I must begin by confessing I've
never been on a mission trip to a foreign country or even to another state
(unless one counts choir tours with a Christian college). However, I have supported various
long-term missionaries over the years and have done service work in my
hometowns with the Rescue Mission, Goodwill, Habitat for Humanity, retirement homes, my
churches, and personal relationships. The times I’ve had opportunities
to go abroad for short-term missions work, I’ve debated the merit of my
going and have always chosen not to; many seemed more like vacations or cultural education tours with a little teaching, painting, or babysitting thrown in. I felt the travel money could be better
spent in service to those in need—whether near or far. I also suspected
(rightly or wrongly, I’ll never know) that such a trip would do little
to benefit my faith long-term and even less to benefit the people of
that country either spiritually or materially. Despite these thoughts, I know that short-term missions can benefit both the participants and the recipients—but whether they do or do not is up to the mission planners, as well as to each potential mission-goer, who should prayerfully determine whether or not to go in the first place and how to behave when there.
Plenty of other Christians have similarly debated whether short-term missions are truly useful and whether we ought to
prioritize missions closer to home. I recently came across some rather good
articles on the former subject. Their messages seem
to agree that mission work succeeds only when participants keep a godly
perspective and strive to not create a burden on the local recipients
(following Paul’s example in 2 Cor. 11:9, 1 Thes. 2:9). This means mission participants do their best to use the locals’ language, to follow the local culture (1 Cor. 9:19-22), to inquire after and help with the locals’ needs (rather than telling locals how they will “help”), and to use the participants’ resources
for food, water, shelter, etc. Participants must also be careful to
help the locals become independent (via the mentoring of local spiritual leaders, permanent fixtures like water wells, general education and job training, entrepreneur support, medical care, and psychological counseling) rather than dependent
(via spiritual dependence on temporary visits of foreign pastors, handouts of money that give people incentive to beg instead of work, donations of goods that hurt local businesses, and the
creation or maintenance of unused buildings). It
also seems to me that missions are
most successful when participants both tell the Good News AND interact
with and help the locals; telling without helping convinces few people
of God’s love and the value of belief, and helping without the Good News
gives the Holy Spirit no opportunity to convict and save souls. Finally, mission
participants need to approach locals with a loving attitude: respectful,
not superior; listening, not commanding; gracious, not rude; and
cheerful, not complaining. In this way, we can truly be good ambassadors of Christ.
If
you’re interested in hearing more specific advice “from the horse’s
mouth” (i.e. people who’ve actually done short-term missions), check out
these links:
Overseas Mission Trips: Do they serve a legitimate purpose? (Southern Baptist Voices)
Should I go on a missions trip? (About.com)
Three articles from The Gospel Coalition tell the history of the boom in short-term missions, problems with short-term missions, and ways to improve short-term missions.
Readers, what are your thoughts on the subject?
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