The Hidden Danger of Short-Term Mission Trips for Students
It is once again time to start gearing up our annual mission trips. There are so many great options out there. Some are as close as an urban setting; some are in rural and isolated contexts; and some are international, ranging in proximity to Mexico all the way to Thailand or Africa. One of the key considerations when planning a mission trip with students has to be assessing the potential dangers of the context to which we will be traveling.
Our church has changed its context for short-term missions several times depending on concerns about danger. We have taken into consideration the violence in an urban setting or an outbreak of hepatitis within a street community. We have wrestled with the potential danger of crossing a drug warfare zone in the boarder towns of Mexico. Add to the danger of the location transportation and housing, and we start to realize a mission trip for students can be a costly and dangerous endeavor.
As someone who thinks short-term mission trips are the bread and butter of student ministry, I have come to the conclusion that these potential dangers are part of the process of helping students (and parents) live outside their comfort zones. Taking our students and putting them in a totally foreign and partially dangerous context softens their hearts and opens their eyes to see the working of God in new and fresh ways.
After leading dozens of trips through the years, I am starting to realize that while the surface dangers are real and must be taken seriously, there is actually a bigger danger lurking just below the surface. This danger is cementing in our students a false view of missions and of themselves.
Every year, we ask students to fill out an application. One of the questions has something to do with why they want to participate in this trip. With almost 100 percent unanimity, the answer is, “We want to help those less fortunate than ourselves.” Don’t get me wrong, this is an awesome value. It is a value that is at the heart of the Christian faith. Those of us with power and resources are to care for the orphans and the widows, the poor and oppressed.
However, when we unintentionally frame missions as wealthy suburbanites who go out to help poor people, we continue to instill in our students the idea that they have their acts together and are above others. I am not saying the suburban church is the problem or that we need to beat down our own context or culture and make students feel awful for the blessings and resources they have. The suburban culture is just that–a culture. However, when we engage in missions, we must consider and celebrate the culture to which we are going. We have to help students see that we are guests in another culture, not superior to those we visiting.
Our students are naturally self-absorbed and limited in their worldview. When we set up our trips as us coming to save the day, their foundational worldview doesn’t have the chance to be challenged; and this is the true danger of student ministry short-term missions. We take one of the most significant spiritual experiences of their high school careers and solidify some of the worst of suburban thinking. Missions is not suburban kids with their wealth and privilege helping the poor. This is the danger in compassion ministries.
One of the best books I have read about missions for those of us leading trips from a suburban context is When Helping Hurts: Alleviating Poverty Without Hurting the Poor…and Yourself by Brian Fikkert. This book is a must-read for anyone leading a trip. My biggest take-away from my reading of the book is that we must change our views of wealth and poverty. All of us are wealthy in some ways and poor in others. The challenge is to identify the ways in which we are wealthy and the ways in which we are poor. Once we have done this, we can come into any context, specifically impoverished ones, and easily become partners who share resources. We then have a real chance for cultural exchange instead of seeing ourselves as superiors above those we help.
As the fundraising, logistics and training for our annual short-term trips are gearing up, there are many practical dangers we must take into account. It takes intentional work and training to break through and break down the traditional mindset of many suburban students, as well as leaders. Here are four values to consider as you plan your short-term mission trip this year:
1) Short-term missions are about recognizing that God is already at work wherever it is we are going. The God we serve loves the entire world. The place we will be heading to already is loved by God, and God already has people in place doing great ministry there. This immediately takes the focus off of us and what we bring and opens our eyes to the spiritual reality that God is alive and at work long before we showed up.
2) Short-term missions is about partnering, not helping. We now have the privilege of coming alongside the people who God has called to love for the long haul. When we see our role as that of partner, an exchange of blessings occurs. We become givers and receivers rather then saviors. For this to be successful, we must find organizations that not only are established and committed to that particular community, but also organizations we can trust. The more you trust an organization, the more you truly can partner and celebrate all that God has done before you got there, is doing while you are there and will continue to do when you leave.
3) Short-term missions is about student development. There is little long-term benefit our students can bring to mission field. We are only there for a week and often have little knowledge of the culture and language. At best, we are a blessing to the organization/missionaries with whom we partner. Because that is the case, we get to use this experience to shape and transform the students to whom we are called to minister. That means we must help shape this trip in a way that broadens their view of ministry, not affirm their privileged worldview. Their spiritual health and development is our chief concern.
If we are taking students on short-term mission trips, we must clarify what we are doing. It is true that many of us come from churches with significant resources, and we want to partner with the heart of God in doing ministries of compassion; but we cannot solidify the thinking that financial resources are the definition of God’s blessings. Wealth does not establish us as superiors. We cannot let our students live into this false and dangerous belief.
Our task in short-term missions is to help our students understand how big God’s heart is for the world, to partner with those who are already there and to be a blessing for the short time our paths cross. We all have wealth, and we all have poverty. By helping our students identify and articulate where they are wealthy and where they are poor allows them to be partners in ministry and cultural exchange.
