Thoughts on Short Term Mission Trips

The focus of our most recent issue of our agency's magazine Unfinished is ministry in Central America. For my column, I decided to broach the subject of short term missions. I did this with fear and trembling. I have become known as a voice of caution among our staff in this whole phenomenon of short term mission trips. I've not wanted to be a wet blanket on what I know has been a very wonderful experience for so many people, but I've also sensed the need to speak truth in an area where wishful and romantic thinking sometimes dominates the discussion. What began as my usual column for the publication turned into an article. It was kind of funny for me to write on this since I've never actually been on a short term mission trip myself! (Well, it depends how you look at it. I spoke in a church a couple years ago and was introduced by the pastor as "The Ramsays who just returned from their mission trip to Kazakhstan." Hmmm - 10 years is one LONG trip!). Anyhow, upon joining the staff of The Mission Society four years ago, it did not take me long to realize that short term missions is a dominant them in missions especially in Central America. I've had several opportunities to see various aspects of the impact on the receiving end, still not having been a part of the "going" end of a short term team.

As I put my article together, I worked with our missionaries in Nicaragua since I had visited them a year and a half ago and was encouraged by what I'd seen them do with short term teams. It gave me the opportunity to approach the subject with honesty and to ask some of the hard questions that are often ignored, but to point to a case where those questions had been addressed. I was still nervous in submitting the article and begged our editor to change or even to reject the article if it came across as too harsh or judgmental. I really had no desire to throw cold water on something I know has rejuvenated the faith of so many in my home country. I've thrilled to see more people engaged in mission personally - not to relegate mission to a distant denominational department or a once a year mission focus weekend at their local church. It's great to see US church goers speak of personal experience of ministry in different cultures. Yet I wanted to invite those same people to a sober discussion of how these good intentions have created some real problems in the region as well.

Since the magazine came out a couple weeks ago, I've been relieved with the initial feedback. Our Church Ministry department plans to use the article in their short term mission training component. Some churches have asked for reprints. I am so thankful to the Lord that somehow my intent of writing the article seems to have been communicated. So I decided I would share this with my e-mail list as well in hopes that it might be interesting to you or a helpful resource to your churches. The link to the article is http://www.themissionsociety.org/magazines/unfinished/2010-47/198 . There are other related articles in the magazine by my colleagues and some helpful excerpts from books that are worth reading as well - you can see these by looking at the table of contents on the right side of the page. You can also subscribe to the magazine using a link at the top of the page. Our editor does a great job of making it an informative, teaching magazine, rather than a self-promoting, fund-raising magazine.

Easter Holiday from Church?

Yesterday I met with a couple who are preparing to serve as missionaries with The Mission Society. We talked about various possible directions, focusing on possibilities of working among the unreached peoples of southern Asia or working with the house church in a closed country to help them reach beyond their borders. It was exciting stuff, just thinking of being part of a movement to share the gospel with people groups who have yet to hear.

It is hard to imagine people who have no clue about Who Jesus is. They haven’t had the opportunity to make a decision about him, to answer that important question he posed to Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” As we were wrapping up our time together, we began talking about their children and how they were doing with the whole idea of packing up and living in a far-away place. At that point, they related an experience their 13-year old daughter, Mary, had recently.

Mary was talking to a friend a few weeks ago. The friend suggested that they should spend the night together that Saturday. But Mary, knowing the coming Sunday was Easter said, “It probably wouldn’t work out since Sunday is Easter.” The friend responded, “But Easter is a holiday – do you have to go to church on holidays?”

The discussion served as a reminder to me about how many people all around us in the U.S. are as clueless as to who Jesus is as those who live in places that have never had access to the gospel. Why is it that they are clueless? We can blame the media, the lack of prayer in schools, MTV, postmodernism, or whatever we want. But the fact is that the way people learn about Jesus is when someone who knows Him shares about Him in word and through their lives. In an unreached people group, the reason people don’t know is because there is no one there to do that. But in our U.S. culture, it suggests rather that the many who do know and believe are not being very intentional about telling those around them.

On Jogging and Mental Maps

I’m attending a missions week up at Toccoa Falls College in the mountains of NE Georgia. Today I decided to go for a jog. I looked at Google Maps to chart the course. And off I went. It didn’t take me long to realize I should have checked out the topographical version – the first mile went up, up, up – a 400 foot rise a later map check revealed. Then I came to a fork that was not on Google Maps. I went one way, up, up, up for about 10 minutes – dead end. So I came back and went the other way – another dead end. Oh well, I finally returned – so much for my nice, clean 5-mile loop!

Being the somewhat neurotic sort, I got back to my computer and turned on satellite view. Aha! There were more roads than the map showed, so I should have made a turn somewhere that just did not show being a crossroads. I also could see now that this was a mountainous trek, so I should anticipate some hefty hills.

This reminded me of what I learned way back in Missions 101 about world view. Our world view contains all the assumptions we make about how the world works, how we relate to one another, how we do the basic routines of life. My prof called it our “mental map.” When we go to another culture, it is a different “mental map,” which can cause disorientation.

Well, I knew I needed a different map here, but I didn’t take the time to look at all the dimensions of the new map. So I ended up with unexpected difficulty and I made wrong turns. If we head to cross-cultural ministry, however well intended, without doing the hard work of learning the various facets of the new culture – the new mental map – we are apt to run into all sorts of surprises and difficulties that just didn’t show up on the initial rendering. And we very well may end up getting lost in the process and create problems not only for ourselves, but for others. Most importantly, the very Gospel we came to share can get distorted or even just lost in the process.

That’s why good preparation for missionary work, whether for a 2-week trip or for a life time of cross-cultural ministry, is of vital importance. I get very concerned when I hear of a church group going to another country to “do ministry” with only an hour orientation before heading to the airport! They are going with a surface version of the new mental map at best. We need to show our love for the Lord and respect for the new culture by doing the work required to get a decent handle on the new mental map we’ll be using to negotiate the culture!

Tomorrow I’ll try my run again, this time armed with satellite imagery that should help me find the elusive loop!

A New Generation – Urbana 2009

I just finished attending the huge Urbana 2009 student missions conference. Over 15,000 young people gathered to learn about and explore commitment to God’s mission in the world. It has been an amazing time.

As I have listened to the sessions and had well over 100 individual conversations with students, I began to see an exciting pattern develop. It is clear that God is calling a new generation to His mission. No surprise there – every generation is called by God to His mission. Yet each calling has its unique characteristics – each generation has aspects of God’s mission that is revealed with more clarity than other generations may have had. They come with new passions and new ideas. The same Mission of God, but new facets and approaches.

There is an exciting passion among students to confront issues of injustice and poverty with the power of the Gospel. This isn’t a fuzzy “do-gooder” type of approach, trying to come up with human solutions – the approach that has characterized various “social gospel” attempts of the past. This generation seems to be gifted with a radical abandon to Jesus Christ and a willingness to confront systems of poverty and injustice with the light of the Gospel. They seem to experience the deep offense that such systems are to the Creator and feel compelled to challenge and change.

As I listened to them and felt this passion, I realized that it is not a negation of what has gone before, but it really is that God is stirring something new. Those of us who are a bit further along in years – parents, church leaders, mission leaders – need to recognize what God is doing and do all we can to encourage, to advise, and to release this incredible energy and passion.

Can Missionaries Have Fun?

One evening in Kazakhstan after a great team meeting, our kids were playing together with the usual banter. My friend and colleague, the late Joel Duggins, turned to me and said, “I think we’re having way too much fun.” Our years serving in Kazakhstan were full of experiences and times that were really fun – with our family, with our national friends, in our church cell group, with our mission team. We spent a lot of time laughing, enjoying life and enjoying one another. When asked what the most important characteristics are for a missionary, I include sense of humor along with dependency upon God and flexibility as the top three. I sometimes think that people were attracted to the Gospel as much by the enjoyment of life they saw within us as they did by the words we spoke.

I think it is better than it used to be, but somehow there still is that impression that Christian work – especially mission work – consists mainly of “suffering for Jesus.” It comes across as a heavy burden. And one gets the impression that the more miserable the person is, the higher up they are on the spiritual food chain. While Joel’s question was asked in jest, it can make those involved in missions be a bit nervous if they’re having fun! Somehow, I can’t really be doing God’s work if I’m having fun.

This past Sunday, our worship leader Aaron Keyes preached about joy. He did a great job of demonstrating the Biblical mandate for the Christian to have a deep, abiding joy. It’s not option – it’s a command! In fact, Christians should really be known as some of the most joyous, most fun people to be around. It doesn’t just mean that we are party animals. Nor does it belittle the reality of the challenges we may be called to face. But it does reflect a joy that enabled Paul to command us to “rejoice” even when he was in chains (Phil 4:4). “The joy of the Lord is our strength,” Aaron reminded us from Scripture, suggesting that the lack of joy makes us weak.

My experience has been that the phrase “you can’t out give God” is true in all aspects, not just financial. When I give myself fully into His service, He gives me an enjoyment of life that provides a different perspective on circumstances. The love and community He enables us to experience with our brothers and sisters reflect His joy – the result is that we really can expect to have fun together.

Certainly I don’t recommend a person become a missionary simply because it sounds like fun. But rest assured, if God does lead you into full-time, cross cultural ministry, while there will be hardships and challenges, you can also anticipate “having way too much fun” in the midst of it all.

A Day in the City of God

The City of God is a large, infamous favela (slum) in Brazil. As part of the training for our new missionaries, we break them up into small groups and spend a day in various favelas around the city. I was in the group that visited the City of God.

It was an experience that drew out a range of emotions. Our guide used to be a weapons dealer in the City of God, but became a Christian several years ago and had his life transformed. He is a successful account manager for a large firm – but he still spends much of his free time in the City of God, ministering to people, praying with people, and working to improve the situation there.

We walked past the tiny shacks – many no bigger than a college dorm room, built out of various scraps of wood and cardboard, with an asbestos slab laid across for a roof. Drainage water ran down the middle of the dirt path. As we walked, people saw our guide and came asking for prayer. When a woman came to me, I asked how I could pray with her. She said she has AIDS. I and others prayed with her, then encouraged her to seek help from people in the church who could walk alongside her.

We had many other precious and heart-wrenching times of prayer with people. Shawn prayed with a woman who had lost a child at 10 months old. Her 2-year old boy has stomach cancer and leprosy. She said she had been beaten a couple days ago because other moms didn’t want her boy playing with theirs. She said she was ready to take her and her son’s lives.

I could go on – it was one thing to pray with people, but the emotions were so mixed since I knew that in 2 hours we’d be back at our training camp and in 2 weeks we’d be back in Georgia. It was a powerful reminder that real transformation takes place when someone is willing to stay and be a part of people’s lives for the long haul. Drive-by missions feels great and I believe our prayers made a difference, but lasting, full transformation requires so much more. I got just a taste of the burden Christ must have felt when he looked at Jerusalem and spoke of the harvest being plentiful, but the workers few. I pray that He will call many people to the harvest in general, and that He will call some to the City of God – that it can be transformed and live up to its name.

Lurking Evil

When I was a kid, I remember my dad used to quote a line from a radio show that he listened to as a kid – “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?” With no offense intended to The Shadow (the name of that radio show), I think our Lord is the only one who truly knows that. Even though I know mentally and from the Bible that all humans are way short of the glory of God and even though I am aware of horrors that have occurred at the hands of humans historically, I still find myself astonished and horrified.

Most recently, I have been grieving for the people of Iran. In the past two days, the protests were given a face in the person of young Neda Soltan. Neda had just gotten out of her car during a traffic jam caused by a protest rally. In the next moment she was shot through the heart and died in the arms of her friend and piano teacher. She wasn’t throwing rocks; she wasn’t shouting. But someone put her in the sights of his scope and pulled the trigger. What evil inside a heart allows that?

I know such evil exists, but somehow when it occurs in a specific instance and I am confronted with that specific consequence, I find myself sickened. This particular instance has gained worldwide attention, but there are tens of thousands of equally horrible things being done constantly. Sometimes in the name of religion, sometimes in the name of “national security,” sometimes simply because the perpetrator has the power.

Only God knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men, and only God is able to do anything about it. This event is just a stark reminder to me of the need of the world for God and for His ultimate sacrifice in Jesus, who took the consequences of evil onto Himself in order to allow our hearts to overcome it. It takes that level of cosmic power to deal with the depth of evil that could train its sights on a young woman for no cause but to take her life and instill fear and hatred. May God somehow use the tragedy taking place now in Iran to enable His message of love to reach the people. I pray for workers willing to go take that message.