THE PLACE OF
SHORT-TERM MISSIONS
IN TODAY’S WORLD
Steve Pettis
I would preface my comments this morning with the
understanding that much of what Dr. Lo has shared is true. There are many who are seriously questioning,
and with some justifiable reasoning, the place of short-term missions in the
kingdom today. However, just as
short-term missions are not a new phenomena so also its detractors are not new
to the scene. And often, as is the case
this morning, many of the issues that are raised with reference to short-term
missions can also be applied to career or long-term missions. As such, it might be more meaningful for us
to look at the larger picture of missions in today’s world and then see where
short-term missions specifically fit.
With that in mind I want us to understand that we are not
talking about one form or approach to missions to the exclusion of
another. It is not either career
missions or short-term missions, but rather both/and. It’s not plain m&ms or peanut m&ms,
you’ve got to have them both. Those of
you working in the local church, especially within a denominational structure
where much of the programming is predetermined and passed down to us to work
out in the local context, you recognize that you don’t just get involved in
regular preaching and ministry opportunities within the weekly experience, but
also the special times or programs of emphasis.
We accept the fact that they support each other, allow everyone a place
for ministry and reach out to a broader audience than either one could by
itself.
According to I Corinthians 9:19:
Though I am free and
belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as
possible. To the Jews I became like a
Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the
law I became like one under the law, so a to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one
not having the law, so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the
weak. I have become all things to all
men so that by all possible means I might save some.
Because all have
the potential to hear, understand and respond to the gospel we must go out to all through every and all venues
available to us. It is also true that as
we go out into every corner of the world the implications are not applicable
only to those we go to, but to us as well.
Paul makes it clear that “I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that
I may share in its blessings.” Hopefully
we will see how this plays out with respect to short-term missions.
STATE OF THE WORLD
Looking at the state of the world we see that in spite of
all that is being done to control growth, the overall population of our world
continues to escalate. Current figures
are somewhere over 6 ½ billion people.
And if anyone takes even a limited look at the news around us we will
quickly see that the issues we face are expanding even beyond the growth of
population. 1 ½ billion people live on
less than $1 a day, another 3 billion on less than $2. In other words, two thirds of the world is
living in absolute poverty. That
includes ½ of the world’s children who have no adequate shelter, lack proper
sanitation, safe drinking water, access to sufficient health care services, or
enough food to avoid malnutrition. 80%
of this 4 ½ billion living in absolute poverty are in Asia and
One of the things that complicates population growth is the
fact that an increasing number of these people are being crowded together in
more and larger cities. Over half the
world’s population now lives in a city, and of the ten largest cities in the
world none of them are found in the traditional, developed west. As an example, the larger
These figures are challenging enough in and of themselves,
but then we add to them the spiritual dimension. At least 1/2 of these people have no viable Christian witness. An additional ¼ of the world’s population has
only limited pockets of small groups of Christians scattered throughout their
regions. That’s 4 ½ billion people, the
vast majority living in poverty, who will likely never hear the name of Jesus
unless someone from the outside comes to share with them.
What does God say about all of this?
When the Son of Man
comes in his glory, and all the angles with him, he will sit on his throne in
heavenly glory. All the nations will be
gathered before him, and he will separate the people form one another as a
shepherd separates the sheep form the goats.
He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
Then the King will say
to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your
inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to
eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you
invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked
after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”
Then the righteous
will answer him, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and
give you something to drink? When did we
see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go
to visit you?”
The King will reply,
“I tell you the truth, whatever you did for the least of these brothers
of mine, you did for me.”
Then he will say to
those on his left, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire
prepared for the devil and his angels.
For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you
gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I
needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did
not look after me.”
They also will answer,
“Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes
or sick or in prison, and did not help you?”
He will reply, “I tell
you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did
not do for me.”
Apparently it is the purpose of the
church, the body of Christ, to specifically reach out to these who have no hope
from any other source. Christ has called
His entire church – in one or another
- to reach out to the marginalized, the abused, the neglected.
And what are we as a church doing about it? Current research indicates that 95% of all
“Christian” activity is directed toward the Christian world. That means only 5% to those we have been
directed to and who need it most are receiving any attention. Those same studies show that 90% of all
evangelism is once again directed toward the “Christian” world. The challenges and needs are so great and yet
as a whole we are doing so little. (IBMR)
The majority of this externally directed ministry is of
course being carried out by missionaries.
However, it should be obvious that the task is too immense to be placed
on the shoulders of full-time, career missionaries alone. We have come to accept in the local church
the concept of the priesthood of all believers.
We know, if we are willing to admit it, that the ordained, professional,
full-time clergy alone can not accomplish the task at home, at least not by
themselves. It takes all of the body working
together to reach our communities. It
takes the amateurs. Why do we look at
the world beyond our gates any differently?
If we are going to reach our world with the gospel, if we are going to
come even close to wining our generation for Christ it will take more than just
long-term, career missionaries. And, as
Dr. Lo has indicated, it will take more than doing missions. It demands that we become missional as a core
aspect of our very nature.
A GOD’S EYE VIEW
To look only at the task that confronts us would make it
very easy to give up. The only way to
even begin is to see our world and its needs from a God’s eye view, to
understand that our God is a missional God.
Mission is not something that God does or that is tacked on to His
approach to humanity. It is a part of
His nature, His character. Those of you
who have been in class with me understand that this is drawn from the very
definition of mission: the inbreaking of God into human history so as to lead
toward a renewed, transformed relationship between creator and creature. How can we even begin to understand God apart
from His breaking into our human experience?
It began with creation as God formed man out of the dust of the
earth. It blossomed as God walked and
talked and communed with His creation in the garden. Once the relationship was destroyed by sin He
immediately stepped in to promise full restoration, “. . . I will put enmity
between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush
your head . . .” (Gen. 3:15). As the
effects of sin filtered their way through the relationships of men and women
God broke in to bring cleansing through the flood and reestablish relationship
with a righteous man. His desire was to
create a people for Himself, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation so He broke
into the life of one man to bless all peoples on earth. He broke in to stay the hand of execution and
preserve the heir to this blessing. He
broke in to save the brother about to die because of jealousy and anger. He broke in to set His people free, to
provide them meat and bread and water and save them from their enemies over and
over and over again, even when they refused to respond. He broke in to establish a kingdom whose throne
would last through all generations. He
broke in as the fire, consuming not only the sacrifice but the alter it was on
and scattering the prophets of Baal. He
broke in as the Lord, high and exalted with the train of His robe filling the
temple. He broke in as the loving,
broken hearted husband longing for His wayward wife to return. He broke in as a baby, born to insignificant
parents in an out of the way, forgotten village. He broke in again some 30 years later as that
baby, now a grown man, hung from a tree.
He will break in at a time of final consummation. And here’s the real kicker. He continues to seek to break in through each
of us in the reminder that “As the Father sent me, so send I you” (Jn. 20:21)
OUR RESPOSIBILITY
One of the things I remember Keith Green saying was that
there are no second generation Christians.
In other words, each new generation of Christians is called, in one form
or another, to reach their generation for Christ and the Kingdom. No one has done it yet. We can not forget that we are part of the
human family and Christ continues to call us to live as brothers and yes, we
are our brother’s keeper. God, through
Christ, has reached out to each of us in this room and empowers each of us in a
unique way for the ministry to which He has called us. I’m going to take it on faith that those He
has redeemed and transformed and empowered He fully intends to use. For you see, “All this is from God, who
reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
. . . he has committed to us (the entire church) the ministry of
reconciliation” (II Cor. 5:18-19).
You are all familiar with the fact that we, as disciples,
have been commanded to make disciples of all nations. On more than one occasion Jesus reminds His
disciples, reminds us, that we will obey His commands if we love Him. It is this love that draws us with the
families of all nations to worship the Lord and ascribe to Him the glory
due His name. What better way to do this
than to use every legitimate means possible to proclaim the message of and
carry out the ministry of reconciliation to the whole world, calling men
and women everywhere to a renewed relationship with their heavenly
Father? We are told that the day is
coming when we will sing a new song.
You are worthy to take the scroll
and open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased
men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and
priests to serve our God. (Rev. 5:9-10)
It would seem only right that if we
are going to sing this song throughout eternity that we begin the gathering
process now.
WHY SHORT-TERM MISSIONS
The specific question we are asking
here this morning is why short-term missions.
As I said earlier, I don’t believe it is a matter of either long or
short-term, but finding a balance between the two. Dr. Lo has raised a number of issues that he
says indicate we are moving in the wrong direction. Some of those, like motives, doing rather
than being and a focus on numbers apply equally to both approaches. I say that coming from a position of being
involved in long-term missions. There
were any number of missionaries on the field who were and maybe are there for
the wrong motives; who were totally absorbed in doing – in fact the more the
better – rather than being; and who did report large numbers coming to Christ
in a relatively short period of time.
However, as in the case of many short-term reports, this great
ingathering was the result of building on the work of those who had gone
before. The response to these first two
issues is not to eliminate one approach or the other, but recruit, evaluate,
train, and equip both more effectively.
That burden is on those of us here at home who are doing the
sending. If you’re not sure about that
check out Romans 10:12-15.
As far as the issue of our
The issues of globalization and
stewardship are indeed real issues. K.
P. Yohannan, in his book Revolution in World Missions, makes a very
impassioned plea for a reevaluation of both who is going into missions and how
mission dollars are spent. In so many
ways, yes, national missionaries are better equipped to present the gospel to
their own people and face the rigors of the field at an incarnational level
than we from the west will ever be. But
that must not keep us home. If anything
it should redirect us to new fields and new methodologies and more effective
use of the funds that are available to us as we partner with indigenous workers
called to the life of missions. It is
unrealistic to say that those in the west should turn over their abundance to
those in the majority world. It won’t
happen. They are two different
worlds. Isn’t it more realistic and
productive to learn how to surrender the pretense of abundance in order to work
among and learn from those who lack so that we can grow in Christ and build His
kingdom together? But once again, this
applies to both short and long-term missions.
Additionally, I’m not sure we can
lay the blame for career missionaries struggling with finances solely at the
feet of those involved in short-term programs.
From an anthropological perspective that’s like buying into the theory
of “limited good”. Essentially what it
says is that there is only so much good in the world, in this case money. If I or you take more than our fare share of
“good” it means that someone else will get less or none at all. If that is true what we end up with is a
church that is constantly at war over limited resources. That’s a great picture to present to the
world. And think about what it says
about our God. How powerful really is He
to meet my daily needs if He only has so much to go around? If I’m new to the game do I really stand a
chance? The truth is that a major
portion of the funds short-term missionaries draw from come from sources that
would not be going to career missionaries anyway.
But let’s shift the focus to why
short-term missions is a viable approach to ministry and what it does for the
kingdom.
In the first place it is
biblical. Looking to the Old Testament
we have the story of Jonah. Granted he
was not a willing missionary, but he did eventually go. According to chapter 3
verse 3, a visit to the city required 3 days.
It is possible that Jonah stayed longer, but regardless he does present
the image of a short-term missionary with a specific message, to a specific
group of people, in a limited amount of time, and in this case great numbers
responded and turned to God. Jonah
lacked adequate cross-cultural training, had a horrendous attitude toward those
of another cultural demonstrating the epitome of ethnocentricity, he used
methods that reflected anything but culturally sensitive contextualization and
still God blessed it.
Transitioning to the New Testament
you already know who I’m going to suggest, Paul. He was involved in any number of different
short-term ministry experiences and as far as I can figure out only two of them
were for extended periods of time,
Well let’s jump ahead a few
years. If you look closely at most
denominational mission boards today you will find that they require, not
suggest but require, some form of short-term mission experience before they
will even consider a candidate for career status. One of the primary reasons for this is to
confirm that the candidate is both spiritually and socially gifted to make the
transition to long-term missions. Having
worked with missionaries who did not go through this process I can see the
wisdom. It is so much easier on everyone
– candidate, mission organization and national church – to discover the
compatibility, or lack thereof during a short-term experience rather than to
simply assume that whatever might be causing a problem will eventually go
away. And that doesn’t even take into
consideration the cost involved in setting up a career missionary as opposed to
a short-termer. When I went out the
estimates were some where around $100,000 to establish a missionary family on
the field for their first four years.
And that is typically there least productive time.
And what is it that these short-term
missionaries do? Will they plant a
church in 2 weeks? Probably not, but
they can help in ways that would take the career missionary months or maybe
years to equal. Will they always bring
hundreds to the Kingdom through a one night showing of the Jesus film? Probably not, but they can stir up a lot of
interest, they can draw a crowd and hopefully establish enough contacts to keep
the missionary going for weeks or months.
I’ve shared with some of you in
class that we spent several years in
And then of course the college teams
that came for 2 or 3 weeks, some individuals for up to a year. We had several teams that worked with us in
the area of street ministries including puppets, literature distribution,
music, balloon animals, and English conversation. Another team focused specifically on public
concerts and worship services. In every
case new doors were opened with local governmental structures, people were made
aware of the presence of the church, enthusiasm was created on the part of the
church members as they gained new vision for what could be done, and extensive
personal contacts were made throughout the community.
The final, but not least important,
benefit of short-term missions is what it can do for those who
participate. You will notice I said what
it can do, not what it dies. Just like
anything else, you will only get out of it what you put into it. Over the past several years I have taken well
over 100 students on short-term mission trips.
A very small percentage of those who have gone have been total wipouts. But the truth is they were here in the States
as well and I should have been more careful in the selection and training
process. The vast majority has had their
eyes and hearts opened to what God can and is doing throughout His
Kingdom. They have experienced things
that they never would have had they not gone.
They have seen God work in ways they never imagined. And their hearts were transformed in ways
they would have thought impossible. Most
will never go overseas again but they brought their experiences back to the
local church and as a body they now know how to really pray for the universal
church. They are committed to giving to
the growth of the Kingdom. They see others
as real people. And then finally there
are those who sensed or confirmed God’s call to full-time missions. You could find them now in
Is short-term mission the answer to
all our problems and the future of the church in its outreach to the
world? No. But it is part of the answer. It is one aspect of the future. God is using it and it is well worth the
time, the effort and the financial investment.