So, here are 7 ways short-term missions trips can be helpful:
1. They can help confirm one's calling. Short-term missions can help one experience the mission field in order to see if this is the environment into which God is calling them. Many a missionary’s clarity of call came through short-term trips. Additionally, other vocations are frequently confirmed or rejected as a result of the uniqueness of the mission trip.
2. They create an environment in which one can hear God speak clearly. Short-term trips provide a unique environment outside of our normal routines, and often outside of normal mobile phone receptions, where we tend to be more apt to discern the promptings and whispers of the Spirit.
3. They help get the gospel into hard-to-reach places. Some native Christian ministries are unwilling or unable to go to some of the places that are hardest to reach. Due to the vast amount of needs of the more populated areas and the limited resources some of these ministries have access to, not to mention the political and social corruption through which they often have to navigate, remote villages remain unreached. As a result, short-term mission teams are critical in reaching these people with the gospel.
4. They provide another avenue for fulfilling the Great Commission. At the end of the day, believers are called to be witnesses wherever they are and wherever God leads them. Short-term mission trips help people fulfill the call to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. Also, people really do get saved through these trips.
5. They support and encourage career missionaries. Career missionaries often get lonely and feel forgotten. They are literally strangers in a foreign land. Short-term trips help provide them with biblical support and encouragement in a unique way.
6. They help people see, smell, and taste other areas of the world. Videos are not sufficient to communicate the needs, the lostness, the living conditions, and other difficulties that many of our brothers and sisters around the world face. Going in-person often stimulates prayers, passions, and support in a way stay-at-home experiences cannot.
7. They remind us of the diversity of heaven. The Kingdom will be made up of people from every tribe. When we travel, we are reminded that God is building his church and the church is much larger than our ethnicity or nationality. It reminds us of the beauty and the granduer of the kingdom that awaits all who are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.
CREW Student Ministry will be taking a Short Term Mission Trip to Honduras July 13-20th. If you would like to help sponsor a student please see Pastor T.
My friend. I came to your blog after reading the "Open letter to Pornography". I enjoyed it so much that I stayed to read through the some of the rest. I am not trying to discourage you, but this one hurt. (18 years in Remote Kenya) Calling is not to a place, but to a person. If you are not witnessing and sharing the gospel here, you won't there. God does not speak clearer in a foreign country, but the quiet of removal of technology and language can help. We could do that also in the states serving in our communities... They don't help get the gospel to hard-to-reach places... They have no credibility in most third world countries. They are viewed as sources of aid to be "milked", their words, not mine. It was known that anyone who 'sourced' help was to get 10% of that help under the table as a finders fee. (There are some tent making serves like english as a second language that can be of use.) Are they fulfilling the great commission? Can they speak the language, disciple, and teach them? "teaching them to observe all that I have commanded them?" Some real examples from my life, evangelism saw 300-500 come forward, but not one of them showed up in any of the churches / meetings in the next month... We worked almost ten years before we saw the first none attached (no Christian Family member) tribal person come to a real, life changing commitment to follow the Lord. 5. We viewed Short termers as an opportunity to disciple in our own language, some of the one we cared about. Many were not saved, many were struggling to understand real discipleship for the First time. The greatest encouragement was the, sometimes for the first time, visit of one of the church staff that came with them. WE asked for a visit from an older man or church elder, family. Only one came. Most short termers are now being used to support the work on the mission field, by bring / raising money for the work while they come. That hurts to say, but I have seen organizations that have built all there infrastructure through short term team support. A typical team used $30,000 dollars plus in two to three weeks. Over half my budget, while I lived on $18000 a year.
ReplyDeleteLet me give you a couple of thoughts on what I found helpful. 1. Admit this is for the team, not for the locals. You are coming as servants, to help, but also to disciple your kids. Focus on them both in selling this and in the planned activities. Morning and evening devotions, time to talk, girls with the wife, boys with the Dad on the field... 2. Require that they choose someone / something to pray for and support with as little of much as God leads them to for the next calendar year. (This opens their eyes to their responsibilities and the needs of the ministry.) 3. Send the Pastor first to plan the trip and to look for the needs that they are coming to help with, then get the people to fill those needs first... 4. Remember the language barrier. Have one youth group that helped in New Orleans and then in Detroit through a 'sister' church. EXCELLENT idea. No language issues, realizing the needs in our own neighbors, understanding and seeing sin in a way that wasn't so foreign and with medical and physical help available if trouble comes.
Just some thoughts. Delete if you want to, but I hope you think on it. It is popular, but that doesn't mean it is always right.
Love in Christ,
The one who said he wouldn't go
(PS I am home now Pastoring a church)