer can handle.) They also spend their own money to help defray costs, so we're able to go for a bit less than $200/head of which 125 is for materials. Am I blessed or missing something?
It is our purpose to serve the ministry team in Guatemala completely. Through year round communication with the leadership there we learn of their yearly goals and they become our goals as well. In doing so, the whole church has become involved and is increasingly developing a mindset to support missions. The relationship has also allowed costs to come down greatly.
I do agree though that many are now going...just to go. I watched a video on YouTube of a group who stayed at one of the finer hotels in Antigua, Guatemala. They spent one day visiting a poor area outside of town and had lunch with orphans presenting music and drama. They complained of the heat and went to the market. I must admit I was a little nauseated after that.
Thanks for opening the discussion.
Moose
Sure Jesus, sent the disciples out, and Paul went, but where they went there WERE NO other christians. They were doing missionary work in untouched areas of the world
Now THATS biblical
STM tend to focus on areas of the world with indiginous populations of christians.
Lets look at a typical example. You go on a stm to a 3rd world country to build a school. It cost you a bare mnimum of $5000 to be a hammer hand.
That money could have bought the entire building, and gone towards helping the people there far more than your 4 week junket. Imagine what World Vision could ahve done with that money in the region.
Sure be a missionary, sure even go for 2, 3, 4 years. But a stm is merely for YOU.
I am obviosly not the scholar that most folks seem to be on this blog. I'll make sure to thank God that even if we don't have all the right answers, He loves us.
And if money were the answer, the USA would be brimming with Christians. Instead, we are a Muslim mission field and less than 1% of American Jews claim Jesus as Messiah. The poor will be with us always, and I shouldn't just give to salve my conscience of not being the profession short-term (or long-term) missionary with all the answers.
I say the STMs are for the benefit of those going? My faith is rarely challenged in my suburban sameness the way it would be to go minister to the poor in another part of the city, or rebuild at a disaster site, or travel to a foreign orphanage to rock the abandoned babies for a week (and take an afternoon to go shopping or to the beach). If we wait until our youth are qualified to go, they’ll never leave the home church, except when they give up on church completely.
So go. Avoid the “ministry-lite” vacation packages, for sure, and give them meaningful jobs to do. But do not hinder the little ones from going. They might catch the vision and become life-long true disciples.
I appreciate your knowledge in this. I went to Jamaica 2005 with Alli Mellon. Since then, this exact subject has been on my heart. Thank you for your informed insight and challenge.
Shelly
P.S. I'm a team member in 13th Floor.
But, is this correct? Perhaps it could be:
1. Taking long termers more seriously, whereas these days stms take the lion's share of attention.
2. Taking language issues more seriously.
3. Turning around the missiology in our universities - currently dominated by short termers (very often on both sides of the desk).
We could also bear in mind the 'traps' that short termers put people into. That is, in many 'poor' parts of the world, short-termers are known as having a lot of money. People's interest in their finance compels them to take a lot of notice, to put aside other activities in order to spend time with the short termers, and to say encouraging things even to discouraging activities on their part. The most well-meaning humble short-termer from the 'West to the rest' cannot avoid the reputation that their predecessors have already given to them. That is, of someone rather ignorant, but incredibly generous.
Long term serious missionaries are often compelled to listen closely to and take exceptionally good care of short-termers, if only because of the weight that they are likely subsequently to carry at the sending churches end of the long-termer. That is, short-termers often have a major voice at the sending end. This attention to short-termers of course detracts the long termer from what s/he might otherwise have been doing.
I refer readers to http://shorttermmission.blogspot.com/
ˇGracias!
There's a scene from Brave Heart where a lieutenant leans over and says "I hope you washed your &%$! today it's about to be kissed by a king." ... My experience has been like this with the almighty committee. Just replace the word king with missionary.
PTL, they aren't all like those. I have yet to meet a fruitful long term missionary that doesn't have a story like that, but somehow God gets us connected with friends despite all the contrary efforts. I just doubt standards and committees are the formula here.
Nice try though.
-Bideshi (missionary)
Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to McDonalds makes you a hamburger.
If anyone is wanting to go on a stm, go with AIM. They focus on the ministry, the trips are basically all spirit led and they are exactly how short a short term mission trip should be.
I think the key to a good STM is like Seth said the 7 standards of excellence and asking those 6 questions he noted on the bottom of his article.
We are now on the mission field due in part to going on many STM. So, keep sending, keep going, but do it well.
Where Harries is right is that often churches will divert excessive amounts of money from their mission budget to fund STMs.
Good policy is not on one side or the other, but somewhere in the middle.
In April 2008 I was back in that city and met with the pastor. That church is still running strong.
As a result of these STM's I seriously considered a call of God into that country long term.
Some people do go on STM's for the wrong reasons or expect a holiday from it. But others go for the right motives.
The Pharisee spirit (religious spirit) in some in the body of Christ will always try and pull down or critisize a work of God.
So long as God is glorified as a result of an STM then why do the spiritual fat cats critisize.
The STM's I have been a part of satisfied the 7 questions criteria; we worked tightly with local churches,pastors and church workers who did follow up and discipleship after we left.
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