Can a week make a difference?

What if we got it all wrong? What if God’s plan for the evangelizing the world does not include week long “mission” trips for North Americans to exotic places South Dallas, Port-au-Prince, Haiti or Goma, Congo? What if short term mission trips do more spiritual, physical, and emotional harm than good for both those going to serve and those being served? What if we’ve built a church missions model that is not just flawed, but ineffective and unbiblical?

While my knee jerk answer to those questions is “no” to each one I believe strongly that my church (and every church) ought to be asking those critical questions about any and every program and partnership that results in deploying folks to other places near and far. I say this because so often in ministry we slip into patterns of “doing missions” just as we have with “doing church” because it’s been done a certain way for as long as anyone can remember. Instead of evaluating all aspects of a ministry, we settle for status quo and assume the above questions would be answered with a no.

If we want to be sure one week offsite deployments of our people should continue how do we do it? For Watermark over the past few years we’ve developed some basic questions that we are constantly asking to evaluatethe effectiveness of sending folks on short term discipleship trips. This list of five questions provides us basic principles for evaluating our efforts:

  1. What did we do on the ground that provided real assistance to our partner and was an effective/strategic use of our team’s time? Why?
  2. What were the most effective parts of our Discipleship Trip preparation? Why?
  3. What could be improved in the preparation process so that our folks are better prepared to have an impact on the ground and upon returning home?
  4. What activities did we participate in that we don’t see as best use of the team’s gifts? Why is that? What can be done to improve them? Why should/should not we scrap them altogether in the future?
  5. What have been the changes in the lives of those who served with us on a short term discipleship trip?

So now what do I do you ask? You’ve asked the right questions and accumulated helped information, but what’s next? Willingness to act on the information is the next step and it’s the most difficult. Short term trips have a nostalgia to them that means folks who go want and expect a certain experience in preparation and execution of the trip. It is that sense of entitlement that turns a “discipleship trip” into a “vacation with a purpose.”

In Mark 10:43-45 Christ makes is clear that from God’s viewpoint the most exalted by him are those who focus is on serving not being served and Christ is the model of that service. So work to build into the teams being sent out a servant’s heart. Next, determine what your partner on the ground really needs. Don’t tell them what you want to do, but rather explain the makeup and gift set of the members of the team and ask how that group might best serve the needs they have.

Finally, be OK with change. It is so easy to slip into a ministry pattern with a partner simply because that organization has been with you for many years. Speak truth in love to your partners and your people about why you’re staying with or leaving a partner. Make it clear you’ve asked the right five questions if you are planning to cut off a partner. Those questions are a great tool for guiding your conversation to either maintain or change things up. Those questions and others you might come up with like them will free you to insure the impact of your trips, no matter where they go.