A subject that is guaranteed to stir the SBC masses is anything remotely critical of our beloved and ubiquitous practice of short term missions. Why would anyone find reason to criticize that in which the smallest Southern Baptist church participates – a short term, volunteer mission trip to another country, another culture, a location with vastly greater human needs than we generally see in our church fields here in the states?
You can judge by the headline, Ministers, churches seek end to ‘mission tourism’, that the article is not likely to be friendly to the typical short term mission project. I know the author and I am aware that the subject involves Baptists but not Southern Baptists; however, it is a report worthy of our reflection.
Parachute missions, poverty tourism, vacationary.
These descriptors are frequently invoked to characterize a misguided (western) approach to missions – an approach that many say encourages an unhealthy dependency and paternalism.
Ouch. Every church I pastored did short term overseas missions. I led each to do so.
“Contrary to popular belief, most mission trips and service projects do not: empower those being served, engender healthy cross-cultural relationships, improve quality of life, relieve poverty, change the lives of participants [or] increase support for long term missions work,” Robert Lupton wrote in his 2011 book Toxic Charity.
While this quote is a rather broad generalization (with an escape hatch ‘most’), I am inclined to agree.
A quarter century ago I participated in a two week mission trip to a famous overseas destination. We stayed in a reknowned beachfront hotel, dined in a white tablecloth restaurant, were surrounded by plainclothes security personnel…and traveled each day a couple of hours in an air-conditioned bus to our places of service, small churches in humble neighborhoods.
While there, some church members begged to be permitted to sleep on the floor of my hotel room for a night, an experience far out of reach to them. We were advised not to permit that. The nationals would not be permitted onto the hotel premises if found out.
A mature reflection on that trip made me conclude: the national pastor with whom I worked had a larger church than I had, was a better preacher that I was, had a more vibrant evangelistic reach than I did. My role was simply being a western pastor, much more affluent, who would draw a crowd. Add to that the realization that my trip expenses constituted about six months of income for the average national. A subsequent trip cost me more than the average annual per capita income of a citizen of the destination country. The relative expense of the trip doesn’t render it misguided or wasteful but is worth a bit of thought.
I would call myself a “vacationary” except for the fact that it was one of the most arduous and tiring two weeks I have ever spent in Christian ministry.
It is inescapable that many short term missions may do more harm than good and there is a good bit of research on this.
I made it a practice to find an occasion to ask overseas IMB personnel about their experiences with STMs. All were reluctant to offer even mild criticism of those that support them but loquacious workers would have a stream of tales that did not reflect well on folks coming from the states to ‘work’ with them. More reticent workers would admit some degree of a problem. One seemingly innocuous negative incident might take years for our overseas worker to undo.
I like the succinct comment one person made, that STMs were likely to do harm when “the primary purpose of the trip is the fulfillment of the trip itself.”
I would have to admit that after some years of hearing other pastors and churches tout how their church sent people to [fill in the country or countries] I got the impression that the church did STMs in order to promote their church, their student group, or their zeal for missions. Any benefit to the people group or overseas mission was incidental.
The reasons many resent such a view of STMs is that (a) we invest a lot of time and money in doing them and we hate to consider that we are not accomplishing something for the Lord, (b) we want the satisfaction of feeling like we are accomplishing something good, (c) it is an area where Southern Baptists can say we have had ‘success’ if success is defined in numbers of people participating and ‘mission’ expenditures for the same, (d) there are a number of people and organizations who profit through STMs, including destination churches, and, (e) we cling to the justification that participants benefit in non-tangible ways.
Contrast the above to the practice of using STMs for purposeful, repeated, and longer term engagement in a place where STM churches and participants can partner with churches and Christians overseas. This requires a greater commitment, is not as appealing as going to a new exotic destination every year, and has less appeal in some ways as a church program. As Southern Baptists, we already support workers in many places and if I partner with them, at least I have the expectation that the STM will be accomplishing something that was requested and that it fits into an overall strategy rather than a ‘one and done’ trip.
In the way that we autonomous churches and ministers do things, we come to our own conclusions and practices about STMs. I admit that I am ambivalent or regretful about some of my own over the years.
William,
Good thoughtful article.
I recently heard a short term missionary fully agree that the trip was more for him and his group, than for the native people in the country in which they served.
I’ve even heard the concern that some career missionaries are impeded in their mission work by having to serve as tour guides to the numerous short term mission trips.
I do not, however, write off all short term missions.
Some are carried out better than others.
Short term missions do some good for the locals, and often much good for the American volunteers. Americans are confronted with a new knowledge of other cultures and usually are more passionate about giving to and supporting missions. On the negative side, I’ve heard of churches that reduce their mission giving, to put that money in their fund to pay for their short term mission trips.
But there is one area in which I strongly disagree.
I’ve heard it said of some churches,
“They aren’t doing anything for missions. They never go on mission trips. All they do is give an offering. They should join a church that is actually doing something for missions.”
It could be, the church that is doing “nothing” but faithfully and generously giving to missions – ultimately may be doing more for missions than that “missional” church going to all kinds of cool places on mission tourist trips. Sometimes it may be more effective to stay home and give to those career missions that do make a difference through the years.
At the least, the church that simply gives to the IMB, Samaritan’s Purse, and other mission organizations is definitely making a difference in sending the gospel of Jesus Christ around the world.
One other concern. Be careful. Sometimes when we try to help those in poverty, we end up inadvertently hurting them instead.
As you say, first, do no harm.
David R. Brumbelow
I agree. Unless a church is doing it right, giving an offering is a much better way to support real missions than doing mission tourism.
But too often, it’s about PR at the church. Mission trips FEEL like real missions whereas offerings often don’t.
Dave, I understand and agree with your perspective in regard to “Mission Tourism.” I am just not sure who makes the determination what that is.
I don’t think “money” is always the best “missions.” That seems to devalue the human interaction that takes place on these trips. I believe there is “real” value to hugs from people who travel many miles to deliver them.
I think there is something to be said for raising the “standard of loving” as well as raising a groups “standard of living.”
Again, I agree with your analysis but I wanted to put in a word for human touch. I think it is possible that “money” can be over rated on how much it can accomplish. I am NOT in any way in support of what might be deemed, “Mission Tourism.”
However, if one is going to go on a vacation to say, Belize, why not look for an opportunity to take at least some time to interact with people and share the gospel? Maybe there is a form of “Mission Tourism” that “does no harm.”
When we built our building in Cedar Rapids, we had several (I’m thinking it was 7 or 8) mission trips come from Tennessee and Arkansas to help us. They did a lot on these short term missions to serve us.
But there were a couple, actually one in particular, that was probably more trouble than it was worth. It was a huge church. They had the attitude that they were there to help us poor Iowa yokels – probably were surprised we had flush toilets. They didn’t really seem to care what we wanted or needed, they had their program and agenda and were simply looking for a place to carry it out. They were the biggest group that came and in some ways they probably did the most work, but if we’d been allowed to travel back in time and cancel one of the groups, it wouldn’t have taken us a half a second to pick them.
I probably should have been more careful to figure out exactly what made us feel as we did about them. But I can identify a few things.
1) They had an attitude of superiority. They our betters and we were buffoons who ought to have been happy just to have them show up. That statement may be just a bit of an exaggeration, but not that much.
2) They had their agenda and we had to fit in. Other groups respected us and tried to fit into what our church was doing. These guys told us what they were going to do.
3) They were separate. They stayed separate and really did not engage with us. Other groups we befriended and built relationships with. This group stayed at another spot (had to, too big to stay on site) and had their own worship services. There was no intra-church bonding. Frankly, I don’t think they saw us as people they could benefit from knowing, just as spiritual peasants they could help.
I’m guessing we carry that attitude overseas.
I’ve also seen Asagen Sagna at work among the Bayot of Senegal. He values those people and treats them as co-equals in Christ. He seeks to fit in, without compromising truth. I’ve seen it done right and I’ve seen it done wrong.
I think the new idea of “adopt-a-people group” through the IMB is the better way.
I led two groups to Taiwan back in 2010 and 2012. I think we did good ministry. We worked hard and served the folks we went there to minister to.
The only question I have is this. I know what these trips cost. If we’d raised the same amount of money and given it to Lottie or to CP, would it have done more?
(Of course, would we have been able to raise that money for Lottie or CP? Probably not)
Those are three very good observations. I think they can go a long way toward preventing the kind of experience you outline.
Some outstanding short term missions:
Volunteer Christian Builders
SBC Disaster Relief workers
Of course there are others.
David R. Brumbelow
KentuckyChangers????
I couldn’t agree more. Usually we think of missions as third world efforts. Pictures of cute little starving kids with darker skin that ours, and thoughts of being able to build something we don’t have to live in but better than what “they” have make for plenty of feel-good opportunities that generally don’t lead to much of anything fruitful.
Regarding the third-world missions, unreached people should be worked with by long-term missionaries. Short-termers need to stick to places that already have established churches. The first ministry to the church members there needs to be to build them up spiritually. That means not lavishing heaps of cash and goods on them so that they learn to find their sustenance in you instead of God. If they have an untrained pastor, bring some reading materials in his language to help him minister more effectively. Bring Bibles for people if they have trouble getting Bibles. If you do evangelism, you should work through the local church so that the church owns the ministry. After you go, they need to do follow-up with anyone. When we go to Venezuela, we will communicate aspects of the Gospel in creative ways, but we leave the actual full proclamation of the Gospel up to the church members who will be there to continue in the ministry after we are gone. It’s their ministry and we get to help them out.
But there are also first-world missions. I know people who are involved in church planting in the post-Christian world. I just heard from a fellow yesterday who is going to Spain to help start a new church, ultimately to be led by a local pastor. That’s something that we sometimes hear about. It’s not that different from planting a new church in the States. I haven’t done that. What I have been involved with, however, are some pretty creative, and sometimes difficult, efforts. I won’t go into detail about those. They are not necessarily illegal, but they can be targeted by enemies of Christ. These kinds of things fall outside of what people usually think of as mission work. I only mention it because it presents opportunities for short-term missions that are typically very effective and focused, and require some preparation and training that’s different than you might normally think. It sometimes helps to have local church support. It often requires coordination with long-term missionaries who actually benefit from your work instead of being drained by having to put up with a gaggle of bumbling short-termers.
So anyway, these are some things to consider.
I have been on four overseas mission trips. The ones that seemed the most productive were organized by a nonSBC org in that country. The ones organized by the local assoc had less activity and less accomplished. When someone is organizing things in the country it seems better to me. But most SBC trips are not like that. State conventions make only 3 yr commitments good for a ‘vision trip’, a working trip and a celebration trip.
There is a lot to talk about with a subject like this.
Is it better to leave the mission work to the trained professionals or trust it in the hands of the institution ordained by God to do this work (the church).
Who teaches the church how to do this work effectively? The expert “missiologist” or a messy band of disciples following the Lord?
This topic is complex.
We likely all need to look at the practice of short term mission trips and consider the need to realine (biblically) the reasons we should go (short term or long haul).
What happens if something goes “wrong”, unplanneded, unexpected? What if our mission teams were asked to explain things like atonement, justification, the gospel, etc… Instead of teaching the children how to dribble a basketball; would most mission teams be able to handle that assignment? If not should they be sent in the first place? If Disaster Relief teams get confused and think that they are the hero because they are wearing their yellow shirts and yet have have no idea how to simply explain how the law doesn’t save anyone by doing good and that any attempt to do good is seen as sin by God if not done in faith, can he even be considered part of a mission team?
How do you even define a successful mission trip?
This is a good topic you bring up, that raises lots of opinions (like mine.)
Churches are not required to use mission agencies to do her duty. She might, but she is the one commissioned to go and do. She’s better suited to do gospel work than any institution on man. (Not a statement against mission agencies.)
I think it boils down to this:
1. Are you needed there?
2. Are you going to be doing something that cannot be done better by those already on the ground?
3. Would what you are going to spend be far better utilized by locals?
I’ve only been on one STMT, to Mexico. We loved it, but we had to admit, that the local preachers already had churches, already knew the language, and had all the contacts. We needed chauffeuring around, needed an interpreter, and basically did a bunch of stuff that could just as easily been done better by locals. We drew crowds because we were Americans. That’s it.
I’ve been to several different countries over the years. I am proud to be an American, and oddly, more than a little uncomfortable when I become a celebrity because of it.
An interesting note. We spent the week of our trip in Merida, and while the locals did take us to some tourist spots (old temples, etc), we really did labor among the pretty much the whole time. We did leave ourselves one day in Cancun at the end of the trip, because that is where our flight was going out. It was awful. After spending the week among real people, doing worthwhile things, Cancun seemed garish and unpleasant.