Thoughts on Short Term Mission Trips

I had a wonderful lunch today with a couple from Terra Nova. They are a solid family who really love Jesus and want to serve Him in whatever way they can.

Recently, they have felt drawn to an amazing work in South Africa that is doing great stuff ministering to the homeless, to AIDS victims, to orphans and a whole lot more. This couple just returned from a meeting in Tennessee where the founders of this mission shared about what has happened and what is happening at the mission.

They have sensed a moving in the Spirit in their lives that they should go to this mission on a short-term mission trip. There are a ton of reasons they shouldn't go - it's expensive, they are not rich, they have children for whom they would have to arrange childcare, it's Africa (that's a long way away!), I could go on. But they can't shake this feeling that God is asking them to go.

So they asked me about it.

I have many thoughts on short-term mission trips. The primary principle that I have learned over the years is that short-term trips benefit those going far more than they benefit the people you are "ministering to." I'm not saying houses don't get built, leaders don't get resourced and equipped, and generally positive things don't happen. I'm just saying that the work of the Kingdom of God revolves around building relationships and the mutuality of community. That cannot develop during a week-long trip between those visiting and the "natives."

But here's the rub...

The impact these trips have on the people who go is infectious. They come back with a whole new perspective on life. They see life and stuff and priorities completely differently.

And most of all, they have learned a little bit more about being submitted to the Spirit. They have learned about sacrifice. They have learned about obedience.

I don't care if you are going downtown to serve at a soup kitchen or around the world to spend a few weeks at an AIDS shelter, if you feel God asking you to step out...GO! While you may not change the entire cycle of injustice and poverty in Africa, you just might begin to hear more loudly and more clearly God's still small voice. And that could end up changing eternity for those around you.

Under the Mercy,
Jason