Tag Archives: Short term mission

Wrestling with Onesimus 1: Changes

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Yesterday, I highlighted a post from Onesimus Redivivus entitled, When Missions Becomes Toxic; or, Um, They Don’t Need Us Anymore. As the title suggests, this is makes challenging reading for anyone in the missionary business and I hope to work through some of the issues that it raises, in the near future.

Let me kick off by saying that while I agree with a lot of what Onesimus says, I disagree with his conclusion that the majority world Church no longer needs missionaries from the West. I agree, that business as usual should not be an option, but the rest of the world needs the West and, crucially, the West needs the rest of the world. However, it’s going to take a few posts before I get there. For now, I’d just like to look briefly at the issue of ‘change’ which Onesimus mentions more or less in passing.

When I first came as a short-termer to Kenya thirty years ago this summer, there was no telephone in the community where I lived.  It took two weeks for a letter to my mother to reach home, and another two weeks for her reply to catch up with me.  Tonight, I will probably video skype via wireless internet from our back patio from our suburb of Nairobi with my daughters who are in their end-of-year exams at university in Virginia.  Thirty years ago, international travel was exotic and rare.  This past year, various family emergencies have meant that I have traveled back and forth between Kenya and the US three different times.  When we lived in Ethiopia, it was possible to have an early breakfast in Addis Ababa, Lunch in London and a late dinner in Washington, DC, all in the same day.

It is very true that communications have changed dramatically. We once had to drive 450km to make a five minute international telephone call when we lived in Gouabafla. These days, there is good cell-phone reception in the village. Some of my colleagues are such inveterate users of FaceBook, that I know more about what they are doing and thinking on a day to day basis half way round the world, than I do about others who live within a few miles of me.

However, some of these changes are pointing to new ways forward for mission. Skype, which allows Onesimus to talk to his daughters at home in the US, also allows Bible translation consultants in the UK to work with teams across the world, without actually leaving their office. This doesn’t touch the central theme of Onesimus’ piece, but it does illustrate that there are new ways of conceptualising the nature of missionary work.

Used to be us Western missionaries came out for life.  Now ‘long term’ averages about eight years, with the majority of people coming for ‘short-term’ assignments from two years to two weeks.

Here, Onesimus highlights a key change. It is simply not possible to learn enough about a language or culture to build solid relationships in a new culture in just a couple of years. There is undoubtedly a place for short term mission work, but there are some serious downsides, too (here are some posts which touch on the subject).

Though Onesimus touches on some interesting aspects of change in the mission world, it seems to me that he has actually ignored the most important one, the shift in the centre of gravity of the church. I’ve written an essay on this subject which you can find here.

The different experiences of the Church in the West and elsewhere have led to a change in the profile of Christians around the world. In 1800, well over 90% of Christians lived in Europe and North America, whereas in 1990 over 60% lived in Africa, South America, Asia and the Pacific, with that proportion increasing each year.

This is the single most important issue when considering the future of missionary work. Simply put, the majority of Christians in the world now live in what we once called mission fields. It is ludicrous today to think of Nairobi or Accra as pagan cities and London or Las Vegas as Christian ones. Our notion of mission, the mission field and missionary work needs to be turned upside down. Onesimus catches a part of this when he says:

The Christian world has moved along, and our multi-billion dollar ‘Christian’ media and music and publishing and conference and education industries, um, ‘ministries’ are all busy generating the sorts of things that they have always generated, but with less and less relevance to the rest of the world.

However, I don’t think he goes far enough. A numerical shift has happened and the church in the West is no longer in the majority, and now a slow shift in leadership, influence and authority is taking place. It is increasingly the churches of the South and East who are providing leadership to the world mission movement and who are setting the agenda for the future of the Church. We aren’t there, yet, but change is under way.

This shift will have a profound effect on the future of the world mission movement. At first glance, it might seem to support Onesimus’ conclusions. However, I think things are more nuanced than that. More in a later post…

Bible and Mission Links 16

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I’ve not been blogging very much over the past few weeks, but that hasn’t stopped other people writing lots of good stuff. Here is a bit of a catch up!

Bible Translation

As I mentioned yesterday, the World Evangelical Alliance will be taking a long hard look at some of Wycliffe and SIL’s approach to Bible translation in Islamic contexts. While this happens, I won’t be blogging on that subject, but there are a few good links that I need to pick up on from the past few weeks before I let the subject drop altogether.

For anyone who is unaware of the recent controversy, The Bible Society of Canada have made an excellent statement which gives some good background on the issue. To my mind, this is the best one page summary of what is going on that is available. You might also enjoy a short post by Andre Nelson from Houghton College. Simon Cozens, has written with characteristic panache on the linguistic background to the controversy.

The other great example of this is colour terminology. There’s considerable evidence that people with different languages actually perceive colour differently. When you start learning Japanese you will be told that aoi means “blue” and midori means “green”. And then someone else who’s learning Japanese will tell you “Hey, did you know that the Japanese think that green traffic lights are blue, ha ha ha isn’t that stupid?” But of course they don’t. They don’t say that traffic lights are blue, because “blue” is English; they say that traffic lights are aoi. It’s only English speakers who say that traffic lights are blue. Aoi doesn’t really mean “blue”—because words don’t have meanings, they have uses. Aoi is used to refer to light with wavelengths of between roughly 400 and 500 nanometers, while midori is used for light between about 490 and 550nm. Traffic lights really are aoi, but it’s our broken system of translation-as-symbol-substitution that makes us think that Japanese think they’re blue.

However, Simon isn’t particularly enamoured with the idea that the WEA are reviewing the work of Bible Translators.

With all of the fuss about this issue, it is sometimes difficult to remember that there are hundreds of millions of people around the world, speaking thousands of different languages who have no access to the God’s Word in their own language. I’m not sure what it says about the way that Christians think and act that people have been very quick to seize on a controversy which surrounds a small minority of translation programmes, but seem completely disinterested in the fact that so many people are still without the Bible. Hey Ho!

However, getting back to the central issues of Bible Translation, Hart Wiens of CBS has done an amazing job of illustrating the issues raised in translating that iconic verse John 3:16. Even if you are not interested in Bible translation, this series of articles would make a great Bible study.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (John 3.16 – NRSV)

This word “believes” is a “key term” because of the critical role it plays in communicating the message of the Bible. In the Gospel, belief is the channel through which salvation by grace comes to people (Ephesians 2.8). The Greek root is translated in English as ‘believe’ or ‘faith,’ depending on the version and context. This core word occurs 240 times in the New Testament.

The translator’s challenges are to first is understand the concept the Greek and second, to express it in the language receiving the new translation. It’s critical to go to the source text for key terms, ensuring faithfulness to the original.

The problem with our English verb “to believe” is that for those not very familiar with the Gospel, its meaning may be limited to a dictionary level understanding of accepting something as true. That is belief at the intellectual level. In the context of the Gospel, the original term carried a deeper meaning of acceptance, not just at the head level, but also in the heart. Whenever the original Greek term is used in conjunction with the preposition “in” or “into” as it is in this verse, it carries the meaning of faith or confidence in a person to the extent of acting on that faith.

Philemon Yong asks some interesting questions about the nature and purpose of Bible Translation:

The work of Bible translators around the world is to be applauded. The Bible has been translated into many different languages and as a result, people in their tribes have the Bible in their mother tongue. It is a beautiful thing, for a grandmother, who cannot read, to have a book in her house and have someone read it to her in her own dialect. There is no doubt that this brings them closer to the word of God and creates an even greater interest in seeking to hear more of it. So, the work of Bible translation is to be applauded and encouraged at all costs.

There is a lingering question in my mind, though, when I look at the work of Bible translation and consider its impact on the target people group. Here is my questions: What is the goal of Bible translation? Is it (a) to have a Bible in a particular people group’s mother tongue so that they can read it and hear God’s word in their dialect or (b) is it to have the people in that people group actually understand what is said in the Bible (interpretation) and thereby not only hear God’s word read but understand what God, through the authors of the Bible, intended to communicate, or (c) is it both. The answer to this question will impact the direction taken in the process of Bible translation and will determine where resources are poured.

The decisions made by Bible translations can have long lasting impact:

How do you translate the Greek word ‘ekklesia’, which appears 115 times in the New Testament?  The traditionalists, wanting to assert the institution they belonged to at a time of political and theological upheaval argued for ‘church’, emphasising as they did its authority. The radicals, wanting the Reformation to go further than it already had, argued for ‘congregation’ or ‘assembly’, emphasising its relationality. Guess who won? In a pragmatic trade-off, ‘ekklesia’ is translated ‘church’ on 113 of those 115 occasions…

…What difference would it make if we were able to talk of the Christian congregations inEngland, rather than the Church in England, or counted disciples rather than church members? What difference would it make if rather than based in legislation, or ordered by canon, or governed by Annual Assembly, the church was simply, like God’s word, ‘written on the heart’?  (Read the whole article.)

Short Term Mission

Jamie, the far from very worst missionary, has a brilliant post which looks at some of the insanity which passes as short term Christian mission. It is well worth reading the whole posts and the comments that follow.

We had zipped on in to the city so my friend could shoot some footage for a documentary, when we ran across a group of young people playing music in front of a fountain and offering passers-by hugs in the name of Jesus.

Yes. Hugs… For Jesus.

As we moved through the crowded promenade, we could see these Gringos were were out in force, carrying signs (many in English) that said “Free hugs” and “Jesus loves You” and a couple of references to 1Corinthians, the love chapter.

Eventually, one of them found her way over to where we were sitting to offer a Jesus hug. Being a non-toucher, in general, I quickly declined. “No, thank you. I’m….I’m good.” And when my sweet, affection-loving friend finally relented to the poor girl’s persistent (insistent?) offer to give her a hug from Jesus, I knew immediately that I had made the right decision. That chick had my poor friend wrapped up like a cage-fighter when I saw how bad she was pitting-out. We’re talking pit-stains the size of Rhode Island…. For real. Want a hug? And possibly a communicable disease?…*Shudder*

By the way, Jesus loves you!

Relations Across the Globe

The idea that people in Costa Rica are somehow in need of hugs and human contact seems more than a little strange. That might be the case in Northern Europe, but surely not in Latin America (not wishing to indulge in too much stereotyping). One of the problems is that missionaries don’t always take time to listen to the people they are supposed to be serving. Mark picks up this them in an excellent post called the importance of listening before doing.

We have come to Tanzania with certain skills, and with an organisation that has certain areas of expertise. While we are convinced of the value of certain things like mother-tongue education, and of churches having the Bible available in local languages, we cannot assume that we therefore know the best way to achieve these things in a particular situation, or even that these things are a priority for a community at this particular moment in time. We need to listen to communities, to their desires, to their ideas, contributing out perspectives and working out together whether our skills and expertise will be able to benefit them in any way. If so, then we need to work closely with them to determine what might be the best way forward. If not, we need to respect their desires and move on.

I think that it’s very easy for us to judge other people, and to sub-consciously regard them as inferior to ourselves. And I think this is particularly easy when we have good intentions of helping others. My challenge for today is to see myself and others as we really are, and to humbly listen to those who are very different to myself.

The Bible and Mission blog has a fantastic story from Nigeria about the way in which getting listening and doing in the right order can be very powerful.

A hard hitting article from the Atlantic magazine looks at the issue of Western intervention around the world from a secular perspective. It makes uncomfortable reading.

How, for example, could a well-meaning American “help” a place like Uganda today? It begins, I believe, with some humility with regards to the people in those places. It begins with some respect for the agency of the people of Uganda in their own lives. A great deal of work had been done, and continues to be done, by Ugandans to improve their own country, and ignorant comments (I’ve seen many) about how “we have to save them because they can’t save themselves” can’t change that fact.

One of the problems of not listening is that we can easily end up thinking that other people have nothing to contribute or teach us; this point of view is contested in an interesting post at Global Theology. Bill Easum takes this a step further with some strong challenges for the Western Church to learn from the rest of the world.

Here’s something to think about.  One doesn’t have to good look closely at Western Christianity to tell it is in dire jeopardy. With over 85% of our churches simultaneously declining and aging within 25 years the number Christians in the West will drop by 50%. However, that’s not the real picture. Go many parts of the world and Christianity is exploding with new converts- Korea, China, Fiji, south Africa, India, Nigeria, Indonesia,  Philippines, Latin America.  Just consider Latin America. In 1900, there were only 50,000 Protestants in Latin America. In the 1980s, they had grown to 50,000,000, and by the year 2000, they reached 137,000,000.  The same thing is happening of other parts of the world.  God is fulfilling the Great Commission throughout the world – just not here. Ever wonder why?

While on the subject of understanding people’s background. Archdruid Eileen has published an excellent Guide to English Christianity which has been written especially to help people from the USA.

It’s important to remember that the key difference between the church in the US and in England is its relationship to power. In the US, there is no relationship between the church and state, and the church is therefore politically quite powerful. The Church of England actually has a number of seats in the House of Lords (our equivalent of the Senate), while the Governor of the Church of England is the Queen. In any other country, this would give the Church quite unfair advantages in the way of political power. But in England, with our fear of boasting and natural love of the underdog, it’s quite the opposite. The Church of England has no effective power at all, and its natural diffidence means that even “church schools” will have almost no tendency to cause their scholars to grow up as Anglicans. It’s much the same way that we don’t really have “mega-churches”. Why have a church where you can boast about the size of the congregation, rather than one where you can complain it’s so cold that the water in the font has frozen?

Varia

Tim has some interesting musings on the impact of the Coup in Mali on the advance of the Gospel in that country.

I am writing from Mali which has had increasing levels of insecurity since late last year, culminating in a coup d’état on March 21, 2012. I am not going to comment here on what has happened or continues to happen. If you are curious look at the BBC Africa page  or Google News and do a search for Mali.

Since late 2009, we have gone through progressive stages of relocating people from the locations best suited for their work and ministry to safer areas. Now we are more or less all in the capital, being told to“shelter in place” by our various embassies. (Has anyone ever successfully “sheltered on the move”?!?) That odd bit of “embassy speak” means we are supposed to stay at home, not go out and respect the curfew – initially a 24-hour curfew and now just 6 pm to 6 a.m.

This week our organization had planned a retreat and a triennial business conference to elect new officers and to look at strategies to best carry out our little corner of God’s work here. And now our conference is cancelled, months of planning laid to waste, as people are scattered across the city (and country), “sheltering in place”.And the question rises, starting as a whimper deep in our guts rising up to something unspoken stuck in our throats: God, how are we supposed to do the work you have called us to do? Circumstances certainly seem to be increasingly limiting, and at the same time opportunities are vast. Why? How?

And finally, John Birch has a nice little cartoon which challenges our attitude to the Bible.

Bible and Mission Links 14

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I’ve not been very prolific of late; I don’t seem to have the energy to think creatively or to write at the moment. Hopefully, the Christmas break will help me get back into the groove.

However, while I have been staring at a screen and getting nothing accomplished, others have been blogging up a storm; there is a lot of good stuff out there of late.

Jim Wallis has written a brilliant article about Christmas and commercialism which captures my thoughts on the issue far better than I ever could.

But what we actually have here is theological problem, where cultural and commercial symbols are confused with truly Christian ones, and the meaning of the holy season is missed all together.

The theological journal Anvil has recently gone online. The most recent edition of the magazine is on Global Mission and includes three must read articles.

There are also a number of excellent book reviews, though you might find yourself spending money if you read them all! Anvil doesn’t have an rss feed, but you can keep up to date with what they are doing by following them on twitter.

Relevant magazine has a fascinating and refreshingly honest article about the impact of missionaries on indigenous cultures (I wrote something in  a similar vein a year or so ago).

Christians—and missionaries—can be at times the best and at other times the worst representatives of Christ. They’re not perfect. They will make mistakes, and they will take some cultural presuppositions with them no matter how much they are trained not to.

Missionaries will unapologetically keep campaigning against female mutilation, deceivingly referred to as female circumcision; they will fight against cannibalism, witchcraft and human sacrifice. But they will also miss the mark sometimes and carry their Western values too far. Missionaries are still sinners, but when they follow Christ and make His glory their chief end, they elevate culture and follow the call of Jesus.

The ever provocative (in a good way) Jamie, has posted some superb thoughts on the way in which Christians can be very reluctant to seriously evaluate ‘ministry’.

Many people have told me, in regard to short-term missions, if we’re well-intentioned then no matter what the actual results say, it’s ok – because God will back us up. And some have said that what matters most is our motives; If our motives are pure, then we’re cool – God will have our backs. And others have gone on to say “Hey, we’re human, of course we’re gonna screw up. But we’ve got God on our side, so it’s all good.”
…We should not be using “God’s Grace” as an insurance policy while we run around the planet potentially doing harm to those we seek to serve. “Grace” does not relieve us of liability for the people we run down in our efforts to evangelize. And “Grace” cannot be used to exonerate the Church of its responsibility to engage the world intelligently.
On a different, but related, note, Hannah has posted a heartwarming story on the Wycliffe UK Blog about the generosity of people in Central African Republic.

“During the service, following my words, Pastor Rangba rose and encouraged the congregation, saying, ‘This work of translation is our work. Don’t think that the translators are just doing it for themselves. They are doing it for the Lord, and for us. We are responsible, and we’re the ones who are going to really benefit from this work. So let’s give to this work of the Lord without hesitation.’

“And he added to me, as representative, ‘Don’t hesitate to come and ask us if we can make offerings, because that is what we can do to help. We may not have much, but we want to give, and when we give to support Bible translation we are proud to do it!’”

Lastly for today, Mark has posted some superb photographs of the dedication of the Gospel of Luke in the Kabwa Language of Tanzania. I especially liked this one.

Bible and Mission Links 10

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The Wycliffe UK Blog has a good article on Vision 2025, which is well worth a read; among quotes from ‘key’ Christian leaders is this gem from the late Kwame Bediako of Ghana.

“No language group should be considered reached until they have the Scriptures available in their mother tongue as the foundation for building sustainable Christian thought, life and community.”

Normally, when we think about Bible translation into minority languages, our minds are drawn to Africa, Asia and other far flung parts of the world; not to the far south-west of England. Nevertheless, it is encouraging to see that the full Bible is now available in Cornish.

The Bible will be introduced to the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies in November.

In 2004, a Cornish version of just the New Testament was released.

Ray Chubb, who published the new Bible and has been involved in the Cornish language for more than 30 years, said it was important to keep it alive.

“I think one of the reasons we lost our language was because there was no bible in Cornish,” he said.

“Of course we’ve had a very successful revival of the language and I think the whole bible in Cornish is the culmination of that revival.”

The Bible and Mission blog has a fascinating little post on reading Luke’s Gospel through majority world eyes, which is well worth reading and pondering.

Joel Hoffman has a fascinating post which looks at an ambiguity that lies at the heart of much evangelical discussion about English Bible translations:

According to a recent report by Lifeway Research, described by David Roach in the Baptist Press, “most American Bible readers … value accuracy over readability,” which is why they “prefer word-for-word translations of the original Greek and Hebrew over thought-for-thought translations.”

So far so good. People want accuracy, so they go for ‘word for word’ translations. But…

There is overwhelming evidence and near universal agreement among linguists that word-for-word translations are less accurate than other approaches. Equally, translators generally agree that, when the original is readable (as much of the Bible is), accuracy and readability go hand in hand. That is, valuing accuracy is often the same as valuing readability.

Just because a translation advertises itself as being ‘literal’ or ‘word for word’ does not make that translation accurate. A very simple example can serve to show how a ‘word for word’ approach can easily lead to nonsense.

In a last couple of  links for this set, Good Intentions has an excellent post on volunteering, which could equally be applied to an awful lot of Christian mission, including a lot of short term work:

Imagine living in an area with high unemployment rates, where you and several of your family members are unemployed, can’t find work, and struggling to survive. If you were given the choice between having a group of volunteers come into the area to build a school/house/health clinic for you or instead have people from the area to be  paid to construct the building, which would you choose? If you were given the choice between having foreign volunteers, that may not speak the local language, lead after school programs for your children, or have local people hired to lead those same programs, which would you choose?

By paying local people to build the center or tend the children, more people have jobs and can feed, clothe, and educate their family, rather than relying on the largess of aid agencies. In addition, they will likely buy most food and supplies locally, thereby stimulating the local economy. In contrast, if volunteers are brought in the community looses out on the addition of paying jobs, and there is the real possibility that the volunteers will spend less money in the local economy then local workers would have spent.

Jamie approaches a similar subject in her inimitable style:

Poor people aren’t stupid people. Poor people aren’t less perceptive. Poor people aren’t always pleased to be living what we deem “simple lives”. And don’t you dare fool yourself into believing that poor people aren’t making the exact same lifestyle comparisons you are.

They know.
They know it costs a butt-load of money for you and/or your kid to fly across the ocean to come and take pictures of them. They know that you spent thousands of dollars to hand deliver $200 dollars in toothbrushes and sample size toothpaste. They know the difference between the new shoes your kid is wearing and the old ones you’re donating.  They know by the look on your face, by the way you gesture to your teammates, by the way you slather on hand sanitizer before you eat, that your life is very different than theirs.  They know you have way more of everything – food, money, luxury, opportunity – than they will EVER have, and they know you think those things are “Blessings”.  And, yes, they know what an iPhone is.

When we descend upon the impoverished to improve our family’s perspective, we may as well be saying to the mothers of these children, “Pardon me, I’m just gonna use your poor kid to teach my rich kid a lesson for a minute. I’ll be out of the way in no time – Oh, and I’ll leave you some shoes…. and a toothbrush.”

Bible & Mission Links 6

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It’s been a wee while since my last round up of blog posts on the Bible and Mission, so here goes with another bunch of links:

This week’s first offering comes from Mark who has posted a nice little piece on Reading the Bible With the Global Church (I should declare a conflict of interest on this one).

On the subject of missionaries and mission life: Simon has posted an interesting quote on Becoming the Ideal Foreigner while Telling Secrets has a fascinating list of the countries which receive the most missionaries – probably not the ones you were expecting. Jamie the VWM had the temerity to question the concept of short term mission trips and was rewarded with a huge number of comments (many of them very silly) for her trouble. I’m not quite sure why Jamie got such a strong reaction, she didn’t say anything that hasn’t been said many times before – though rarely with her style! On a similar theme, Good Intentions Are Not Enough has a repost of an article on Hug-an-Orphan-Vacations. I’ll give a short quote from this one:

While the appeal for volunteers to help at international orphanages may sound real, any orphanage that allows a steady stream of volunteers to interact with the children are not putting the needs of the child first and may in fact be preying on well-intentioned but ill informed foreigners.

Antony posted an interesting article on mobilising the lay mission force, while Russell Moore takes a hard look at the question of Immigration and the Gospel.

On the more theological front, the Bible and Mission Blog has an article on Babel and Cultural Enrichment (another declaration of self-interest required here), and also links to the IBMR which has an edition dedicated to Mission and the Environment and to the latest Lausanne Theology Working Group Papers.

When I speak to church or student groups, they are often surprised at the extent to which Bible Translation can be an overt political act. The blogging parson has notes on a lecture about the translation of the KJV which gives an excellent illustration of this principle (if you are interested in this theme, I go into it in more detail in a lecture which can be downloaded here). This week saw the anniversary of the great Bohemian champion of vernacular religious expression, Jan Hus who is celebrated in differing style by the Wycliffe UK Blog and the Beaker Folk.

A link, which doesn’t quite fall under the rubric of Bible or mission, looks at the dreadful way in which one European country continues to dominate and subjugate African countries. It makes sickening reading, but don’t miss it.

I’ll close this week with Ed Lauber’s tribute to a Kenyan colleague and friend who recently died in a road accident.

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Missionary Confidential: When Sympathy Turns Demeaning

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This post from Missionary Confidential is well worth reading and pondering upon. I suspect that it could also be applied to some evangelistic work in the UK, too.

Just over a year ago, I read “Following Up on Your Mission Trip” and was jolted by the honesty of this:
“I first became aware of the hurt we can unwittingly inflict when some co-workers of mine had stones thrown at them in a Mexican neighborhood.  The same kids who in years previous had attended our Vacation Bible Schools had become sick of being ‘dissed’ by American youth groups whose leaders, whether out of ignorance or presumption, had no plan beyond four days of ministry, a trip to the beach, and a quick adios to their new friends. The locals had caught on to the shallowness of their commitment and vented their hurt rather eloquently.”

Wow.  Can’t imagine this got reported back to the sending churches.  When I’ve heard mission reports about difficulty with the nationals, it’s usually chalked up to “resistance to the Gospel”—which, of course, it can be.  But would someone honestly tell a congregation, “The locals became annoyed at being seen as a project, not as people”?

Instant Experts

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This post is slightly cynical, but oh, so true…

6 ways to tell your friend has become an “overnight missionary expert.”

1. They temporarily wear some wicked awesome sandals.

Mission trip sandals, something I’ve chronicled before, come in two varieties: woven and rubber. The woven ones appear to made of some sort of rope and actually look painful. My wife and I saw a guy with bloody feet wearing these the other night. He was limping. The rubber ones are more comfortable but only come in two colors: rainbow and bright rainbow.

2. They use the phrase, “So American.”

This might be the worst one on the list because it attempts to shame you for something you’ve done. Sometimes you’ll see it in the comments on SCL. I’ll write about money and then someone will immediately say, “That is so American to think that way.” Or they might use the variation, “Well, in the West …” What they usually don’t tell you is that they spent all 32 years of their life, minus the six days they were on a mission trip, living in Ohio. Which is in America.

3. They pretend there’s a household need for a machete.

87% of all men who go on mission trips buy machetes. Like how I felt when I saw two Lamborghinis racing on the highway the other night, something about a machete makes you feel like an 8-year old little boy again. You get giddy with the possibility of actually owning a sword. But if your friend starts using it to whack away at yard work, they might be taking it a little too far.

Make sure you read the comments too.

HT Simon (from Twitter)

Short Term Mission Trips: Just Say No?

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Vinoth Ramachandra is a well respected Sri Lankan writer and theologian. He has just posted a highly critical post about the short terms mission industry (my term, not his) on his blog.

Here is a staggering statistic that I came across recently. Robert Wuthnow, the eminent sociologist of religion at Princeton University has estimated that up to 1.6 million American Christians take part in overseas “mission trips” each year, with churches spending at least $2.4 billion per year on such trips. What is unsurprising is that many of these 1-3 week “mission trips” are to the Caribbean and Central America, with luxury resorts such as the Bahamas reporting one “short-term missionary” for every 15 residents. One would expect Mexico, which receives the most American “mission teams” every year, to be the most Christian nation on earth

In the distant days when I was a university student in London, I had friends among people who came from all over the world. They embraced all religions and none. Some of them still remain friends. Occasionally I would take a backpack and “bum around” Europe. I would travel by train and public buses, stay in youth hostels or sleep in railway stations like thousands of other young tourists…

My thoughts return to these experiences whenever my wife and I receive a request from some Western (or rich Asian) church to find someone in Sri Lanka or India willing to host a team of young people who want to undertake a “mission trip”. We don’t doubt the sincerity of those who want to practise neighbour love or share the gospel with people in other lands. But good intentions, history reminds us, often do not translate into good outcomes. But those who are enthusiastic about such “mission trips” usually don’t have the patience to study history…

It baffles us why such Christian kids cannot learn about the world by doing what I, and several millions of their non-Christian peers, have done over decades: simply travelling as tourists and exploring…

This is just one dilemma. It is extremely difficult for us to say to zealous American, Singaporean or Korean Christians that they are really not needed. While there is a lot of talk about “mission partnerships” these days, the theologies of mission that we hold are rarely scrutinized and challenged in a genuine rich-poor encounter. The world of “ missions” seems hopelessly fragmented- and more pragmatist than ever. As long as this state of affairs continues, will not the practice of “partnership” be loaded in favour of those churches with the bigger wallets and the louder voices?

Please read the whole post.

It is incredibly important that we listen to the voices of those who are on the receiving end of our mission efforts, no matter how uncomfortable that is.

I don’t want to become defensive, but as the leader of an organisation that sends out short-term teams, I’d like to pass a couple of reflections on what Vinoth has to say. The first thing I’d want to say is that there is often a difference in approach to short-term mission on the two sides of the Atlantic. Many of the Brits who sign up for our teams are people who have ‘bummed around Europe’, they have gained a deep love of language and culture and they want to know more. These are generally not hand-holding exercises for people who have never been out of the UK, but opportunities for Brits who have travelled, but who want to explore something more of  what God is saying to them. That being said, I don’t want to ignore Vinoth’s concerns.

I also think that it is important that Christians in different countries and cultures have the opportunities to meet with one another and to learn from one another. To me, this is the great advantage of the whole summer trip concept. In Wycliffe we try and build in a strong relational element by having teams visit the same area over a number of years and seeing contacts and friendships build up over the years. The Wycliffe Youth Network, Wynet have built up great contacts with people in the Bassar region in Togo which they visit every few years and the group have helped to sponsor some of the Bible translation activity that is going on in that part of the world. If people don’t travel, then the opportunities for mutual learning and encouragement are sadly diminished.

However, as Vinoth implies, the dynamic of this learning and encouragement is sadly distorted by finance. Rich people can go on mission trips and poor people can’t. Not only that, but the rich people feel often feel that because they are rich, then their role is to give and not to receive. This video (which I linked to a couple of years ago) gives a different slant on short-term mission. Could we do it here, I wonder?

This piece links to some other thought provoking articles on short term mission.

The Success of Short Term Mission Trips

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My friend and colleague John Hamilton has just started his own blog, with an excellent post…

Often I hear young people (and older) talking about the success of a short term mission experience in terms of God answering all their prayers so that what they had planned to do, was amazingly successful. Often I cringe! Not that I don’t think prayer is an essential part of our lives as Christians at home and overseas. Nor because I doubt that God answered their prayers. But because, being ultimately responsible for Wycliffe UK’s summer teams, I know that it’s often the tough experiences, or the growth that comes from dealing with disappointment in the best laid plans not working out as expected, that lead to our summer volunteers learning a lot about themselves and especially about God. (read more)

Take a read of the full post and include John in your RSS reader.