Monday, February 04, 2013

An Argument for Short Term Missions: Part 1

As we...and by 'we' I mean those in the Christian church trying to reverse benevolent oppression...look at all the ways the church has inflicted itself on developing nations some of the harshest criticism falls on short term missions. And rightly so. In many cases a short term mission trip to a developing country is nothing more than a poorly disguised vacation. Worse than that, criticism that has been levied is fairly accurate that short term teams do things and build things that the local people don't need, won't use and aren't sustainable. They leave behind a mess that doesn't help anyone in the long run but makes the 'missionaries' feel really good about helping.

So we should stop doing short term missions, right? There are certainly those who have made that argument. I'm not one of them. Short term mission trips do play an important role in reversing benevolent oppression. I witnessed one example of this on a visit to Tijuana, Mexico. A ministry there helps build school playgrounds (in Tijuana the playground is a large concrete surface). They bring volunteers and money, but only after the community has raised it's portion of the costs and committed local folks to work on the project. This creates a cooperative situation that is driven by the people in the community being served. The request for a new playground comes from the people in the neighborhood. They raise the money for materials. They schedule the work. They sign-up as volunteer workers. Only then does a team from the U.S. agree to come and work alongside them to get the playground finished.

In this model the short term missionaries are partners working at the invitation of the people they are working with...not for or in place of. It is crucial that we not completely take over and do for them but that we do it with them. Some would still argue that if we simply gathered the money it takes to get to another country and sent that to our indigenous partners they could hire all the help they need and get so much more for the money we're spending.

In theory this is true. But in practice it doesn't work that way. Tomorrow I'll explain why.

1 comment:

dcejason said...

I agree, Tim. Short-Tem Mission trips are often done wrong. Where is the lasting impact? Where is the cooperation with the local church, or the connection to the Gospel, or the lasting impact on the people after the missionaries go back home? Examine your mission carefully. They can be done WELL and be a BLESSING to the people who go and the people who are reached.