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

Something To Think About

A story from a missionary to India...

My alarm went off at 4:30 a.m. this morning... way too early for my exhausted, jet-lagged body. But this was one morning I didn’t want to sleep in. I wanted to be on the River Ganges by dawn... I had traveled half way around the world to witness the sights and smells that were truly unbelievable.

By the time we arrived at the riverbank, thousands of people were already busy washing themselves in the filthy water. Hindus believe that if they ceremoniously bathe in this most holy of all rivers, their sins will be washed away.

But the waters of the Ganges are polluted by raw sewage, trash, dead bodies and ashes of cremated humans. Every day over 100 bodies are burned in Varanasi and their ashes sprinkled in the river. Hindus believe that this allows their loved ones direct access to heaven. I saw piles of wood . . . the smoke from the burning bodies . . . family members weeping . . . with little or no hope.

My heart was broken. Everywhere I looked there were people in the water, pouring water on their heads and actually drinking it. Some had brass pots where they scooped up water, held the pot over their head and slowly poured it into the river. Many folded their hands and prayed . . . Hindu holy men with painted faces and bright orange clothing chanted . . . music was playing in the background . . . all this was being sincerely done in an act of worship . . . asking for forgiveness.

As we glanced all around us at the masses of people . . . our hearts were broken.

Yesterday, we had met with about 70 of our World Help church planters in a secluded location. We had driven through over 100 isolated villages on our way to this meeting and I counted more than 75 Hindu temples and shrines . . . but no churches.

World Help’s senior vice president, Tom Thompson, brought greetings as we prayed with them, worshipped with them and encouraged them. They had seen over 5,600 new churches planted just in the last year in Northern India and thousands of new Christ followers have been baptized.

These church planters get together once a month for three days of training, strategizing and encouragement. They told us incredible stories of how God is building His kingdom in Northern India.

One of our church planters, Zul Fakar, was working in a very dangerous and persecuted area, when militant anti-Christians ambushed him in an alley and beat him to death . . . He died on August 10. He had been a believer for only 15 months, yet he already had 25 converts and two churches established in unreached villages. His wife, Rabia, was encouraged to deny her faith and come back to her home village. She said, "My husband died for his faith in Jesus Christ . . . the best way I can honor his memory is to spend my life serving the one he died for."

It was a sobering reminder that these church planters are in life and death situations every day as they take the good news to villages that do not have a church of any kind.

As I floated down the River Ganges early this morning, overwhelmed by the spiritual darkness that totally enveloped these truly "religious" people, I couldn’t help but think of these church planters. I was actually looking into the faces of thousands of sincere idol worshippers and realized that no one had ever told them that it was not the dirty, polluted waters of the River Ganges that washes away their sins, but only the shed blood of Jesus Christ. They have never heard of Jesus . . . they have never heard the Gospel . . . they are totally unreached.

And then I prayed for our church planters . . . asking that God would continue to give them boldness and courage and use them to shine the light of God into all of this spiritual darkness. Please keep our team in your thoughts and prayers and please pray for our church planters who pay such a high price to follow Jesus Christ.

Thank you and God bless you,
Vernon Brewer

Quote of the Day

“Behind the shameful apathy and lethargy of the church, that allows one thousand millions of human beings to go to their graves in ignorance of the Gospel, there lies a practical doubt, if not denial, of their lost condition.” – A.T. Pierson