Monday, August 06, 2007

A Sad Kind of Missions

I know there are several folks who are missionaries or who provide service opportunities of the church to serve Christ, but serving others and this might now surprise them.

I heard a story this weekend while I was in Virginia. It's a third hand story, so please assign the appropriate amount of value to it.

A group of adults from a Virginian church went on a missions trip to a country in southern Africa. While they were there they decided they didn't want to work at least one of the days they were there. So they hired the locals for a few bucks each to do they work they went to do. Then the adults went on a safari.

It doesn't surprise me now that I think about it. Ever hear of such a thing?

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8 Comments:

Blogger tony sheng said...

ouch

2:02 PM EDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i think that, while the story definitely illustrates a sad truth, they may have unintentionally done something really great. i have heard many times that short-term mission teams can be very damaging to local economies by doing jobs for free that might normally be done by local workers.

i would be interested to see what kind of impact local churches could make if they decided to take invest money in emerging economies instead of spending in on plane tickets.

3:17 PM EDT  
Blogger Unknown said...

Good thought, Josh. Perhaps even investing in micro-credit for those emerging economies could be a big help, too.

10:18 PM EDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I recently attended a dinner at a church that was raising money not specifically for missions, but for the training of locals in Africa to create businesses and build economies and support themselves. As well intentioned as donations have been, many people claim that it's creating a society of dependance there. I don't know the hearts or reasons of the group discussed, but perhaps there may be some good to come of it.
Other missionaries have said that the greatest thing we could do as a wealthy society is to invest in the economy of their community. Want to pull women out of prostitution, get others out of the depressing cycle of drugs? Give them a job. The Judeo-Christian work ethic can be a very powerful witness.
DClark

9:43 AM EDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That illustrates a problem with many short term missions trips, especially if they are youth group missions trips.

A group I am familiar with goes to England every year, always during the best season, they do missions for half the time and travel to see the sights half the time. Yet during the year the youth are not involved in any missions, outreach, etc., other than fundraising for their next missions trip.

Instead of going to Africa or england, they should be doing the outreach at home, when that is being done successfully then they should look elsewhere.

10:21 AM EDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

In response to the last post, what ARE the expectations of short term missions? They're not full time missionaries. Yet they go to help full time missionaries. Are their trips (on an individual church by church basis) mission trips with some cultural exposure, or are they cultural exposure with some mission work?
I don't know how I feel about judging the time spent being completely mission oriented. Can't it be both missional AND cultural?
DCLark

10:54 AM EDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Experiencing another culture and getting involved is great, even hiring reliable, of legal age workers can be helpful, but to "hire it done" and go off on a safari is not what I'd support. I would not like to hear that I supported a mission team and their safari! Would a Habitat for Humanity team hire a contractor and go to the ball game, etc? I don’t think so!
Skinner

11:38 AM EDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Any Missions trip is for ministry. Short Term Missions, especially by many youth groups is a way for YPs to jack their numbers up and tell the church look what we are doing and is an activity that should not be supported or undertaken UNLESS those same teams are performing missions work in their area.

If you are not going to be excited to go to the east side of the nearest city to paint a house in August when it's 100 degrees out without any fanfare, then you have no business going to England, Africa or other foreign countries to perform ministry.

Missions work is serious and should only by those who are serious about it.

A quick example, I have 28+ years experience in ministry on a local, state and some national work, the last YP I worked with his teens to get involved in a missions trip. The teens tearfully spoke in front of church asking for money, explaining what they were going to do, etc, etc, etc., both before and after the 2 week trip to Europe.

The other 50 weeks of the year - none of those teens were involved in ministry on any level. 0. In fact a number of them were leading a life that a Christian, let alone a "Missionary" teaching others would certainly not benefit from leading.

Though the leaders were aware of their promiscuous lifestyle they had no problem for them going on another missions trip the next year.

Missions trips are for those who are serious about ministry. The awesome responsibility that goes along with it is not to be reduced.

10:48 PM EDT  

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