December
2004
Mission Trips – What
Are We Doing?
…a brief analysis by David
Mays
|
A question about short-term
missions in a book review snapped me to attention. “Is this the first major missionary movement
carried out primarily for the personal benefit of the missionaries?” (Timothy Paul Erdel, Evangelical Missions
Quarterly, April 2004, p. 250) This question raises some
important issues. Why do we do
trips? Who are they for? What are we trying to accomplish? Are we doing them in ways that accomplish
what we hope? There are at least three
possible beneficiaries:
Initially, many church leaders promoted mission
trips to increase awareness and commitment in the goers and sometimes in the
congregation. Trips were expected to
“prime the pump” to increase missions prayer and financial support and to
produce long-term missionaries. During the last decade the number of trips and the
number of people going on trips have skyrocketed. A nearby church sent 300 people on one trip to Mexico. Another church reported they are sending
200 people each year. A third church
reported their goal to have someone on a mission trip every day year round. At the same time, prayer, money, and new
missionaries are not showing a sharp incline. When I ask church leaders what they are doing to follow up
these trips and ensure that missions becomes an ongoing part of the life of
trippers and the congregation, the answers are embarrassingly inadequate. Efforts to leverage trips into long-term
results have been crowded out by the energy required to prepare and conduct
the trips. And the talk is all about
planning more trips. I’m reminded of
the saying, “Having lost sight of the objective, he redoubled his efforts!” Over the past 18 years of
working with churches in missions, I have noticed a trend in the way churches
spend missions money. In the 80’s, it
wasn’t unusual to hear missions committee members, often older people, say
that they didn’t want to join ACMC or go to a missions conference because it
would cost money that could be given to missionaries. Missions promotion in churches was often
cheap, childish, and embarrassing.
Missions committees maximized funds for supporting missions and
minimized expenses. In this decade, church
advertising for missions has taken a great leap in quality. Churches are spending more money promoting
missions but I wonder if they are producing more missionaries and spending as
much on ministry. The meteoric rise of mission
trips is an example of this trend.
Someone probably overestimated that one million individuals went on
mission trips last year. Mission
trips are costly. A great deal of
money is spent to support mission trips.
Don Parrott says, “The short-term missions market is consuming a large
proportion of the available resources for the total missions effort.”
(Evangelical Missions Quarterly, July 2004, 40 (3) 357) In addition to motivating the goers, most trips are expected to contribute to a particular missionary endeavor, and those returning often feel very fulfilled in what they accomplished. Many make substantial contributions to the Kingdom. But for most the primary result may be recruiting more people to go on trips. I recently sat through a 90-minute missions trip report. The main appeal to the audience was to go on a trip. A secondary request was to pray for a missionary. There was no mention of giving money for the support of missions. This week a senior pastor said in an email, “We do a
really good short-term mission trip at Southway, but our outreach at home is
languishing.” He seems to be saying
that one (or perhaps more than one) mission trip constitutes their missions
outreach! What was once a preparation step has become the primary goal. The mission trip has become an end in itself. Missionaries and the mission field are the means to these ends. Subtly, ends become means and means become ends. Here are some questions to ask about your missions trips:
Let’s look at an over
simplification of how missions works: Goal - God receives glory when lost people come to know Him and live for Him. Missions - Where the church is
non-existent or weak, disciples from other places and cultures are sent to
live among the people, get to know them, love them, help them, witness to
them and/or train and assist the local believers to do so. Sending - Christians are sent to
do the above when local churches disciple, recruit, train, send, support,
encourage and pray for them. As we do missions in the local
church it would be well to keep the goal in view and remember this
pattern. Each step is valuable as it
contributes to the top line. Our natural bent is to do what
benefits us or to help others in ways that benefit us. Rightly viewed, missions is not an
activity we undertake because of what it does for us (although as a wonderful
side benefit, we receive much from it).
Missions is not what we do for ourselves. Further, mission trips, once
meant to increase long-term missions, can be detrimental. One reader of this article wrote, “In my
church we have given notice to two (missionary) couples that this is the last
year we will provide support. Both of these couples we have supported
for more than twenty years. The reason given was we needed those funds
to send out more of our short-term workers.” Mission trips are a powerful tool in the missions
enterprise. But they aren’t the only
tool. Misused they are a huge waste
of money at best and a serious hindrance to effective missions at worst. Here are some recommendations: A. For contribution to field ministry.
B. For increasing prayer, financial, and long term missions involvement.
It is imperative to make the
maximum possible contribution to the glory of God in all the earth and to
keep the ends the ends and the means the means. ------- For
mission trip guidelines see the Short-Term Standards by the Fellowship of
Short-Term Missions Leaders, www.stmstandards.org |