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.

2 June 2008

Dear colleagues in mission,

I want to share with you an historic decision by our Church’s General Assembly Council (GAC). Last month, the Council voted unanimously to reverse a 50 year downward trend in the number of PCUSA mission coworkers by approving a budget for the approval of the 2008 General Assembly that will increase the number of long-term, fully compensated mission personnel. Due to attrition, by this year’s General Assembly in June, we will have just under 200 mission coworkers (this does not include our nearly 70 long-term mission volunteers). The GAC voted to increase the number of our mission coworkers to 210 in 2009, and to 215 in 2010. We are thanking God for this remarkable decision.

But you know how U.S. audiences are tempted to focus on the 7 second sound-byte. Let me go a bit deeper about this important decision and the on-going conversation from which it emerges.

First, let me say what the decision does not mean:

• It doesn’t mean that the hundreds of faithful Presbyterian missionaries who preceded you and me in international mission were wrong when they “worked themselves out of a job”. A couple who gave most of their life to mission work in the Philippines called to ask if an increased number of mission workers means a change in our Church’s historic commitment to partnership and to empowering the church in every place to do ministry on their own. Absolutely not, I assured them. Our Church honors the work they did and notes the multiplier effect that their work has had for the cause of Christ by empowering the partner church to continue in ministry long after the mission worker leaves the country. Our mission workers pioneered “equipping ministry” long before it became a buzzword in U.S. pastoral theology.
• It doesn’t mean that the face of PC(USA) mission has suddenly, curiously, become an American face. We continue to work in partnership around the world. While many of our congregations continue to equate “mission” with “PC(USA) mission worker” (or “missionary”), integrity requires us to acknowledge that most of what God is doing in the many places we work is done primarily through our global partners. Whatever our own sense of call, whatever the financial resources we may have in our pocket, we still owe to our partners the major “say” in the direction of mission in the communities where God has placed them. While Mission Challenge ’07 effectively highlighted the work that our mission personnel are doing, the WM staff team working on World Mission Challenge ’09 is looking at innovative ways to present to the Church a more accurate vision of our work—one that includes our global partners.
• It doesn’t mean that our long-term national or international mission volunteers are not part of our mission personnel. The historical records do not follow the numbers of our long-term mission volunteers with any consistency, thus the GAC had to rely on the number of mission co-workers to provide the base-line. Nor does it mean that international mission personnel are any better or more “worth counting” than national or local mission personnel. Many faithful Presbyterians follow Christ’s call across the street or across the nation and these are equally valid callings, as our Church recognizes. Nor does it mean that Presbyterian mission workers sent by the GAC are better than faithful Presbyterians sent by other Christian, or even non-Christian, organizations. But Presbyterian mission workers sent by the GAC are sent by the whole Church and are responsible to live and minister according to the commitments of our Church as expressed in the decisions of our General Assembly.
• It doesn’t mean that our Church’s faithfulness can be measured by the numbers of mission coworkers we send out (nor by the number of PCUSA members, nor by the total amount of money given by PC(USA) members annually, etc.). The new realm that Jesus inaugurated is more than a “numbers game” and is not, in the final analysis, about budgets and numbers projections. It is found in the quality and integrity of relationships and each of you is giving testimony to these redeemed relationships as you teach, heal, plant churches, educate our Church for mission, work for justice and reconciliation, and help people through difficult times.

But let me share briefly what I believe the decision does represent:

• It clearly represents a major shift in denominational mission policy to dedicate more resources to the sending of international mission personnel. Note that, in order to fulfill the objectives, $4 million must be raised in both 2009 and 2010. This will require much more than the committed leadership of our colleagues in the Communications & Funds Development (CFD) area– it will require CFD and World Mission staff, mission personnel, global partners and mission leaders throughout the denomination to use mission stories to build a bridge between our congregations and the high quality mission work you and our global partners are doing together. This will be one of our greatest challenges in 2009 and 2010 and we cannot achieve it without your help.
• It represents an earnest attempt to recognize that faithfulness requires that we respond to the call of global partners around the world to share mission personnel with them. We currently have more than 40 prioritized, but unfilled, positions where our partners and we agree we should send mission workers. In addition, our Church is called to consider new areas, new partners and new ways of working that will challenge old models of partnership.
• It expresses that our Church highly values the role our mission personnel play in international mission. This is primarily because of the work all of you and your WM staff colleagues do each day.

The rest of the letter contains information mainly for mission co-workers, but Hunter closes like this:

The Bottom Line…

I sometimes think I have the easiest job in the Presbyterian Center because our global partners, mission personnel and World Mission staff in Louisville are highly dedicated, skilled and called to this work. I’m the guy who gets thanked—sometimes, a gazillion times a month—for the good work all of you do every day…which only makes me more grateful for God’s way of working through “wounded healers” like you and me. Your faithfulness helps me to see God’s faithfulness more clearly.

Pray for a continued spirit of expectant anticipation for the changes that God is birthing among us!

With you in Christ,

Hunter Farrell, Director
World Mission
Presbyterian Church (USA)
hunter.farrell@pcusa.org