Liam Byrnes: 21st Century Missions: We gain more from short-term missions that we give

This is a continuation of a series I’ve been running on the changing face of missions in the 21st Century, click here to read more.

I’m not discounting the fact that short term missions can be quite fruitful, but the long experienced feedback from short term missions is how they were greeted with hospitality and openness by the host community and come back far more transformed than the transformation they wrought whilst in that nation.

SO, are short term missions inefficient, ineffective, in one sense I would say yes; Often the combined travel costs for a short term missions to build something, help somewhere etc from a purely financial perspective would be much better spent employing locals to do the work. Tradesmen would likely do the work to a higher standard and the money would have more impact in the local economy.

But, there are a few reasons why short term missions should continue to play a part in Church life and whilst financial effectiveness should not be the only category considered by the Church as they look into short term missions.

Firstly, these days, who ever heard of a long term missionary who didn’t first go on a short term missions which infused them with passion for a people group/nation etc.

Secondly, the encouragement that can be felt by the injection of energy which accompany short term missions can impact the local missionaries and churches to be re-invigorated to see the Kingdom come in their community.

Thirdly, and in many ways the most lasting impact is the sending community of believers, as we go out, we encounter a holy interruption to our world view which has resulted from the monotony of life in our geographical locality, which creates a blinkered and over-simplified world view. When we leave we meet the real lives and churches behind the caricatures we create around phrases like ‘developing nations’, the ‘persecuted church’ and suchlike. We are transformed though having a genuine relational connection, not just a financial/political/conceptual relationship which is only a small part if a communities identity. We are transformed by knowing the people who are brothers and sisters in Christ in these nations and this knowing creates in us a resistance against the western political and religious rhetoric which patronises the reality which these Christians live in by .

I read this rehash of a missionary support letter in light of some of the considerations above by Andy Crouch at Christianity Today.

Dear members of Bethel Community Church: This summer eight of us will be traveling to spend time with our fellow Christians in ___________, and to serve their neighbors who are not Christians through the proclamation and demonstration of the gospel. Our purpose in going is to learn and to bring what we have learned back to this church. Frankly, we will benefit from this trip in more ways than will our gracious and generous hosts. Please support us in this endeavor to become the church God wants us to be.”

Further Resources I’ve been reading on this subject are:

• A Paper on the interaction of western culture Churches training Christians in cross cultural settings by David Livermore.
• Missionary Confidential - A Good blog discussing the realities of living as a missionary.