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Stephen: More than a million Christians go on short-term missions trips each year. They're popular with youth groups and families and often recommended as a way to get a taste for missions. But at the same time, the popularity of short-term missions has raised some important questions. How long is short-term anyway? And do short-term missions serve the Great Commission, or are they something else altogether?
Brooks, our question today is a pretty simple one. What are short-term missions? What are the pros and cons?
Brooks: So, the question of short-term missions—I'm cracking up because I was wondering how long it would take to get to this question. This is something that is very popular for good reason. And I'll just state up front, I am a fan of short-term missions if it's defined correctly and the goals are clear. And so short-term missions—most churches have some version of a short-term missions trip, especially for their young people. That's a good thing. We shouldn't look down on that in any way. And I'm a big fan of short-term missions because most of the people that end up going into long-term missions went on a short-term missions trip first. And so there's a ton of pluses to short-term missions.
What I get nervous about with short-term missions is that somehow people start thinking short-term missions is the way that we're going to reach the world. They never say it, but they start acting like it. I was at a missions conference, a really well-known one, very large, and they started having all the people who had gone on short-term missions trips stand up. It's one of those icebreaker opening questions. And they said, "Okay, all the people who have been on two trips or less, sit down." And about half the audience sat down. All the people who have been on ten trips or less, sit down, and most everybody sat down. And they finally worked their way to the last girl who was standing, and she'd been on 26 short-term missions trips. And that's a tragedy. We should not celebrate that in any way, because what it means is that 25 other times somebody else could have filled her slot. And something's going on in that young lady's head to where she's not satiated with one trip. It's not heading her towards a direction of being more involved long-term. It's filling the gap in her mind for why she should or how she should be doing missions. That's not a good thing.
Short-term missions—and historically, let's keep in mind that the missionaries that came before us, Adoniram Judson, Hudson Taylor, those guys defined short-term missions as anything less than five years. We have created this unique little niche in missions today where there's short-term, then there's midterm, and then there's long-term. I would say no, there's no midterm. There's five years or less. That's short-term. I'm going to stick with Judson on this. And there's long-term—the people who go and keep the calendar open-ended. We're there till a church is planted. And so let's keep those categories in mind.
But coming back to the positives, and I really do want to end on the positives with these, is that short-term missions can be tremendously beneficial if you set the goals right. And the two major things are making sure that they're getting exposure to long-term missions and what it looks like. That's a wonderful thing. And not thinking that they're going to evangelize the world through short-term missions. Now, there can be evangelism if you're going to a country that speaks the language that you speak. Now, that doesn't mean that you have high school Spanish level three, and so you're going to go to a Spanish-speaking country and try to share your faith. Generally, high school level Spanish is not really that high quality when you get overseas. But if you're going to an English-speaking country, absolutely, share your faith and give them churches that they can tie into, anybody who you may possibly be blessed to lead to Christ or at least lead them to the truth. Have them involved in those things and help them see something beyond just you being there. But as a general rule in short-term missions, don't try to evangelize if you don't know the language. That will usually cause more confusion and not be helpful long-term to the cause of Christ in that country. But if you're going for exposure—just to see what the Lord is doing in Afghanistan, in Papua New Guinea, in Indonesia, in Zambia—look at what the Lord is doing through these ones who are long-term there. And it exposes young people especially to, "Maybe the Lord would have me serving in this way."
And this kind of ties into the second main positive for short-term missions. The exposure is number one, but number two is helping them see what long-term missions looks like and helping the long-termers on the field. When we were overseas, we had a short-term team come. They helped us build our house in Yembiyembi. They were there for two weeks at the very beginning parts of our ministry. They were a tremendous blessing—just that boost of people who had some carpentry skills, who had some electrical skills, who helped us wire our house for 12 volts. We didn't have regular power, so we had to wire it for solar. And setting up some rudimentary plumbing, just using their gifts to help us. It was such a blessing. I still have a picture of that team that came, and we would have subsequent teams that would come and do different things here and there, and they were really encouraging. And there are times where a short-term team can just boost the morale and see a lot of good work done for a long-term team or a group of church planters overseas that they just don't have time to commit to this particular project or they don't have the skill set. So those two things to me make short-term missions very worth it—the exposure and the benefit to the long-termers on the ground. If we don't mix in the evangelism portion or the idea that somehow us going as short-termers is going to see the world reached for Christ, then I think you steer away from the things that can be quite bad and you steer towards the things that are helpful.
Just in closing, there are some short-term works that I'm really encouraged by. Number one, head and shoulders is a program called Radius Serve. Yes, Radius, the long-term trainers, has a short-term program down in Tijuana, Mexico, and it's an incredible program that has short-term groups up to—I think 80 to 85 is the max that campus can handle. And they come down and they build houses for people that do not have a house in Tijuana. They go to different sites. These people have been vetted quite well, and they build a house for them. But in the mornings and in the evenings, they get good teaching on missions. And so it's kind of this two-pronged effort of serving and learning. And that's just a tremendous benefit to young people in that they get to work with their hands, but their minds are engaged as well. And so Radius Serve, I would check that out.
Another program that I'm encouraged with is one in Minneapolis, Minnesota, called Engage Global. Also a great program that's just really educational. I know the leaders there and am very encouraged with them, the way that they think and the way that they speak of long-term missions.
And then the third one would be another program called the Interface Program, put on by Ethnos 360. That's done some tremendous things over the years. I've been privileged to teach there a couple of times. But those would be the three that I would recommend, kind of in that order, if you will. But very, very thankful for short-term missions and what it can do if it's run well.
Stephen: If you'd like to learn more about the short-term program Radius Serve that Brooks mentioned, visit radiusinternational.org and find out how your local church can serve while training. And if you have a question for Ask Missionary, comment on this episode or send us an email, and subscribe to be notified when our next episode, "Viral Missions," airs next week. Thanks for listening.