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Fulfilling the Church’s mission two weeks at a time

by: Rebecca Barnes, editor

Part one: Who’s making disciples of whom?

The swell of short-term mission trips over the last 25 years has changed the way many churches view not only the world, but The Great Commission to go into all of it and make disciples. The number of lay Christians involved in short-term missions trips has increased from about 22,000 a year in 1979 to an estimated one to four million last year alone.

"It’s just absolutely grown like crazy," says Chris Clum, executive director of Experience Mission, a three-year-old non-profit organization that specializes in arranging short-term mission trips for church and other groups. Clum has been involved in short-term missions since 1984 and says he started working with Experience Mission in order to address where the movement is headed. With so much momentum, missions experts have begun to question the direction that short-term trips have taken as a part of an overall church mission strategy.

"I think we’re wrestling with [the issue,]"Clum says.

He says he has watched the trend in missions become centered on the people who go on trips rather than on the people they visit. Personal life change has become the impetus for many short-term trips—something Clum said is the wrong philosophy for missions. "It really not ought to be all about us," he says.

Others agree. Dr. David Mays, Great Lakes Regional Director for Advancing Churches in Missions Commitment (ACMC) and the author of several practical resources on missions for the local church, is a consultant for healthy church missions. His work with ACMC connects churches to one another to learn about effective missions ministries.

He says the benefits of a short-term trip should not end with those who go.

"There’s no doubt that there are benefits for yourself, whenever you do God’s will," Mays says. But, he says an effective mission trip will also benefit the missionary on the field, those served, and the sending church. Mays goes even further to say, "The bigger purpose is what God wants to accomplish in the world."

However, according to others, God is also using life change through short-term missions travelers to change the world.

Chris McDaniel is director of development for DELTA Ministries International, a non-profit group that supports churches that want to become more involved in cross-cultural outreach. While McDaniel agrees that the focus of short-term missions should not end with those who go, he says it is still valid to use trips as a discipleship tool.

"The reality is that God, I don’t think, is ever singularly focused with short-term missions," McDaniel says. He says there is value in any life changes—whether on the part of a traveler or host—and short-term trips often transform individuals who then in turn transform their churches and the world.

"The short-term experience is basically a catalyst for life change. So churches should capture and harness that energy that comes back from the field." Whatever the philosophy, with so many Americans embarking on short-term mission trips, McDaniel says churches have a responsibility to address the trend.

One area where churches have been found lacking is with effective follow-up. Until recently literature and resources for follow up was also sparse. So last year, DELTA, along with the National Network of Youth Ministries Missions Affinity Network and more than 30 national mission organizations published a program called "The Next Mile."

This follow-up discipleship curriculum defines a successful short-term mission experience as "one that brings about a long-term commitment to God's purpose in the lives of those participating." Clearly this is traveler-oriented rather than missionary or people group oriented. Self-paced devotionals encourage returning team members to stretch their experience into a life changing milestone.

Even so, according to the news release, the curriculum has earned an endorsement from the U.S. Standards of Excellence in Short-term Mission (SOE). And Mays says he offers the curriculum to churches looking for follow up resources, even though he says he cringes when he hears churches say they are using short-term missions as a discipleship tool for their own people.

"There’s sort of an insidious sense in which our ‘me-ism’ gets into missions," he says.

On the other hand, trips can often decrease selfishness among those who go, and even broaden and deepen people as they become a part of cross-cultural outreach, Mays says. That’s important for churches. "We always have to fight this tendency to become ingrown and self-absorbed and I think missions really helps that."

Can North American churches make disciples in other nations while also making disciples of those who embark on short-term missions trips? Doing both seems to be the only way to insure a healthy church mission program.

Don’t miss part two of this series: Swallowing short-term missions holistically.