Why Short Term Missions Don’t Work

Now there’s a catchy title! I don’t totally agree with that statement, but it has the potential to catch your attention, and this is an issue that is getting me a little worked up these days, so here goes…

Over the last 20 years or so, short-term missions trips have become one of Evangelicalism’s sacred cows. I spoke with a friend recently who took a youth pastor position at a large church out west, and from what I gathered, the lead pastor required him to plan one pronto. But a good question is why? Why is there such insistence that we get kids, often as young as junior high, onto the “mission field” for a few days when every American Christian is completely surrounded by unbelievers?

Big problems:

1) Most trips are in reality about the people going on the trip rather than the people being visited. In other words, they’re about the missionary more than the mission. This is the diametrical opposite of the idea of “mission”

2) In most cases, the people (especially kids) who go are not subjected to high expectations. In other words, they get to go and “serve the poor” or “witness about Jesus” when they rarely if ever do those things at home. (Would it not be better to save the money and regularly do all those things locally? Is the big incentive to go simply the fact that they’re taking a trip?)

3) The trips often have a patronizing feel to them; the people visited are rarely the determiners of who comes or what is done, and often are not even a significant part of the decision making process

4) Many trips cater to (often spoiled and rich) white suburban kids, and are treated like vacations or sightseeing tours. Thus the term “vacationaries”! I completely understand the need to understand the culture one is visiting and the importance of visiting cultural sites, but it doesn’t have to look like a Disney trip. Think about the extra logistics and cost, not to mention the additional burden often foisted onto the receiving churches.

5) An entire industry has been built around getting American Evangelicals onto the “mission field” quick, cheap and easy. Consider this ad from Teen Serve: You can take your junior or senior high youth group for the ride of their life. TeenServe workcamp missions trips are jam-packed with life-changing devotions, and cool activities like a COFFEE HOUSE & even an E-MAIL CAFÉ!

6) Often, these missions trips are populated, at least in part, by kids whose spiritual maturity is questionable at best. Many youth pastors see short-term missions trips as an opportunity to evangelize the participants as well as the people they’re visiting, which is profoundly backwards. Only the most focused, most serious, most mature kids should be able to go.

7) This thinking reflects a fairly recent development in evangelism strategy that says that if we get lost kids into our “loving Christian community” they’re going to want to be Christians. While there is some real value in exposing lost people to healthy Christian community, missions trips are a poor choice of venue considering the purpose (ostensibly) of the trip, and ultimately it takes more than just watching real Christians to be truly evangelized. One must be confronted with the claims of Christ and the truth of the gospel.

8) A recent article in Christianity Today on emerging adults (“Lost in Transition”) indicated that the hopes of significant spiritual development taking place because of going on a short-term missions trip do not seem to be well founded. For the most part, teens and young adults who participated in a trip seemed to have no advantage over those who did not regarding whether their faith “sticks” later on into adulthood.

9) At the end of the day, the whole business smacks to me of American hubris, patronizing attitudes, and self-centeredness – the opposite of everything the Christian life is supposed to be.
  

All that said, I am in reality a supporter of short-term missions trips, if they could somehow be salvaged and done in a far more biblical manner.

The paradigm of the 19^th and 20^th centuries was one of career missionaries who went to foreign and unevangelized lands and spent the rest of their lives there. While that is still viable in many cases, the realities of the 21^st century have shifted significantly, with Christians in the Global South far outnumbering those in North America and Europe. Furthermore, some of the colonialism and ethnocentrism that tainted missions of days gone by has at least been recognized and hopefully corrected in more and more cases.

I think this sets us up for a paradigm where short-term missions could be used very effectively, not unlike the “short term” trips Paul and his companions took in the first century. The key, I think, is developing real and lasting relationships between churches in the West and churches in the 2/3 world… relationships that would lead to lasting partnerships. These partnerships would be partnerships of equals, with resources flowing both ways. Things that Christians in the developing world have learned need to be passed onto Americans and other Westerners, and things Americans have learned as well as other resources could be passed onto our brothers in the developing world. This of course would require a posture of humility and openness to learning on the part of the Americans! “Missions trips” could be frequent exchanges of people with various skills over an extended period of time – an actual, ongoing partnership of working together for the mission of the Church. This would put a lot of commercial sending organizations out of business, but it would edify the church and promote the work of Christ in the world.

There is a real impact on most people who go on a short-term missions trip, not the least of which is an increased awareness of missions, but that simply cannot be the driving factor. The trip must be about the mission first, and whatever benefit comes to the missionary must be strictly collateral. Does anyone really think Paul went to Philippi for his personal spiritual enrichment? My guess is that if more beatings of short-term missionaries occurred, people would think a little harder about why they go. However, if we can find a way to do this right, both partners in the venture can be edified, and then I believe god will be glorified.

CT Article Lost in Transition: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/october/21.34.html

Wall Street Journal article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122359398873721053.html

Added 07/02/12:

http://thegospelcoalition.org/mobile/article/tgc/why-you-should-consider-cancelling-your-short-term-mission-trips

Astonishing God

“The God of the modern evangelical rarely astonishes anybody. He manages to stay pretty much within the constitution. Never breaks our by-laws. He’s a very well-behaved God and very denominational and very much one of us, and we ask Him to help us when we’re in trouble and look to Him to watch over us when we’re asleep. The God of the modern evangelical isn’t a God I could have much respect for. But when the Holy Ghost shows us God as He is we admire Him to the point of wonder and delight.” – A.W. Tozer

I Boast No More

Whatever happened to Gospel-laden songs like these? What has become of our "worship"?

I Boast No More

Isaac Watts

No more, my God, I boast no more

Of all the duties I have done;
I quit the hopes I held before,
To trust the merits of thy Son.

Now, for the love I bear his name,
What was my gain I count my loss;
My former pride I call my shame,
And nail my glory to his cross.

Yes, and I must and will esteem
All things but loss for Jesus' sake:
O may my soul be found in him,
And of his righteousness partake!

The best obedience of my hands
Dares not appear before thy throne;
But faith can answer thy demands
By pleading what my Lord has done.

The State of the Church

While this focuses more on the white, Evangelical church, its implications touch all of American Christianity. It's especially a must view for youthworkers!

The Coming Collapse of Evangelicalism

I read a very interesting post over on the Culture Campaign's blog regarding a book by Michael Spencer called The Coming Evangelical Collapse.

Here's the snippet from their post:

We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.

-- From "The coming evangelical collapse" by Michael Spencer, posted on The Christian Science Monitor 3/10/09 edition

Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the "Protestant" 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.

Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I'm convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close.

Why is this going to happen?

* We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. . . .

* There are three kinds of evangelical churches today: consumer-driven megachurches, dying churches, and new churches whose future is fragile. Denominations will shrink, even vanish, while fewer and fewer evangelical churches will survive and thrive.

* Despite some very successful developments in the past 25 years, Christian education has not produced a product that can withstand the rising tide of secularism. Evangelicalism has used its educational system primarily to staff its own needs and talk to itself.

* Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake. Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. Public leaders will consider us bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society.

* The evangelical investment in moral, social, and political issues has depleted our resources and exposed our weaknesses. Being against gay marriage and being rhetorically pro-life will not make up for the fact that massive majorities of Evangelicals can't articulate the Gospel with any coherence.

We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith.

To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.

Also available is the full (original) writing by Michael Spencer

Even as pointed (and accurate) as this assessment is, it is still missing a critical piece – namely that not only are the majority of Evangelicals no longer able to articulate the gospel, but also that for some time we (especially whites) have put comfort over power and security over radical faith, and so we are both powerless and irrelevant to lost people.

For those of you who might be wondering what I’m thinking (… is the theology the problem?) I would say definitely not – essential Evangelical theology is very biblical, in my humble opinion. Besides, Mainline Protestants (of the conservative variety) as well as Catholics are experiencing many of the same problems.

We lost our way long ago when we began to love our lives here too much. The best doctrinal statement in the world is useless if at the end of the day we’re living for ourselves. Prosperity breeds complacency far too often. Loving my life is the death stroke of healthy discipleship and powerful witness.

The lesson in this is that the gospel itself is what once defined Evangelicals, and we have muddied it and co-opted the mission of spreading it so much in the last three generations that we no longer have either an identity or a mission.

There was a time when Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Mennonites, Baptists, Evangelical Free members, Wesleyans, and many others would work together for the gospel despite their differences on other issues. Diffusing our energy to various causes and focusing on filling pews rather than preaching the gospel has done untold harm.

Fortunately, the gates of Hell will, in the end, not prevail against the Church of Jesus Christ. The Church will continue to advance, but the once-great Evangelical movement may no longer be a part of that advance. It is a shame that so many will miss out on all God intended because we were not faithful.

BTW - there are more than three kinds of Evangelical churches. There are the ones who are faithful to the gospel. The problem is that they are the exception, it seems.

Al Mohler on the Future of Evangelicalism

http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=3255

What do you think?