Short Term Missions, Long Term Partnerships: Reevaluating Mission Trips

What Value is there in Short-Term Missions? 

Over the years, I have had people ask me why my family and I go on short-term mission trips. Some of the more cynical have wondered aloud, “Isn’t it really a vacation?” Others have been blunt, “You don’t really help the people you visit, do you?” I’ve had to be honest with myself in the face of such direct questions.

Although they seem to prematurely dismiss any value derived from short-term mission involvement, they are understandable questions and important to answer. 

Within the last decade or two, the Christian community has taken a hard look at the negative impact of short-term missions.

Short-term missions often strain the resources of time and energy for the long-term missionaries who inevitably host the short-term team. And, contrary to popular belief, short-term missions are not a good farm system for producing long-term mission workers. While there may be an initial buzz from participants who desire to give themselves more wholly to a life of missions, the research does not reveal a strong correlation between short-term mission engagement and long-term vocational commitment to the mission field. 

Added to this evaluation of short-term mission trips are the various critiques of charitable giving. As an example, the 2009 book When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert pointed out how Christian charity can be paternalistic and not actually contribute to long-term sustainability for communities in which many life-long missionaries work and short-term groups serve. 

When it comes to a church’s local and global mission involvement and charitable contributions to missions, cautionary questions are a necessary good. Pastors and church leadership should be both intentional and introspective about the rhyme and reason behind their involvement in missions and the positive and negative impacts it may have on those they hope to serve. 

However, I have a distinctly different answer to the short-term missions skeptic. 

Long-Term Relationships Over Short-Term Trips

“Why do my family and I go on short-term mission trips?” 

We don’t. We invest in long-term relationships with men and women who are doing tough kingdom work in other parts of the world. While they are part of our larger Christian family, over the years in which we have journeyed with them, they have become our extended family and we theirs. 

When we travel to Mexico or South Africa, it’s like visiting family—just as anyone might visit a brother in Toledo or a sister in Spokane.

We travel to see them when it is convenient for them to have us and our primary objective in being with them is for mutual encouragement in our relationship with one another, with Christ, and our shared kingdom work (Romans 1:11). Just like when we visit our folks at their homes in Boston or Chicago, we don’t presume we know the city or culture better than they do. We are there to observe, to learn, to encourage, and to help only in the way and to the extent that they deem best. 

In all the times that I have journeyed to see our extended family of kingdom workers in South Africa and Eswatini in particular, I have shared in deep relational connections with these partners in the Gospel. In 2012, along with five other friends with whom I traveled, we spent a week in mourning the death of the child of one of our mission partners. Sadly, this summer felt like déjà vu. 

My friend Solomon, a Nigerian born church planter and educator in Eswatini, lost his only child and son, Samuel, to complications following a kidney transplant. Over the past four years, my own son, Lukas, and I had spent a number of summers with Samuel and his wife, TK, serving at a Christian high school in Mbabane and a care center outside of Johannesburg. Our friend Solomon invited us to his home to mourn Samuel. 

For three days we showed up in the morning to sit with Solomon on his patio singing hymns, reading scripture, praying together, and sharing stories about Samuel’s life. My 17 year old son soaked up every moment of this time together. The most enduring memory from our time together came on the third day of mourning. Pastor Solomon, who has known Lukas since Lukas was seven, put his arm around him, held him closely and said, “Lukas, my son, I am so glad that you came to be with me.” 

While some may see our travels as traditional short-term trips, our intent and practice are rooted in ongoing, mutual relationships rather than one-off projects or evangelistic campaigns.

Long-term mission relationships let us share life across ethnic, cultural, and geographic boundaries 

So, how does this happen? 

Rethinking the Mission: From Trips to Relationships

To cultivate long-term, relationally grounded mission partnerships, we ask ourselves four key questions about each mission trip we consider. They aim to ensure we deepen engagement with our missions partners.

Power of Presence: Will this trip (and how well will it) allow for presence in the lives of our partners and those with whom they minister? 

The shutdowns during the pandemic reminded many of us of the importance of physical presence. Of course, there are worthy global mission engagements that by their nature may restrict our involvement, but even if that is the case, do we have presence at least in some capacity with the people who serve in those closed or restricted areas?

Power of Long-Term: Can we (and are we willing to) go the long haul with our missionary family and their community? 

Again, while there may be occasional and temporary partnerships, it is preferable to see a marriage of sorts with those with whom we partner and with whom we can go the distance.

Power of Encouragement: Do we give to and receive from one another? Is there mutual benefit?

We are partners in the Gospel. The power in our relationship is Christ and not our resources. It is important to allow our partners in the field to lead us in the work in which they are the experts on the ground. They can encourage us in our own work at home and we can encourage them in theirs as we listen to, learn from, and love one another. 

Power of Shared Mission: How can we share our own local ministry with our global partners? 

When we are present, in it for the long-term, and mutually encourage one another on the journey, a powerful shared mission emerges in which the global church in various locations supports the work of the global church in various locations. 

Within our own global relationships, we have invited our partners from Mexico to join us on missions engagement in the United States, South Africa, and the West Bank. We have done the same with our partners in South Africa so that we all have walked on each other’s earth and shared in each other’s joys and woes of ministering in our local contexts.

Shared ministry can happen when we all better understand the place and context in which we separately and collectively minister. 

When Done Well, It's Not About the Trip

In the end, short-term missions done well are not about the trip—they’re about the people. And when we show up year after year, in joy and in sorrow, we proclaim with our presence that the Gospel truly binds us together as family.