Are short-term teams effective Missions mobilizers?
OSCAR Forum: Mission Mobilisers: Are short-term teams effective Missions mobilizers?
I've just posted the following message on the missionnow forum to try to encourage some of its young members to participate in this deepening discussion.
Members of Oscar can also spur their discussion on at
missionNOW Forum on Short-Term Mission
Over the last few days I've been partaking in an rather interesting discussion on this topic on the Oscar website.
http://www.oscar.org.uk/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?67/411
What is the feeling amongst our members?
Are they worth it?
It would be good to get this subject discussed by young people who have been on short-term trips and not just by mission leaders who lead them...
Trev Gregory
missionNOW
I heartily concur with Trev on the problem of teams going overseas. Those teams going out to the mission fields often reinforce their culture and thus prevent members from bonding with local people because they act as a subgroup in themselves. A mixed team is less likely to do that but even so do create their own sub culture. The result is that a national becomes a stranger in his own country when joining one of those teams.
Because of the fact that many of these church teams only know one another through Sunday church programmes they in fact often fall to inter personal conflicts in themselves when put into a strange environment for extended periods as well.
Ron
Personally I have LIMITED experience of Team or Group short-term trips where those participating are from the same church.
It's something which is not often talked about or tried in Europe. This could be for a number of reasons, but perhaps the main one is economic. Not only are we financially poorer (or we spend what we have on other areas of life) than the average Christian American, but also our churches are smaller. Smaller churches mean less giving and less for group activities. It appears to me that either the churches in Europe are often struggling to pay what staff and programmes they have already.
But then again, Allan, perhaps our pathos towards group short-term is another example of European scepticism of anything American or fear of trying the new?
Having said this, I agree with you that the weaknesses of Group Short-Term trips is that the group stay together and do not interact or have a further limited cross-cultural learn experience because of the group dynamic of individuals have a comfortable place to hide.
By the way, have you seen the other forum which is also straying into Short-Term mission questions?
Oscar Forum: Have We Changed the Question?
Trev Gregory
missionNOW
There's been a lot of thoughtful stuff said, for which I'm very grateful: I think the fact that Trev's subjective experiences echo my own highlight the difference he points out between the US and Europe. I must say I've been very challenged by some of the things that have been said, and would love to have the time to spend on developing a team concept that models the BEST way to organize a team experience.
The difficulty I see is that those who have already done this kind of work are probably finding it difficult to recruit because there are others around with a less detailed. more lightweight and more populist approach.
I think that question which someone asked David is very pertinent - Have 2 week mission trips replaced summer camp as the event during the summer which we use to really challenge our youth in their commitment to God?
This may be a valid goal but it takes the focus off the mission and puts it on to the church/group. So automatically the leaders' thinking is not geared towards building commitment towards the mission country or cause.
Of course God can instil a missionary calling in such a team, but is it not more likely in a team where the team identifies closely with the host country, learns about its people etc. rather than seeing it simply as an exotic location for their own objectives?
This is a really interesting discussion and hopefully my comments below will add rather than distract.
The response Allan has had and the links and thoughts so far have been generally generated from a US bias. Now this is not wrong, but we need to remember that Europe is someplace else on the mission route at present, and one deficit we have is some hard studying and thinking on the benefits (or not) of short-term mission.
My observation is that in Western Europe (UK, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, and Scandinavia) short-term mission recruitment has been widely used over the last 15-20 years. In Eastern and Southern Europe where the economics are different and/or the number of evangelicals is substantially less, there is a fledgling short-term missions agenda of recruitment. Therefore, we cannot conclude that all of Europe is the same. If anything, it is very spiritually diverse.
However, as of yet I have not come across any serious hardcore study of Western European attitudes, effectiveness and benefits to short-term mission. At best we have subjective and experientially based reports and analysis. Now, having said this, I wonder how much the STEM study stands up within our context. If I was to place these against my knowledge of Western Europe I think the numbers and results would be significantly different, but this is purely subjective British cynicism.
I have not found
· A significance in prayer for world evangelisation;
· A doubling of mission giving – if anything agencies are experiencing a harder time at fund raising;
· Out reach to internationals is still struggling;
· Most Churches do not have mission committees as mission agenda is with the Elders and local Church leaders along with the leaking roof and flower fund!
I could go on, but I think you get my point.
Having said this, and perhaps have now thoroughly depressed you, I do think short-term mission is beneficial….IF IT IS WITHIN THE RIGHT CONTEXT.
David Armstrong is right when he raises the question of church and mission leadership as the key to greater effectiveness of short-term mission lies essentially with them.
For sometime now I have been advocating a more holistic approach to discipleship and mentoring of young people – one that includes an emphasis on mission as a lifestyle.
Today we readily use the term lifestyle to describe a way of life or style of living that reflects attitudes, values and actions of a person or group.
Our mission is global: Jesus wants everyone, both near and far, to see and hear.
Our mission is also local, for just as the Father sent Jesus to a specific place at a specific time, so we are sent into specific contexts to witness.
If you are a follower of Christ, you have already been sent into mission. God has placed you in your family, in a particular neighbourhood, and in a specific school or job. He has put you among people who are similar to you, with whom it is relatively easy to communicate clearly. But in close proximity to you are also many people of other cultures, colours and creeds, and God expects you and other Christians to be a clear witness to them as well. And don't forget the rest of the world!
[For a more detailed understanding of mission as lifestyle see my book, Mission Now, pub. By Authentic Lifestyle 2003. Contact me for more details].
However, when we see mission as lifestyle short-term mission then is just ONE of the mentoring and discipling tools we can draw on. Therefore, is we are to integrate short-term in such a way then church leaders – and those involved with mentoring/discipling young people – need to be involved before, during and after the short-term trip. Similarly, mission leaders and agencies need to spend just as much time in assisting and partnering with local churches in this mentoring as they do in promoting and recruiting people onto short-term mission.
Short-term mission needs to be seen as part of a great whole.
I see here a great danger of missed opportunity for both local church and mission agency. And its one which I saw happening during the 1990’s with the Praying Through the Window initiative. Here we had a global and high-octane initiative which attracted over 1 million around the world to pray for the nations of the10/40 window every October. BUT, where were the mission agencies that tailored their recruitment and mobilisation around this phenomenon? Few if any did. So we ended the 1990’s with an exercised church in prayer for the unreached of the 10/40 window: while mission leaders were debating the demise of the mission agenda in the local church few saw that it actually was in the prayer meeting. Therefore, few moved through partnering and discipling people into going and giving for mission. What a tragic missed opportunity!
Short-term mission needs to be seen as part of a great whole – part of development of a full complete lifestyle-mentoring programme.
“To play devil's advocate for a moment (and don't quote this out of context!!), you could say that some teams require minimal commitment (even financial since, for many, their church and friends pay for them), they're cossetted while they're away, and they come back with a self-righteous feeling that they've "done mission" when really they've had a mildly energetic holiday. Is that too harsh? :-)”
Being very involved in short term missions, I cringe when I read or hear statements like this. But I think I cringe because there is truth in what is said – especially with respect to 2 week trips.
Most of us have seen some of these. In fact, some of us have actually been part of such teams, even as leaders. Out of the two dozen I was involved in, there is one trip I prefer not remembering. Afterwards I realized I made a basic mistake, the receiving pastor made another, and the attitudes of the team members was off from the very beginning. We all wished and prayed it had gone way differently – but it didn’t.
Someone raised a question with me that I think has a valid point, at least in the US context. Have 2 week mission trips replaced summer camp as the event during the summer which we use to really challenge our youth in their commitment to God? It pulls them away from the influence of media and friends, focuses on their relationship with God, all in a context of challenging wholesome activities. That doesn’t make them wrong, but it reveals another reason for why we do them.
Now a painful question: Are we the church and missions leaders as much the problem as the groups we send?
In the scenario above, who designed and sent that team? Wasn’t it us the church and missions leaders? We in our wisdom chose not to place requirements on them, we chose to cover the cost for them, we chose not to address their self centered attitudes before they left, we chose not to teach them that life is about service to others, we cosseted them and we at various stages didn’t give them the rest of the context into which to place their experience.
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In the recent Christianity Today article that Mike referred to, I very much agree with Kurt Ver Beek that it is time for nationals to have guidelines by which they can evaluate our request to bring a group, and decide upon what conditions they will receive us.
That concept of mutual design is present in each of the Codes of Best Practices for Short Term Missions. Ah, but it takes too much time.
Hello Allan,
Great discussion. You may want to check out this effort by a collection of US (and other?) based agencies to help short termers continue on in effective work.
http://www.thenextmile.org/
Blessings,
Shane Bennett
Caleb Project
Thank you for all your very detailed, helpful and interesting comments. This is fascinating stuff! I realise now I'm not the first to ask this question (how presumptuous of me to even think it!), although I did do an internet search before posting, and had failed to find anything.
I've looked at all the links referred to as well. I guess there is truth in both sides, and the bottom line is that the impact does depend to a very great extent upon the preparation and the format of the trip. I appreciated David's general observations on that score.
Of course I know young people personally who have been transformed by overseas trips, and it happened to me in my own life. So I would never want to see them stop. But I still have a sense that all is not quite right with the way the scene is developing, here at least. To play devil's advocate for a moment (and don't quote this out of context!!), you could say that some teams require minimal commitment (even financial since, for many, their church and friends pay for them), they're cossetted while they're away, and they come back with a self-righteous feeling that they've "done mission" when really they've had a mildly energetic holiday. Is that too harsh? :-)
I'll welcome any further thoughts or comments.
God Bless,
Allan
Good morning Allan.
Being Monday morning and just discovering I don’t have a planning meeting all day as I expected, I thought I would share some thoughts I have collected on the subject of long term results coming out of short term missions. It is a hodge-podge, but has some worthwhile info.
Hard statistical data is very hard to come by. A second study worth seeing is:
MR02 Can Short-Term Mission Really Create Long-Term Career Missionaries - Research #2 Daniel McDonough and Roger Peterson (STEMPress) $20.00 51-page spiral bound; STEM's 1995-99 study validated the 1991 published findings, and found certain statistically significant correlations between short-term and long-term career missionary service. see https://www.applyweb.com/public/contribute?stempub or http://www.stemmin.org.
I have been collecting references to reports and subjective comments on the subject for several years now, but I know of no one source that “proves” the value of short term missions. Each adds a piece. Here is what I have:
A. General observations:
Short term missions are not created equal. We throw way too much into the term “short-term missions”. They don’t all belong there. In the US, “short term” means anything from 2 days to 2 years, and some agencies include 3 years. Ten day to two week trips are the most common by far. Their purpose and results are very different from a 6 to 8 week internship with long term missionaries. And two years with an NGO doing medical work in Sri Lanka is totally different in purpose and results from either the 2 wk or 8 wk trip.
We need to ask “What are the results of 2 week trips? What are the results of 2 month trips? What are the results of 2 year trips? And how do they compare?
The results are only as good as the planning. If we simply accept anyone, give them little training, design the activities/ministries to fit neither the skills of those going nor the long term objectives of the missionary, why do we expect to get any long term results? That is an exaggeration, and God often graciously produces results in spite of us. But if we don’t design and build our short term trips to produce long term results, they probably won’t.
We need to ask, “Do well designed and well implemented short term mission experiences lead to long term involvement?”
Who is going and why? You don’t expect a team of men going to build a church in Namibia to return as long term missionaries. A youth group going for 2 weeks is about exposure and cross cultural education – and I am all for both, and plan money in our budget each year to help the youth I know. I consider it an investment in their lives and in the lives of our future church leaders. A college team of 8 inter-cultural studies students is a different matter! I expect and regularly see them go again for another year or long term.
If “short-term” means up to two years, most of Paul’s missionary journeys would be called short-term. What made his trips so effective?
B. Now for some “Case Studies” of agencies of which I am aware:
1. article: "The effects of Short Term Mission Experiences on college students spiritual growth and maturity", Christian Education Journal Fall 2000 ,CEJ 4NS (2000) 123-140
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2. Short-Term Efforts and Long-Term Effects by Ed Matthews, Abilene Christian University, Journal of Applied Missiology, vol 3, number 2
“Our experience at Abilene Christian University with an apprentice program suggests that 40% of the short-term workers became long-term missionaries. A similar statement is made in the Short-Term Mission Handbook (Bridgeman, Johnson, and McAlpine 1986:9) and is born out by the experiences of TEAM (Pocock 1987:155,157)
3. In 2002 Joe Ciluffo of CAM International was proposing a research project with a number of the main mission agencies to try to “get a clear picture of how the mission community is responding practically to the shorter term reality, and the influx of Finishers into missions”; quote from e-mail received from Joe. Possible e-mail address for Joe jciluffo@caminternational.org
4. Holly McCleery of WEC did a survey in 1999 among the WEC fields as to their short-term programs covering all aspects including pre-field preparation, sending bases (they are worldwide), which fields received different types of groups, benefits and negatives, recommendations, etc. possible e-mail address HAMcCleery2@aol.com
5. In a conversation May 2000 with Kristofer Fegenbush, while he was recruiting for the LAM (Latin American Mission) Spearhead Program in Mexico City, he said that Spearhead is their biggest and oldest program. When it started in the 70’s, it was revolutionary. Now everyone is doing similar programs placing their people in churches and homes. There were two parts: the summer long opportunity and the summer plus a year long opportunity. The 14 month part is the heart of the program. It is from there that they have developed their new missionaries. Students came for the summer and stayed for the year.
My thought is that it was successful because they lived with Mexican families (immersed in the culture), they worked with long term missionaries in ministry and at the end of the summer they could visualize what it meant to be a long term missionary. On most 2 week short-term opportunities, you are not immersed in the culture, you do not seen the missionary doing what he normally does, and when you return home, you really can’t visualize what being a missionary would look and feel like, because you never saw or experienced it.
In other conversations with LAM, I heard people say that for a period of time, “70% of our long term missionaries came out of our Spearhead Program”. It isn’t true at the present time, but for a period of time they had a good connection between the short term and long term results.
6. For the church and Christian college teams we received while serving in Guatemala, about 25% of those who came later became involved in their church missions committee, went to Bible School and into ministry, returned as a long term missionary, joined the missions mobilization department of a mission agency, etc
That is what I have collected. I just read your second post. I’ll think on your question.
About me: Since you don’t know me, Allan, allow me to give you a short bio. My wife and I served almost 20 years with OC International in Latin America doing leadership development with pastors and church leaders. In 1999 we helped found Mission Data International whose major project so far is www.ShortTermMissions.com.
We at M-DAT are committed to helping youth and young adults get involved in what God is doing around the world. Our website helps connect them with opportunities. We have a small but solid percentage of traffic from Canada, the UK and Australia.
It appears my heritage is from southern Scotland, Northern England on the west side. (It seems some of our ancestors were known for stealing horses a couple of centuries ago.) My older brother is currently in Stansted, England working with Boeing Corp.
Trust this was of help Allan! Feel free to email me at david@shorttermmissions.com with other related questions. I have far more questions than answers, but will share what I have.
Dear Allan,
Please let me encourage you about my own story of short-term mission which led me to train for full time ministry.
I went to Brazil about 14 years ago for a holiday and fact finding mission. I visited many different churches and was amazed at the growth of hunger for the gospel. Since then I felt directed to study and am now finishing my MTh after doing undergraduate and post-grad in Christian Counselling. I feel that this has prepared to to go and now the opportunity has come to go longer term, with the view to becoming a missionary trainer and lecturer in Brazil initially and then somewhere else in the third world. Having waited on his timing, the provision financially is there for me, which it was not previously. I have learned that God's time is so perfect.
I realise that this has taken time, but since first visiting Brazil, here in Edinburgh, many are coming on short term missions to our country to bring the things God has revealed to them, the enthusiasm for young people, and a contemporary approach to reach those kids from difficult home situations who often live in circumstances of hardship.
Be encouraged that although people may go on short term mission, it may take time for God to use them in long term mission, as he has to prepare them.
Yours in Christ
Nicola
Allan - You might find this US study into the effectiveness of short-term mission interesting:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/125/12.0.html
Thanks for that quick response. Those are really interesting and encouraging figures; PTL. However I see the source you quote is from around 1992. Here in Northern Ireland there has been a real boom in teams in the last 6-8 years. What I am wondering is this - up to ten or so years ago short-term teams were at a certain level and they "caught" people with genuine interest. They have now gone way past that level, but are they finding more people who will become committed, or are they now just recruiting "Christian tourists" who will go to Brazil this year, and Nigeria next year, etc. without ever committing to any one mission or country? I'm asking, because I don't know, not because I have a dogmatic position. Thanks again for the stats though, and I'm genuinely thrilled by them.
Allan - Here is the best statistical data I have seen, done by Roger Peterson and STEM Ministries. Roger is the President of the Fellowship of Short Term Missions Leaders in the US and has graciously put many, many hours into helping us all develop the Standards of Excellence in Short-Term Missions (www.STMStandards.org).
And a heartfelt "Thanks" to our UK and Canadian brothers whose Codes of Best Practices in Short Term Missions motivated us to do likewise!
BENEFITS OF SHORT TERM MISSIONS
1. Prayer time for world evangelization doubled.
Targeted prayer increased by 237 percent.
2. Missions giving doubled. Sacrificial missions giving increased fourfold.
3. Outreach to internationals increased 69 percent.
4. Participation on a missions committee increased 84 percent.
5. Housing missionaries increased 54 percent.
6. Reading missions books was up 38 percent.
7. Increased enrollment in mission schools and courses by 68 percent.
8. Returning to the field was 32 percent.
9. Ninety-seven percent stated that their short term trip strengthened and confirmed their commitment to world missions.
Results tabulated one to five years after a short term trip by STEM Ministries. (Source: PULSE, April 24, 1992) The published research report, #MR01, "Is Short-Term Mission Really Worth the Time and Money?" can be ordered through www.stemmin.org.
I have more comments and sources, but I wanted to get this one right up to you.
Hi. I've been "besieged" this summer by people raising money for trips on short-term overseas teams. As a former missionary I should be delighted by this, but actually I'm starting to ask myself some questions. In my past experience missions organized teams despite the extra work and limited results in the expectation that they would spark a longer-term mission interest in some of the participants. So I figure this is the best place to ask if anyone can tell me if there are statistics or other evidence that can answer the question "Is the huge growth in the number of people going overseas on summer teams producing a proportional interest in longer-term commitment? Either in increased numbers of missionaries, OR in increased regular financial support to those missions from people who have been on teams?" Thanks for any pointers anyone can give.
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