Short Term Missions: Coupling Education and Service

This last March I led a team of 7 of us to Mexico City where we served with two of our partners Amextra and Partners in Hope. This was the second time that I took a team on this trip, and in all of my experiences in mission trips this has stood out as the most impactful for those who went. You can read about my previous post on this type of trip at A Different Kind of Mission Trip.

Here’s a blurb about these two partners that work together:

Partners in Hope

We facilitate transformation through an intense immersion experience in Mexico, called the PiH Seminar. The PiH Seminar includes 5-10 days of living in Mexico City, one of the largest cities in the world, a city, where chaos, poverty and injustice abound. Through the Seminar, participants experience first-hand the lives of people, the work of Christ- centered organizations who serve among the poor, and the hope that God brings through transformation.

Amextra

The Mexican Association for Rural and Urban Transformation, has offered continuous service to marginalized communities in Mexico throughout the last 21 years. We have been present in 11 of 32 states, in 300 different communities. We have accompanied more than 75,000 people in holistic transformation processes, with the support of more than 800 promoters.

There are a couple of unique things that have made this trip different than other ones:

1. We live in a Quaker hostel in Mexico City.
2. The trip is designed around seminars.
3. The trip is part service, part education.
4. The students are exposed to a variety of views (theological, political, economical, etc.)

I have been on no other mission trip that has been so disorienting in such an amazing way for students. They come back to their homes with a completely different outlook on the world, God, etc.

This is just an example of how trips can be different. We based this trip heavily on education, coupled with service. The goal is that the educational piece will really give great depth to the service, therefore causing a deeper transformation of their thought and practice.

What are the key components of a great, transformational mission trip? Give an example of what you have done?

 

Short Term Missions: Are They a Waste of Money and Non-Effective?

Andrew Jones had a post the other day on “Are Short Term Missions a Waste of Money?.” Andrew has 10 very good responses, which stem from the article in the Washington Post called “Churches Retool Mission Trips.“

Here are some thought provoking and interesting statements from the article:

Critics scornfully call such trips “religious tourism” undertaken by “vacationaries.” Some blunders include a wall built on the children’s soccer field at an orphanage in Brazil that had to be torn down after the visitors left. In Mexico, a church was painted six times during one summer by six different groups. In Ecuador, a church was built but never used because the community said it was not needed.

The curriculum, for example, warns missionaries to think about their attire in conservative countries and what kind of message they’re sending when they bring expensive cameras and other electronics to poverty-stricken villages.

Despite the concerns with trips abroad, their popularity is soaring. Some groups go as far away as China, Thailand and Russia. From a few hundred in the 1960s, the trips have proliferated in recent years. A Princeton University study found that 1.6 million people took short-term mission trips — an average of eight days — in 2005. Estimates of the money spent on these trips is upward of $2.4 billion a year. Vacation destinations are especially popular: Recent research has found that the Bahamas receives one short-term missionary for every 15 residents.

I’ve been on and led about 12-14 short-term missions trips over the last 10 years or so and I have always been an advocate of them. They have always been very transformative experiences for me and the team that I’m with, but I think the article raises some great points, which I and others have been thinking about for a long time.

Are short-term missions good stewardship?

Are they beneficial to the hosting communities?

Are short-term trips more Christian tourism than anything?

What do you think:

Have you been on a short-term mission trip?

Where did you go?

What did you do?

Was it effective?

Was it good stewardship?

In the next day or so I want to talk about one alternative to the “go to a foreign country to build a house” approach to missions. But if you are curious about this topic you can go to Christianity Today where they ran a series “Are Short-Term Missions Good Stewardship?“

You can also follow the post and comments over at my blog.