Should we go on mission?
Friday, July 25, 2008
A few weeks ago, I wrote this column in the United Methodist Reporter about my recent mission experience in Peru. I had wanted to put down in words my views on the importance of short-term missions for sometime, and the column gave me the chance to start to do that. There's a whole lot more than I couldn't fit in a 700 word article, but it was at least a start.
A couple of days ago over breakfast here at the Duke Youth Academy, I got into a conversation with fellow DYA staffer Lanecia Rouse over whether short-term missions to foreign countries can be justified. We had heard Dr. Amy Laura Hall give a plenary lecture to the DYA students earlier in the week, where she suggested that we would be better off focusing our efforts on being in ministry with our local communities. Lanecia is a youth minister at a large church in Nashville, TN, and she was reflecting on whether she should be taking her kids on foreign missions.
I admit it is a complex issue. There is a not-so-good history of mission work from Europe and the United States that saw peoples in the Developing World as inferior and pursued missions in a highly condescending manner. That missional legacy is a black mark on the church, and we should be ashamed for the attitudes of our ancestors. Some think that this negative legacy represents a conclusive case against foreign missions in the present (and that all missional activity between the Global North and the Global South will inevitably take on colonial overtones).
The other potential argument against foreign missions has to do with costs and the allocation of resources. This recent article in the Washington Post chronicles blunders commonly made by American missionary groups, from poor use of resources, to engaging in construction projects that are unnecessary or wrong-headed, to cultural ignorance of host communities. By this line of thinking, short-term groups do more harm than good when they go to engage in ministries that are best undertaken by churches already present in local cultures.
These are tough challenges that anyone who wants to go on a short-term mission trip needs to face. I think the key to understanding the importance of such missional ventures is in forming long-term, sustained relationships between sister churches that are constantly renewed through short-term trips. I have tried to go about my relationship with the Methodist Church of Peru in just this way.
I would be curious to hear your thoughts about the pros and cons of the short-term approach to missions. Should they be avoided? Or can they be justified? What are some of the important arguments on each side?
posted by Andrew C. Thompson at 1:31 AM
5 Comments:
Andrew, first thank you for the blog. I am aware of the critique of short term missions,and offer the following reflection: you are right that a long term partnership is the goal (our congregation has a 27 year relationship with a community in northern haiti). Amy Laura's comment is shaped by her assumption that it is either/or: my experience is that folks who do short term mission work are engaged in our local community, and return seeing it with new eyes (the immigrant experience, for example). In the UMC, the volunteer in mission movement has been a way for the laity to take ownership of global ministry in response to structures that can be (at times) clerical and bureaucratic. In this way the professional critique of short term missions is similar to ones lodged against UMW and the Sunday School movement. These were birthed in response to an increasingly clericalized church. I know that short term mission work can be flawed, but it can also mature,with discernment, theological reflection and time. My own experiences over 20 years in Bolivia, Guatemala and in the last years Haiti have been rich ones. And I am aware (as the pastors and laity in those contexts are) that the work, at its best, is a sharing of gifts.
Ken,
Thank you for those comments. I think you are right-on, both in terms of the fruits of long-term & sustainable relationships, and also in the way that missions can empower laity for ministry closer to home. My "Out of the Bubble" piece was written directly with an eye to that latter point. I've seen too many people to count who go on short-term missions, get their worlds rocked, and then return with a new attitude toward discipleship and commitment to ministry.
One thing that I think we are also seeing more and more is a commitment to receive missionaries from foreign countries as well. My friend Pedro Uchuya has been to the United States a couple of times, and when he comes it gives him the chance to witness to his North American brothers and sisters about the work God is doing in Peru. That mutual sharing of missionaries can be a real key in building sustainable mission relationships between churches.
Peace,
AT
Andrew, I also thank you for this. It seems like one of those subjects no one wants to talk about. I was speaking with a woman from India. She invited me to come to her country to preach to her people. I asked, "Why would I do that? It would cost a lot and I don't even speak the language. What if I went and just setup chairs and passed out Bibles and that kind of thing. You could preach."
She looked at me, amazed, and said. "I can see that I can talk to you like a brother. We always offer American pastors the chance to come and preach because that's usually what brings them to us."
She was needing money to support indigenous Christian pastors. So instead of going, we save up $450, the cost of supporting an indigenous pastor in a manner fitting his culture for a YEAR.
And yet, we also went on a mission trip to Moldova where the connections made between our people and children in an orphanage was a very good thing. Looks like one of those thorny, case-by-case, discernment issues.
Andrew
I grew up as an MK and saw both the good and the bad of what missions can bring. What I loved about what my dad did was to work to start churches that didn't require a white missionary to continue.
I've also led and gone on any number of short term mission trips with youth groups, mostly here in the US. In terms of economics, simply sending the money we spent to get there, help, and get back would have allowed for more to be done, yet I felt getting the kids to see a larger world warranted the expense. Over the years, I've seen trips change the way people looked at the world and the vocational and life choices they made about what to do and where to do it.
It is a complex issue. I guess the final thing I would say is attitude plays a big part. We went on our trips to learn from the folks we went to help as much as anything; we didn't go as saviors or benefactors. That made a difference.
Peace,
Milton
Lanecia is just an awesome person anyway.
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