A walk through Miami International Airport last August made me wonder if I wanted to write this article. In the airport dozens of teenagers in bright green or yellow team T-shirts advertized to all that they were on a mission for Jesus to some international destination. Haiti and the Dominican Republic appeared to be the favorites. My wife and I (veterans of short-term mission leadership since 1978) watched with ambivalence as hoards of amateur builders, painters, and Vacation Bible School leaders migrated through the airport to their connecting flights.
With now more than one million North Americans going on some form of short-term missions annually, I found myself wondering, “Do I still believe in short-term missions?” The answer, despite the movement’s shortcomings, is definitely still yes.
Yet a qualifier is in order. My affirmation of the movement comes with conditions. There must be long-term impact in the lives of both participants and hosts. Advance training, cross-cultural sensitivity preparation, relationship-building, and long-term follow-through must be part of the process. We also need to ask the all-important question: “Why are we doing this?” Then we need to think carefully about method: “How do we do this in a way that yields the greatest long-term impact in the lives of all involved?” But provided we address these crucial issues, I believe short term missions are worth defending.
The Emptying Effect
Effective short-term mission trips provide participants with an amazing opportunity to imitate Jesus by voluntarily emptying themselves (along the lines of Philippians 2:5-11). Like Jesus, teams serving in other cultures can learn that selfless service means being willing to relinquish our desire to be in control—of our food, our comfort, our ability to understand, and even our safety. It means laying aside our expectations, putting on the clothes of a servant and figuratively washing the feet of others.
Creating this environment of ’emptying’ is not always easy. American teams can often carry a subtle pride as they serve those who are economically poorer. An intentional emptying of ourselves, however, means serving people in ways that they understand servanthood.
The best short-term mission trips challenge participants to empty themselves of their expectations. It’s natural that we who pay (or at least raise money to cover ourselves) think we should determine our trip’s work and even the outcome. But the short-term mission trips that yielded the greatest impact in participants’ lives purposefully identify with Jesus, coming into a new world with vulnerability and a commitment to serve. We have learned over the years that we might want to serve by doing a physical construction project or carrying out some sort of evangelistic ministry, but our local partners want us to serve by doing things behind-the-scenes, or simply building relationships, or learning to listen.
Two-way Streets
I believe that effective short-term mission trips provide a two-way relationship, an interchange that can help both goers and receivers gain a new and expanded understanding of the global, multi-cultural, diverse Body of Christ. If 70 percent of Christians live in Africa, Asia and Latin America, how can we hope to be relevant in the future without giving people direct contact with our global family?
My convictions about this two-way interchange has moved me from seeing short-term mission trips as an opportunity for “doing ministry” to short-term mission trips devoted to learning, listening, and receiving as much (if not more) than they give. A short-term mission participant returned after six weeks in India and observed, “Interacting with people of other cultures has deepened my understanding of them as God’s image-bearers and builds my bond to them.” An effective short-term mission means meeting people and not necessarily merely accomplishing tasks.
Two decades ago, Tom Sine identified another reason why this “expanded family” outcome of short-term missions must be considered, and it must be taken into account in a world that has become even more diverse:
Escaping the Cultural Bubble
As the United States and Western Europe continues to become more ethnically diverse, young people raised in the majority-white suburbs of America, who are able to converse in only one language, will become the culturally disadvantaged. They will be ill-equipped to participate in the increasingly cross-cultural and transnational environment of tomorrow’s world.
Short-term missions give young and old alike an opportunity to leave our own cultural “bubbles” and grow in our ability to be understanding participants in the multi-cultural world of the present and the future.
Short-term mission trips give western Christians an opportunity to step out in faith. In our risk-averse culture, the challenge of going to a foreign place where nothing is familiar can be daunting. But, as John Ortberg writes, “If you want to walk on the water, you’ve got to get out of the boat.”
Short-term mission trips provide people with an amazing opportunity to ‘get out of the boat,’ from raising the money before the trip to learning simple language phrases to living alongside people to building friendships.
A seminary student reported of his expanded faith as he reported on the lessons he learned after serving with Kenyans for six weeks at an orphanage in Kenya.
As a seminary student, I was able to explain reformed doctrine flawlessly in a blog post, yet have no idea what to do when confronted with a demonized boy hanging upside-down like a bat from the rafters of a dining hall …. I now see that the gospel has the power to change people, and that people can be healed and delivered through the power of Jesus’ name on a regular basis. Our message is true. The gospel is not a fairy tale, so why shouldn’t we expect God to move in power to heal and deliver his people?
Hudson Taylor, the famous mission pioneer to China in the 19th Century, said it this way: “Unless there is an element of risk in our exploits for God, there is no need for faith.” Short-term mission trips can create an environment where everyone—both goers and receivers—grow as we together encounter situations where we are out of control and we must trust God.
Transformational Encounters
I believe that effective short-term mission trips are a tool from God to enlarge our spiritual and theological worldview. When speaking to a group of short-term mission leaders about my concerns regarding the short-term mission trend, I commented that the short-term mission movement was “arguably the first time in Christian mission history where the mission is being is being done for the benefit of the missionary.”
After my observation, I re-read the encounter of Peter with Cornelius in Acts 10. For the first time I realized that my comment was wrong. Peter’s “short-term mission” to Cornelius is arguably more life-changing for Peter than it was for Cornelius. (Will Willimon calls this Peter’s “second conversion.”)
Their Jewish-Gentile encounter is perhaps the most profound biblical story of how a cross-cultural encounter changed the worldview of a missionary. Short-term missions can plunge people into what I call their “I now realize” moment. After seeing God’s grace in the life of the Gentile Cornelius, Peter proclaims, “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right” (Acts 10:34-35). The cross-cultural encounter transformed Peter’s view of God, his relationship to the Gentiles, and his understanding of salvation.
When we leave our own cultural comfort zone and meet and worship and share meals with Christian brothers and sisters who praise God more vigorously, believe God for miraculous, or rely on God with faith that outshines ours, we, like Peter, realize that God is bigger than our stereotypes, our cultural biases, and our limited worldviews. We discover that English is not God’s language and that the USA is not God’s favorite country. When we step out into the world of cross-cultural relationships, we experience our unity in Christ first-hand.
Zac Niringiye, now a leader in the Anglican church of Uganda (who I came to know through repeated, reciprocal short-term mission visits together) summarized this worldview change through cross-cultural encounters this way: “We [from different cultures] need to be together and share our lives and our faith … because if we don’t come together, we’ll both end up having our own ‘tribal gods’ defined only by our own culture.”
There are many things that I want to change about the short-term mission movement and the thousands of T-shirted teenagers flowing through the Miami International Airport reminded me of that fact. But ultimately I still believe in the life-changing, relationally-expanding, faith-stretching, worldview-enlarging impact of short-term missions.
