“It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way.” (Proverbs 19:2)
The above passage highlights an important truth: passion alone misses the mark. Perhaps nowhere is this proverb’s wisdom more needed than in the short term mission movement. The U.S. Standards of Excellence (SOE) in Short-Term Mission, is a code of best practices for the STM community. The seven standards call short-term mission facilitators and participants to combine passionate activity with knowledge in order to achieve excellence and provide effective kingdom service in partnership with the global body of Christ.
A startling amount of resources pour into short-term missions. In the past decade we’ve witnessed exponential growth in the number of U.S. STM participants. Many have raised questions about the long-term effectiveness of all this zealous activity. Short-term volunteers are often ill-prepared, culturally insensitive, focused mainly on their own growth experience, or lack understanding of sustainable ministry practices. Too often short-term missions have been expensive religious tourism that uses up valuable financial resources with little to show for it.
In light of these realities, some reject short-term missions altogether. But the mission leaders who launched and oversee the SOE are convinced that the weaknesses can be corrected with careful partnership, preparation, and planning. They believe that by combining knowledge with zeal, short-term missions can contribute to the fulfillment of God’s global purposes. As a result of their vision and collaboration, they launched the SOE in October 2003 to help churches, agencies, schools, and other organizations pursue excellence in all their short-term mission efforts.
“The SOE is an extremely well-designed pathway to guide those sending short-term teams toward excellence,” says Greg Parsons, General Director of the U.S. Center for World Missions. “They provide member organizations a roadmap to move beyond ‘drive-by missions’ to a quality program with appropriate preparation, thorough follow-up, and integrity.”
Historical Development of the SOE
In 2001 a group of STM leaders from mission agencies, churches, and Christian colleges sensed that God was leading them to facilitate the formation of a set of standards similar to codes that had been developed in the UK and Canada. They went to work gathering input and feedback from five mission networks and more than 400 mission leaders. There was a series of versions and the process lasted over two years. The resulting seven standards are a product of thousands of hours of work, discussion, and prayer. Read more about the SOE’s historical development here.
The Seven Standards
The seven principles that emerged as fundamental values or priorities for any short-term mission outreach include:
1. God-Centeredness—an excellent short-term mission seeks first God’s glory and his kingdom. It is centered on God’s redemptive purposes and love for all nations and modeled after Christ’s mission to the world. Those involved are people of godliness in actions, words, and thoughts who function out of doctrinally-sound, prayer-dependent methods which are wise, biblical, and culturally-appropriate.
2. Empowering Partnerships—an excellent short-term mission establishes healthy, interdependent, ongoing relationships between sending and receiving partners sustained by a willingness to grow together while serving God. These relationships are characterized by a primary focus on the needs of the receiving partners, open communication, humility, mutual trust, and accountability resulting in plans which benefit all participants and the kingdom of God.
3. Mutual Design—an excellent short-term mission collaboratively plans each outreach to include service activities which are aligned with both partners’ long-term strategies and goals. Such outreaches involve short-term volunteers in appropriate ministry activities that do not create unhealthy dependency and are within the volunteers’ capabilities to accomplish. Those who go are selected and trained based on the mutual design and are asked to place themselves in humble, servant, teachable positions in submission to the leadership of both partners.
4. Comprehensive Administration—an excellent short-term mission exhibits integrity through careful set-up and thorough administration in order to glorify God and be good stewards of time, talents, and funds. Honesty is foremost in all publicity, management of finances, and reporting of results. Appropriate risk management is implemented to remove unnecessary danger and keep risks to a mutually-determined level. Outreaches are well-organized with proper support logistics while remaining receptive to the Holy Spirit’s direction and changing circumstances.
5. Qualified Leadership—an excellent short-term mission screens, trains, and develops capable leaders for all participants who possess the character, competency and commitment needed for each particular outreach. Leaders exhibit spiritually mature servant-leadership, are well-prepared, and possess appropriate organizational and intercultural skills. They also value equipping and empowering others and are committed to an interdependent, team approach to ministry and partnership.
6. Appropriate Training—an excellent short-term mission prepares and equips all participants to be effective in the mutually designed outreach with biblical and timely training, appropriate for the planned service and culture. Training is ongoing throughout all phases of the project (pre-field, on-field, post-field) and is performed by qualified trainers. Relevant training benefits all participants, fostering understanding, growth, and spiritual fruit while helping to prevent offense, damage, and poor stewardship.
7. Thorough Follow-Up—an excellent short-term mission assures debriefing and appropriate follow-up for all participants. These are crucial aspects of any short-term mission to help participants learn from, invest and multiply the experience. Debriefing begins with on-field re-entry preparation and includes post-field follow-up to apply lessons learned and promote continued growth and commitment to Christ and his world. All participants, including host receivers, are asked to evaluate the outreach. Those responses are reviewed and used to identify and amend unresolved issues and improve partnerships and future efforts.
A foundational component of the SOE is the MISTM-Grid developed by Wayne Sneed and Roger P. Peterson. This model looks beyond the myopic view that short-term missions is about what happens to those who go “over there.” A Maximum Impact Short-Term Mission (MISTM) recognizes that there are three sets of participants (senders, goer-guests, and host-receivers) and three important phases (pre-field, on-field, and post-field) in every outreach. When the SOE mentions “all participants” it is not referring to goer-guests alone, but to all three types of participants. The SOE also stresses appropriate planning and action in each phase by, and for, all participants.
Benefits of Membership
The SOE committee believed it was important to have accountability for those electing to adopt the standards and display the SOE seal. They envisioned something similar to membership in the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA), and developed a graduated pathway for organizations to become adoptive members. The pathway includes requirements for training and a peer review before reaching Covenant Member status. The peer review is intended to be a thorough evaluation of how an organization is aligning with the standards. It is by design redemptive in nature, revealing strengths and weaknesses while encouraging and motivating organizations toward excellence. Groups may view and use the SOE as a training and assessment tool. Yet they may also go deeper, and formally adopt the standards to demonstrate a vital commitment to excellence in their short-term mission outreaches.
Samuel T. Smith, CEO of Mercy Ships, commented on SOE membership this way, “Stewardship and accountability are at the core of our organization’s mission to serve the forgotten poor around the world. SOE certification provides us and others the ability to be analyzed and recognized as an organization that presents exceptional value and opportunity to those wishing to serve on the mission field.”
Other benefits of joining the SOE
- Assurance to donors, volunteers, and field partners that your trips are more than glorified vacations and that you are applying nationally-derived best practices
- Networking with similar groups also striving for excellence, bringing opportunities for resource sharing, synergy, and improved training
- Improved partnerships and design, providing assurance that everyone involved has a voice (senders, goers, receivers)
- Help in becoming better stewards of kingdom resources and avoiding costly mistakes
- Assurance that key STM personnel receive regular training in current STM best practices
- Confidence in identifying risk and applying appropriate risk management and crisis planning
- Mentorship opportunities
- The ability to display the SOE Seal on your stationery, website, and promotional materials
Find out more about SOE membership. For a list of current members, click here.
This is a pivotal time in global history. People around the world want to know if the Christian faith makes a difference. At the same time, historic numbers of short-termer are volunteering to be co-laborers in the harvest. The SOE helps organizations combine knowledge and zeal to enable their short-term missionaries to serve with excellence. It does so while respecting the unique personality and ministry calling of its adoptive members. For more information please visit us at stmstandards.org.
© 2010 Christianity Today/BuildingChurchLeaders.com
