As a missionary in Brazil and a pastor in Niddrie, Scotland, for over 10 years, I have hosted countless short-term missions teams from all over the world, and have experienced first-hand the pros and cons of this oh-so-modern approach to world mission. In trying to raise financial support for our ministry, we are running into what we call the “American Short-Term Missions Caveat” time and again.
It seems like American churches, who like our vision and may even be keen to support us, want to come and experience first-hand our ministry before they will “commit.” Interestingly, this is not a phenomenon known in the U.K. (although, I suppose if a ministry in Barbados wanted support, I wouldn’t be adverse to some field research!).
Now, we are not opposed to these conditions, but, in my experience, less than 5 percent of those who stipulate this actually follow through with any kind of long-term financial support for our ministry, despite reporting a “positive” experience with us in the field. And to top it off, we are almost invariably (more than 90 percent of the time) left out of pocket as we have hosted teams and shown them suitable Christian hospitality. So, what is to be done about this issue? Well, I think what is required is a review of how the receivers and the senders view one another and what they are hoping to achieve during these short-term trips.
For the Senders:
1. Be realistic.
Often, short-term missions can be thought of as the team coming in and doing something for the people receiving the team and yet, very often, this is not the case. On the contrary, if we’re not careful, visiting teams can cause lots of damage to local work no matter how well meaning they are. Coming to “love on y’all” or “show poor people the love of Jesus” can come across as patronizing, paternalistic, gobbledygook both to local Christians and the unsuspecting and unbelieving populace.
So, what we need is a realistic vision of what short-term missions can achieve on the ground. The reality is that what it cost in air flights for a team of 10 from the U.S. could fund and train five indigenous interns in Scotland for a year. That is a cold, hard fact. It is not meant to freak people out, or demotivate well-meaning short-term mission trippers, but to bring a sense of sobriety and realism to what can far too often turn into a glorified holiday with a paintbrush and a lawnmower.
The reality is that in a one-to-two-week period, your team is not going to achieve very much that could not have been done better by people on the ground who actually know what they’re doing and have pre-existing community relationships. If you can handle that truth, then you are off to a good start.
2. Think less of your personal experience and more of long-term local benefits.
Christians love a good, old “personal” experience. Whether that is with them and God or them and a “local,” it all makes for good updates on Facebook. At Niddrie, we try to educate our teams that any work they do here will benefit long-term gospel work going on in our community that will continue long after the team(s) has/have gone and the memories have faded.
That means that lots of what they will do here will actually be of service to us and the vision of our church. That means, unfortunately for many, this is often in conflict with their idea of mission (more of that later). Importantly, they will only be involved in projects that we are currently engaged with and can be sustained by us once they have left. That means a lot of what we do at Niddrie feels like “hanging around” or “doing nothing” because it is about people.
This is difficult to take in a culture where worth is measured by how much you do, not by who you spend time your with. We teach our visiting teams that, even if it doesn’t feel like it to you, much of what you do here will matter to us and to the many contacts we have in our community. So, we need to forget about immediate gratification and personal fulfillment and think more about God honoring service and long-term, localized community benefits (which they may never even see).
