Take a Trip, Change Your Life

I've taken exactly two short-term mission trips in my life. Both were in high school. One was, shall we say, unfruitful. That is, I came back with a nice Florida sunburn but not much in the way of spiritual maturity. The second was life-impacting.

That trip was to the Appalachian Mountains (the exact state is foggy, but the "mountain" part sticks because of the hike to my "home base" camp every morning). I served, along with other members of my high school youth group, as counselors for a Christian day camp for disadvantaged children. By day, we would take the boys and girls for crafts, do devotions sitting on our rocks, cook "hobo lunches" over a fire and just love on them. By night, we would head to where our youth group was camping. We'd cook, play, remove any ticks and reflect a little about the difference between our lives and the kids.

I grew up some on that trip. I started learning that the Christian walk wasn't just about fun youth group outings and trying to stay on the right side of God's rules. It was about serving. To this day, I still remember those lessons and I still sing a silly song I learned on that trip ("The Peanut Butter Song") with my own kiddos and my preschool choir.

According to some recent research by the Barna Group, I'm not alone. The study found that of those Americans who have participated in a short-term mission trip, three-quarters of them report that the experience changed them in some way. The most common areas of personal growth included: becoming more aware of other people's struggles (25%), learning more about poverty, justice or the world (16%), increasing compassion (11%), deepening or enriching their faith (9%) and boosting financial generosity (5%).

However, according to Barna, only 9% of Americans have ever been on such a trip (23% of "Evangelicals" have). Barna Researcher David Kinnaman stated:

"this research does not measure the benefit to the people being helped, since we only interviewed Americans for this project. But short-term missions clearly benefit the people providing the assistance. Many pastors, parents and teachers are searching for ways to transform hearts and minds. One promising way to go about changing people’s perspectives is to go on a service adventure together."

One clear trend in this study was the enthusiasm that "Mosaics" (18- to 25-year-olds) have for participating in short-term mission trips. David Kinnaman points out that Mosaics are typically globally aware, cause-oriented, more sensitive to issues related to justice and poverty and also relish diverse experiences.

"Their craving to take journeys of service could fuel a resurgence of global engagement," Kinnaman stated.

But, he warns, both church leaders and Mosaics need to be intentional about channeling that enthusiasm into trips that will challenge young adults to serve authentically and grow spiritually:

"... [T]he danger would be if leaders and organizations waste the Mosaic generation’s readiness by simply allowing young adults to be mere ‘consumers of cause’ - selling them a t-shirt or a wristband, instead of challenging them to life-shaping service projects."

I think that's a good warning. I know from experience. From Florida, I got a t-shirt. From Appalachia, I got some wisdom from God.

And since I've been convicted lately to associate with people outside my own circle and give generously, maybe I need to be looking at taking a trip soon too.

Comments

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1. Rachael said the following at 10:26 AM on Jan 8:

Here's an idea to add to the missions trips idea:

Maybe church groups can encourage kind-of invisible service 'projects' where individuals help others in need on an individual or practically individual basis, and relatively anomyously. I know it shouldn't be the responsibility of a group to push this, and perhaps if there were a group that did this, it could turn into something where the members bragged about what they did.

But if this type of group were formed, even though it'd have its flaws, I wonder if it would start shaping the minds/hearts of its members to be on the lookout for those in need even in post-group days.

I wish I had a bent to be wonderful and strong in the invisible servanthood sense in all settings, but I'm selfish. I wonder if something like that would help train me.

Even being the recipient or hearer of invisible selfless acts may act as a kind-of 'training', at least in the sense of heightened awareness. This has happened to me recently (hearing of others' offered service). And it's very nice. Like hearing that someone said, "I'll bake _________ for ______" or receiving an e-mail where someone accepted duties in an honorable way. A big part of what makes their acts of service neat is their eager, willing attitudes.

Anyway, again I'm rambling, but I do appreciate peoples' willing hearts, and I hope I'll become a person who makes silent, good-attituded sacrifices for others as people have sacrificed for me.

2. Carrie (the original) said the following at 1:26 PM on Jan 8:

For the first time since I have been part of it, someone from my church is spear heading a short term mission trip to the Middle East this summer.

They are trying to recruit me into going . . . I am praying about it and this article is helping guide me.

Thanks.

3. Matthew said the following at 1:26 PM on Jan 8:

Short-term mission trips are really good in a lot of ways (and I know that I have really been changed by the ones I've been on), but I just want to offer one quick word of caution: we have to be choosy about the trips we go on. Many short-term mission trips are designed so that the Americans get to feel like they're "doing something" and they're not always doing what is best. There is also the problem of dependency, explored in this excellent article.

I also wrote some about this a little on my blog and there's a shorter summary of some of the issues from the Wall Street Journal.

Overall, the trips that have had the biggest impact on me were the ones in which I was there for a longer period of time (6 weeks or more) and the ones in which I interacted the most with local people and let them set the agenda for what I did (which was mostly observing their ministry.)

Steve Saint has also been writing and speaking quite a bit about this.

4. Tamara said the following at 3:08 PM on Jan 8:

A short term missions trip I went on in high school definitely had an impact on my life - to the point where I work where I do because of it. We were working in the inner city with the homeless and the working poor and God grew in me in those two weeks a love and compassion for these people. I am now using my education in a way that I never thought I would and helping people that need our love. Short term missions trip that actually challenge you to get involved and serve are a great thing!

5. Kelly said the following at 8:51 AM on Jan 9:

Hmmm. I'm not yet convinced of the value of short-term-missions above other ways of helping.

Let's be honest here. Going to an exotic location, under the guise of serving God for 1 or 2 weeks, is really just a way to make you feel good about your vacation. Sure, you might help build a school or something, and of course you will deepen your relationship with God, but think of it this way:

- You spend a lot of money on plane tickets and accommodation
- You're a resource drain on the local area (food, water)
- You're part of a 'team' rather than getting to know locals as an individual
- What are the chances you actually have building experience? I'm a thin girl; I don't have that much strength in my arms. I can try my best but I'm sure a local man could do in 1/4 of the time what I could do. (That's the way God made us: men are generally physically stronger.)

Now, if you channelled all of your money directly into the community, without actually being there, surely it would be much better to hire locals to build the new structure!

---

So how can we gain compassion for these people? Can we not believe how they are hurting without seeing it with our own eyes?

I have travelled a lot in life. The experiences have changed me deeply. I've channelled money into the local community through tourism - staying with locals, purchasing local food, tipping reasonably. It allows locals to feel like they have *earned* an income rather than relying on foreigners with pockets full of cash to dispense at random intervals.

How would you feel if a bus full of people from another country came to your community, built you an orphanage, and then just left?

What happens when the missions group leaves? Life goes on much as it had before; maybe they have a new building, but they need long-term missionaries in place to continue their understanding of God.

Because THAT is what it's all about. We're to witness the truth of God, not drop in, do something to make ourselves feel good, and run off again.

(And I am equally guilty of this with tourism.)

6. Rosalie said the following at 8:53 AM on Jan 9:

Hello everyone

Mathew, thanks for the links. I think these articles argue some very good points and have given me much food for thought.

I felt quite convicted. I’m a first year doctor trying to discern if God is calling me to being a “career missionary” and use my medical skills (which are still needing much additional training) to show God’s love for people in under-resourced areas. My only personal experience of mission trips and overseas mission in general was spending 3 months at a mission hospital about a year ago. As I expected I wasn’t that helpful. Hopefully I learned a thing or two that will help when / if I do this sort of thing in the future and it did grow my dependence on God and grow my interest in overseas mission. However with the business of life after returning to my home country I have not stayed as “connected” (in prayer or communication) to the mission hospital as I had hoped.

For a while now I have been dubious of what is accomplished by super-short (less than a month) mission trips. Especially when a big team is sent all together and they appear to spend more time amongst themselves than with either local nationals or long-term missionaries. However as I have never been on a trip like that myself I am giving an opinion from the outside, and I don’t doubt that for some these can be good jumping off points to further interest (either raising money, prayer support, of going long term themselves).

I thought it was interesting what the veto one of the articles had on short term medical trips. I can see why they could be problematic, but I would argue that visiting specialist teams can add support (professional & spiritual) to long term / local professionals on the ground as well as prepare people for more long term work.

-peace in Christ, Rosalie

7. Nancy said the following at 8:56 AM on Jan 9:

I hope more churches look for chances to serve at home, too. So often those in need, the illiterate, the hurting, the Christ-less are right in our backyard. It is a shock to realize that two miles from your own home are people in great need. Our church began a ministy like this a few years ago, and we are swamped by the need in our own small, Midwestern city.

I know that being out of one's own environment sometimes allows us to hear God's voice more clearly, so there's definitely a benefit to going elsewhere too.

8. Matthew said the following at 2:25 PM on Jan 9:

Hi Rosalie,

I'm a 2nd year med student who's really interested in medical missions and I just wanted to follow up on a few things you said. If you're not connected with your local CMDA chapter, you should find a way to get in touch with them! Also, there is a great medical missions conference (www.medicalmissions.com) every year in Louisville, KY that is an incredible resource for medical missions. They do not shy away from asking the tough questions you touch on in your post about effectiveness, strategy, dependency, etc. and what will truly advance the Kingdom of God.

God may certainly want you to live & practice in the U.S. and support missions through prayer & finances, or go on short-term trips. The CMDA short-term trips are always incredibly professional, connected to local church planting, and try very hard to be sustainable and good for the long-term health of the community. He might also have a calling for you to do longer-term medical missions (He certainly has for me.) In either case, He will equip you appropriately and put you in the place where you will serve-- sometimes not in the most obvious ways, as I'm sure you learned at the mission hospital! Some mission docs practice, other teach, others do community health, and still others do administration or other work. There are huge needs everywhere and well-trained doctors can be incredible ambassadors for Christ.

Still, I would encourage you to keep pursuing your interest and distilling out what God has called you to, and I recommend any and all of the CMDA resources. Another good website is Ask a Missionary.

9. Leah said the following at 8:36 PM on Jan 9:

There are SO many things to take into consideration with short term missions.

I'm not sure if I'm convinced that the benefits outweight the negatives when it comes to churches establishing short-term missions overseas. That is a lot of money for the small amount of help being delivered. Like Kelly (5) said. I saw a short-term mission advertised once which interested me. It cost $3000, and since I was in my first year of uni, unlikely I'd be able to save that much. I also thought that giving $3000 to the missionaries already there would be far more helpful than having an inexperienced helper for 2 weeks.

Of course short-term missions are not just to benefit the pre-established missionaries, but the short-term missionaries too. But it's all about balance. I think many overseas short-term missions are over-balanced the wrong way.

Having said that, I've been on 4 domestic short-term missions. In Australia, we have a national evangelical student union called Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students, or AFES. Each year it runs a conference in our capital (Canberra) where students from all over the country come. After 4.5 days of conference, each campus group goes to a location around the country to "put into practice" some of the things they learnt at the conference. Many go back to their own city if it's close by, but for campus groups who have travelled across the country, they often go to a church in Sydney (3 hour drive from Canberra). Sydney is easily large enough to accommodate dozens of campus groups. My campus group always went to Sydney. We often had so many students that our staffworker split us into 3 or 4 different mission groups, hosted by 3 mission churches and often the youth detention centre.

I believe these short-term missions (usually only 4.5 days) were excellent. They did not cost much (relatively speaking)- we only paid for the conference and transport. (For those of us who had to fly the length of the country, that became a bit more expensive). This usually came to about $600. While on mission, we were billeted by church families or would sleep in the church hall. So while we would become a burden upon individual families, we tried not to be upon the church itself. The churches (and our host families) would continually say how thankful they were that we'd come to help. This is always in the first week of December, so we do things like helping with Carols services, going door-to-door inviting people to church, helping out in school religion lessons, doing Christmas concerts in schools, etc.

Our staffworker also arranges many missions in the least glamorous parts of Sydney :P While we often stayed in Sydney for an additional day after mission ended (to do the tourist thing!), we never had a spare moment during mission to do anything like that. I think it was a good balance of benefit to the hosts, benefit to the students, with relatively little cost.

Another short-term mission our church is currently involved in is in Vanuatu. There is a theological college that the Presbyterian Church of Australia has been helping. They send "work parties" (people who have experience in construction) and "youth parties" (young people who can just lend another pair of hands for tasks that do not require special experience; painting walls, building brick walls, etc etc). A few people from our church have been involved; two young people have gone over as part of the youth parties, and one of our electricians has gone over to help with the installation of electrical equipment. Other adults have gone to help build the new library at the college. These are tasks that pre-established missionaries simply can't do on their own. I think trips like these are ones where you really can't find a negative at all, except for the cost of flights!

10. Rosalie said the following at 9:36 AM on Jan 12:

Hi Matthew,

I was very amused when you said that God may want me to live / practice in the U.S. It would take a lot of convincing from God for me to be a doctor in the USA. I live in New Zealand (where I also trained). Although I may move back to Canada where I used to live (and where my parents still do), I think I would find extremely difficult to work in the private medical system that exists in the States (please don’t be offended, anyone). But I can never say never because I don’t know what God has in store for me. I realise it’s an easy mistake to make though because most people on the blog are on from the USA. Hence Louisville, KY is quite a commute for me but it’s cool to know those sort of conferences exist.

Yes, I am quite involved with the NZ version of CMDA (I helped organised the first national conference they for many years a couple of years ago). It’s still reasonably small after a number of years without much activity except for a few local student groups. The small town I’m now working in doesn’t have a group (yet) but there are a few Christian docs in the here that I’ve meet.

I think God is pulling my heart toward long (ie at least 5-10 years) term missions but I am still waiting for a specific call or more direction or even more open doors. Amongst other things I’m trying to figure out what (developed world) post-graduate medical training I can do that will be helpful when / if God does call me to the (developing world) mission field. I chose to work in the hospital I’m in now as it has a good reputation for general experience and hands on learning for junior docs. I’m blessed to know a few doctors who are a little bit further down the road to being missionary doctors which is a big encouragement and gives me ideas on how to move forward.

Thanks for the resources you have suggested. All the best for your journey toward which ever unreached people group that God directs you to.

-Peace in Christ, Rosalie

11. Esther said the following at 9:47 AM on Jan 12:

I've always been skeptical of short-term missions because of the fund-raising aspect, as well as the tourism bit. When high-schoolers hit up all their relatives for money so they can take a week-long trip with all their friends to an exotic country to spend 3 days doing some painting or teach a VBS at a school and 2 days sightseeing, it just seems like a waste of resources. Especially when the focus is on what the kids 'got out of it'. I'd much rather people put their money towards established long-term missionaries.
I was also shocked recently to see Oprah funding 'missions-trip' style projects to Africa- minus the missions part! The kids were saying all the same things that I've heard after church trips: "changed my life", "expanded my understanding of other cultures", etc. We need to be sure that our trips are not just a feel-good activity.

12. Matthew said the following at 2:58 PM on Jan 12:

Rosalie,

haha... oops! lacking the appropriate information, I went for broke and made some assumptions, whoops!

What you're doing now sounds a lot like the advice I've heard-- I hope I get to land in a place during my postgraduate training with good mentors like yours! The only thing that I would suggest in preparation for missions is to think about an MPH if you're interested in that field (I really want to do community health & clinical practice, so I know I'll get one eventually.) But you've probably heard that already.

God bless you in your endeavors as you seek to serve Him in the field of medicine!