May 08, 2012 | Short Term Missions

Do One-Week Mission Trips Do Any Good Any More?

As a missions organization, we are keenly aware of the objections and criticism surrounding our industry. The worst part? Some of them are true.

Although we still believe in the benefit of short-term mission trips, we are learning the importance of the potential for these trips to be nothing more than glorified vacations.

Short-term missions get a bad rap for three reasons:

One, the missionaries allow their needs and agenda to supersede the local needs.

Two, the missionaries are poorly equipped to do what needs to be done.

Three, what they’re doing has no lasting impact.

For the most part, these reasons are valid. The typical short-term mission trip involves construction or work that could be done by locals, which raises the question, “Why not just send them the money?”

A counter-argument is that short-term missions can impact participants enough to justify the cost of the project. To which we must ask, “To what end?”

What’s the point, and what difference are we making?
If the end is to mobilize participants to build the kingdom of God, then is a good reason to justify the high costs of a short-term trip. However, many do not.

As someone who has been mobilizing young people overseas for decades, this breaks my heart.

So what do we with this information? Give up? No. We find ways to be better.

One good place to start would be for church youth groups to track those who have been mobilized for ministry by their short-term mission trips.

Did someone go on a trip to Mexico or Africa or China and then decide to move there? Is there someone in your church who is a retired ministry? Talk to them. Learn from their experiences, and try to replicate them.

Let me suggest to youth pastors that if the goal of short-term trips is to ultimately send people overseas, please measure your results.
So, do we scrap the concept of short-term missions?

Do we throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater?
No. Of course not.

We need to find a biblical way to do short-term missions.

Fortunately, Jesus showed us how to do them in Matthew 10, in which he sent out the disciples on radical faith adventures in pairs. It’s a model we’re not always comfortable with, but it does the trick like little else can.

Yes, short-term trips can work if you do them right. They can still change lives. But we need to look much more closely at the various models of missions and hold many to a more rigorous standard of evaluation.

What do you think? Can short-term missions work these days? Share your answer in the comments.