The Church in Mission

Recently the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) put together two more useful resources for the reflection of local churches partnering with our overseas partners in mission. They are:

An Invitation to Expanding Partnership in God’s Mission, the results of a consultation held in January 2008, and…

Doing Mission in Christ’s Way, created in a workshop held in October 2009.

I think you will find them both very thought provoking, especially helpful for local church mission committee’s and groups preparing to for an overseas mission trip.

http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2008/08718.htm

October 2, 2008

‘An enormous phenomenon’

by Pat Cole
Associate, Mission Communications

LOUISVILLE — Short-term mission trips are “an enormous phenomenon” and “central to the ministry practices of a high proportion” of Christians in the United States, according to a seminary professor who studies the trend.

In a recent address to leaders of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) mission networks, Robert Priest, professor of mission and intercultural studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL, said it is likely that more than 2 million U.S. Christians travel abroad each year on short-term mission trips. 

Participation in international mission trips is particularly high among younger people, he said. In a study of students in 60 U.S. seminaries, Priest found that 48 percent of seminarians had been on an international short-term mission trip and that 67 percent of PC(USA) seminarians had a short-term mission experience abroad. A survey of students in Christian liberal arts colleges revealed that 47 percent of them had traveled internationally on short-term mission trips.

A total of 44 leaders from 31 PC(USA) mission networks  gathered in Louisville Sept. 25–27 to share best practices and participate in training opportunities.  PC(USA) mission networks are composed of Presbyterians who come together around a particular country, region, or other mission interest.

Short-term mission experiences, Priest said, can potentially broaden the horizons of participants, deepen their faith, and contribute to the well-being of communities in developing countries. 

However, such positive outcomes from these trips, which usually last fewer than 14 days, are not automatic.  In fact, Priest noted, many participants fail to try to understand the cultures they visit, can cite little evidence of spiritual transformation as a result of their trips, and engage in giving practices that create unhealthy dependencies.

Nevertheless, in his research with pastors in Peru and Thailand, Priest has found that most pastors in those countries who worked with short-term groups had positive appraisals of them. On a trip to one Latin American city Priest witnessed a large short-term mission team help construct a Protestant church building and staff a medical clinic that offered a variety of services.

“I couldn’t find anybody in that town who thought it (the mission trip group) was anything but wonderful,” Priest said.  The economically poor townspeople appreciated their services and saw that the host congregation had connections with affluent foreigners. Those relationships, he said, raised the esteem of the congregation in the predominately Catholic town.

However, many mission pastors and youth pastors acknowledge that the strategic contributions of short-term mission trips to overseas communities are of limited value, Priest said.  They justify short-term mission, he explained, “in terms of how it positively benefits the sending congregation or youth program.”

As the short-term mission trips began to grow in popularity in the 1980s and 1990s, Priest said some leaders justified the trips by hoping the experience would nudge participants toward long-term mission service or make them more likely to support long-term mission personnel  financially. Research has shown that has not been the case, he said.

“Today the results are clear that the explosion of short-term mission trips coincided with a plateauing and decline of career missions and that short-term mission expansion reflected a redirection of resources away from career missions rather than an increase in the amount given in support of career missions,” Priest said.

Priest, who has interviewed many short-term mission participants, said they experience spiritual transformation more often when they combine international service with work in economically poor communities near their homes.  Some short-term mission participants have built relationships with recent immigrants from countries they visited on mission trips.

Yet a deepened involvement with economically poor people and lifestyle changes are not likely to happen “if you come from a church that doesn’t put justice issues front and center,” he said.

In his interviews with mission trip participants, Priest has found that many people struggle to identify ways they have changed as a result of their mission experience.

Priest recounted the story of one short-term mission trip participant who was eager to be interviewed about his experience. When questioned how he had changed as a result of the trip, the man could only say that he is now a more grateful person.

“Is gratefulness an adequate response to human need?” Priest asked.

We just had a great visit from a group from Myers Park Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, my home town. It was an excellent example of a short term mission trip geared towards listening to our Brazilian partner church and both giving and receiving of mission visions. Read about it at the tab above labeled “myers park.”

There is so much interest in short term mission trips, at least on the receiving end. I’m not so sure this is generating as much interest on the sending end. I am including one more for those who are interested. It comes from missionary and theological educator, Archibald Woodruff, working in Brazil some 20 years partnership with the Independent Presbyterian Church in Brazil. Here is what he has to say:

These are my reflections on Missiology, 34/4 (2006), a special issue devoted to Short-Term Missions (STM’s). The journal is published in Wilmore, Kentucky, and the guest editor of this issue is Robert J. Priest. I was sent a copy by the PCUSA in Louisville, and reflections were invited. I will share these reflections also with my Brazilian church and with Joe Small, both for reasons that will emerge in this paper.

The strong concerns about the all-too-vigorous STM movement did not exactly come out of the blue. Fairly recently I received, from María Arroyo, an eloquent paper (or grito) on the subject by Dennis Smith (By the way, Dennis has had significant professional contact with Leonildo Silveira Campos, a sociologist of religion who belongs to my Brazilian church). Brazil is blessed by distance and high air fares and has thus been spared the tidal wave of STM’s with which Central America and the Caribbean have had to deal. Nevertheless, we do have experience here with mission visits. Personally, I find these articles painful to read in places, because I was part tourist and part STM myself before, at the age of 45, I became a long-term missionary. This part of my history has made me a bit more patient with mission visitors, perhaps, than some of the other long-term missionaries are. Continue Reading »

The whole issue of what is appropriate and what is not for Short Term Mission Trips (STM) continues to generate a number of suggestions. The following are some thoughts by Sherron George, missiologist and educator with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in Brazil. I sympathize with many of her comments. I do not think, however, that the first observation in her second list below, is necessary and may provoke misunderstanding among well-intentioned STMs. It states:

Frame the experience less on an emphasis on the “great commission” and more on Biblical texts which talk about servanthood. By engaging in projects of manual labor in such a manner that we are serving in a subordinate position, traditional roles can be reversed, stereotypes can be corrected, and humility can help overcome our ingrained spirit of triumphalism (Birth). We go and work as servants and followers, not as leaders.

I do not think it is necessary to de-emphasize the “great commission” since that is one of the greatest biblical motivations of many STMs. Rather, one simply needs to teach the “great commission” properly; in other words, remember that making disciples of Jesus (Matthew 28.19) and “teaching them all that I have commanded” (Matthew 28.20) entails being sent as Jesus himself was sent (John 20.21), above all, as a servant (John 12.26; Romans 1.1). Sherron and I are saying the same thing here. I’m simply clarifying that the “great commission” does not need to be emphasized any less in the process.

Sherron suggests two lists, one which presents problems or cautions and the other which offers ways to correct some of them. Here go Sherron’s reflections based on an article by Robert Priest in the periodical, Missiology, 34/4 (2006), a special issue devoted to Short-Term Missions (STM’s): Continue Reading »

From Dennis Smith, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) co-worker in Guatemala, for the information and comments of mission personnel who receive groups.

Do No Harm
A Contemporary Reflection on Missiology

Here’s the bottom line: These days most local churches have decided that mission is too important to be left to their denomination. Now, most churches keep the money that used to finance denominational mission efforts and send it directly to their mission partners, or they go and do mission themselves.

That means that your mission committees have become, in effect, Boards of Local, National and World Mission.

What does this mean on the ground? Maribel, my wife, and I are PC(USA) missionaries. That means we work for you. Our salary is paid by our denomination. If you don’t send mission money to the PC(USA), we’ve got a problem! I’ve been a PC(USA) missionary for 29 years. Our current term ended in October, 2006. Cedepca, the PC(USA) mission partner we work for, requested that we be reappointed for a new 5-year assignment. In August we heard from Louisville that we would only be reappointed for 20 months. The reason? Money. Continue Reading »

Here is another reflection on short-term mission trips by local churches from the perspective of who goes. Hope this is helpful…

Are Short-Term Mission Trips Worth It?

by Dale Meador

Are short-term mission trips worth it? That question has again been much on my mind, inasmuch as I have just returned from one. Along with six other friends from our church, my brother Gil and son Stephen and I went for two weeks to Santarem, Brazil. In the heart of the Amazon River basin, Santarem is home to Project Amazon (PAZ), an effective church-planting ministry to which Bear Creek Church has enjoyed warm ties for five or six years. In support of PAZ’s diverse ministries (medical/dental boats, water filters, health education, Bible teaching, leadership development, and the planting of more than 300 churches, to name a few) we built 31 heavy wooden seats to be used in a leadership training facility (built by another, earlier team from BCC) in the small river village of Prainha, to which we sailed and where we assembled the seats.

Are short-term mission trips worth it? The question is reasonable and one I struggled with myself, before I had ever been on such a trip. After all, this trip was grueling and not inexpensive. Figured one way, it was 8 people x 64 hours of air travel (round-trip) each, including 18 take-offs or landings + 17 hours of boat travel (again, round-trip) to cover just 110 miles of ocean-like river. The total cost of the trip itself was about $16,000, a figure that includes the material used in the manufacture of the 31 benches (really, more like pews than benches). Continue Reading »

Recently. I received the following review from the World Mission Program Unit of the PCUSA concerning mission trips taken by local congregations. It may be of some use to your group, if you are considering a trip. I will post another view as well, but here is this one from the former president of the Evangelical Presbyterian and Reformed Church in Peru, Rodrigo Maslucan:

Short Term Missions in Peru: Analysis and Proposals

Introduction

Five years ago, I had the desire to meet foreign missions groups that were coming to help our church. The Evangelical Reformed Presbyterian Church of Peru (IEPRP), of which I am a pastor, began to have a relationship through personal contacts with the PC(USA) in 1997, developing in the city of Iquitos and the church of Moyobamba.

As a result of a negative experience in Iquitos, the church felt the need to communicate with the PC(USA). It was regarding a problem that happened because of inadequate missiological principles, and the inadequate guidelines that were used by some short-term missionaries sent by an NGO independent of the PC(USA).

Thanks to the invitation from Dr. Paredes, director of the Andean Amazon Evangelic Center of Missiology, to participate in a case study on short-term missions under the direction of Dr. Robert Priest, director of the doctorate on missiology of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, I was able to take an up-close look at what short-term missions are, and what impact they have in Peru.

In this paper I will present a simple analysis and proposal for the church regarding short-term missions, with the end of giving a detailed contribution about what is happening in Peru and what guidelines should be followed for the future, especially with regard to the IEPRP and the PC(USA), and churches from other countries. Short-term missions are a new phenomenon in the US, Canada, and European countries. How did short-term mission originate? Why did it originate? What are the positive and negative aspects that it poses for long-term career missionaries? What are the new mission ideologies and how do we understand them in the context of globalization and post-modernity? What are the challenges posed to the churches and Theological Institutions regarding missiology that are being investigated? Because of the length of such questions, I will not be able to cover all of this. May the Lord illuminate the missiologists to investigate these mission models to help the churches with the objective of improving short-term missions, and giving a challenge to the theological institutions. Continue Reading »