Best Practices for Short-Term Mission Trips
by Laurie A. Occhipinti
There is no single “right” way to do a mission trip. What works depends very much on the goals of the congregations and participants, the strengths and concerns of the host community, and the context of each mission group and each trip. But after several years of talking to short-term mission participants, reading scholarly accounts of the short-term mission phenomenon, and going on mission trips myself, I have found that some conditions and practices seem to support better mission trips — ones that best contribute to alleviating conditions of poverty and to creating genuine relationships between communities.
Establish Long-Term Relationships
Although short-term mission is, by its very definition, limited in duration, it is most effective in the context of a long-term relationship. This can be achieved in a number of different ways — through a direct partnership between congregations or a sister-parish arrangement, by working with a faith-based or nongovernmental organization with a long-term presence in a community, or through one-time participation in a longer-term denominational program that links congregations globally. Even in the case of a natural disaster or other emergency, when a congregation may feel called to send aid and volunteers to a region in which it does not have any existing relationships, this aid is much more effective if it is offered through an existing organization with an established presence “on the ground.”
Choosing a location, going back repeatedly, and allowing a relationship to develop makes the biggest impact and has additional practical benefits as well. Working through a long-term partner helps to ensure a smooth experience for travelers and keeps surprises — and the stress of unanticipated circumstances — to a minimum. Visiting the same location repeatedly may also make the trip seem less like a tourist jaunt.
Reflecting on the Experience
Mission trips are more effective, in a host of different ways, when participants are engaged in examining the purpose of their experience not just during the trip but also before and after the trip. Orientation and debriefing can help to provide participants with a space to reflect on their personal and spiritual development, the meanings that the experience carries for them, and a sense that their involvement in a mission trip can enrich their “ordinary” life. The opportunity to contextualize the short-term mission experience through reflection before and after an actual trip can be another incentive to conduct a short-term mission within a long-term partnership or stable relationship with a host community or organization.
Projects that Make a Difference
Channeling service through effective development projects, ones that have proven themselves to make a difference in the lives of people who are economically disadvantaged, puts the time and resources of short-term mission to their best use. The best projects begin with planners seeking out and listening to the opinions of host partners. Good projects also happen when planners shift as much control as possible to individuals and groups in the host community. They build on strengths — the strengths of the host community, the skills and talents of volunteer participants, and the resources that are available. Focusing on strengths and available resources shifts the ways in which participants think about a “poor” community, pointing out its advantages rather than simply its deficits. It also can make projects more sustainable if they are less reliant on outside support. In order to be most effective, outside groups examine charity, development, and social justice and work toward creating projects that address the causes and not just the symptoms.
Understanding the Role of Culture
Culture is not just the clothes one wears or the music one listens to, but it refers to more fundamental patterns of thought and behavior through which people understand the world and one another. Short-term mission explicitly creates a framework for interaction between people from different cultures. But participants have a tendency to collapse cultural difference, seeing “the poor” as interchangeable or as homogenous. This tendency is an obstacle to cultural understanding as well as a barrier to the creation of authentic relationship across cultures. Discussing culture and cultural difference is one tool to avoid this pitfall. Investing time to learn about the political, historical, and economic context of the host culture provides participants with a better understanding of the significance of the work they do. Learning the language of the host culture, even at a rudimentary level, can lower barriers and facilitates more interaction.
Making a Difference
Short-term mission, at its best, is a way of recognizing and appreciating human dignity. Through service, participants find new meaning in their own lives and reflect on their relationships with others. Through the encounter with poverty, they experience the effects of social injustice and inequality. Through developing relationships, they learn the stories of others and gain a perspective on our shared humanity. Their volunteer service is a manifestation of compassion and an act of concern for others, and a way to learn and grow. It has the potential to transform not just those who are served, but also those who serve, in ways that can make a genuine difference in the world.
Laurie A. Occhipinti is a professor of anthropology at Clarion University. This article is adapted from her book Making a Difference in a Globalized World (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014). Used by permission. All rights reserved. The book is available through Amazonor Cokesbury.
Where do People Find Meaning Today?by Dwight J. Zscheile
The church wonders why regular worship attendance is now being redefined for many churches as once a month, rather than once a week. Leaders are disappointed at the eroding levels of commitment and think that if they can only invite people more effectively, they will respond just as they used to. The church wonders why, when faced with a choice between a Sunday morning youth sports tournament or church, families often choose the tournament. If we were to ask them, they would probably say it is because they find more meaning, community, and moral formation in the sports team than in church.
I’m still haunted by a young man in a church I served some years ago. David (not his real name) was a computer programmer who would attend church only occasionally with his wife and young son. She was actively involved in church and an important volunteer, even while working full-time. But I found it easier to get David to come into the church office to work on the computers during the week than to participate in any religious functions. I learned over time, however, that David was a member of the local volunteer fire company. He spent hours training, serving, and hanging out with the fire team. The fire team was his primary community, not church.
As I reflect on it, I can understand why. The fire company had a clear mission that was undoubtedly a matter of life and death for the whole community. They had strong disciplines that shaped their life together, with real accountability. Being part of the fire team involved hard work and sacrifice, but also high levels of engagement and trust — in a fire, their lives depended upon one another. They were bound together deeply in a shared pattern of life and service.
Somehow, we in the church had never asked that kind of commitment of David. We had failed to communicate the life-or-death stakes of the gospel in a way that he could understand.
Thank God David was serving in the fire company — I wouldn’t want church to interfere with this important service to the wider community. But why couldn’t our church call him to share in its own transformational community focused on God and oriented toward the common good? The fire company may have met many of David’s needs for meaning, belonging, and purpose, but only to a point; the gospel goes much deeper, addressing ultimate realities of suffering and death that any firefighter will eventually encounter firsthand.
Dwight J. Zscheile is associate professor of congregational mission and leadership at Luther Seminary. This article is excerpted from his new book, The Agile Church © 2014 Church Publishing Inc, New York, NY 10016. It is also available through Cokesbury and Amazon.
Connect
The key to innovation is always to manage a subtle balance of planning, structure, and improvisation.[Keith Sawyer]
The Right Question
Leaders do not need answers. Leaders must have the right questions.
Church leaders constantly want to involve new people, and yet the same people end up doing most things. It could be that our tendency, when a need arises, is to turn to those with whom there is a close connection and who are willing workers. Nelson Searcy suggests a question that can regularly open many doors through which new people might enter to serve.
What are we doing this week that could involve more people in serving than last week?
Want more Right Questions? Check out “Right Questions for Church Leaders, Volumes 1–3.”
Editors: Lovett H. Weems, Jr., and Ann A. Michel. Production: Carol Follett
Lewis Center for Church Leadership of Wesley Theological Seminary.
4500 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, DC 20016 | (202) 885-8757 | lewiscenter@wesleyseminary.edu
Lewis Center for Church Leadership
Wesley Theological Seminary
4500 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20016 United States
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