Imagine the possibility of future short term teams where the destination and unreached people group served over there is determined by the unreached people group your church serves over here.
“Pastor, where in the world do you think the Lord is leading our church to go this year?”
“Possibly Morocco. He has been at work among the Moroccans we have been serving in our community. Why should we attempt to create something new, but work where He has already been working?”
Imagine the possibility of future short term teams where the social connections of family and friends of unreached peoples over here are the bridges across which your church’s teams travel to enter countries over there.
“What are you doing in our country? Why are you here? I need to know before you are permitted to enter.”
“We are staying with the relatives of Siaeem for the next ten days. He is a friend of ours from back in Texas.”
Imagine the possibility of future short term teams where your church does not depend on missionaries over there to provide lodging or travel, but you only accept hospitality over there from the relatives of those to whom you minister over here.
Imagine the possibility of future short term teams where your teams are received as “insiders” over there as a result of your church serving and loving unreached peoples over here.
“Ja-lin has told us to hear what you have to say about God. She speaks so highly about you and has experienced your love and hospitality in Atlanta. Thank you for welcoming her into your community.”
Can you imagine the possibility of what the Lord can do among the nations as we serve the strangers next door? The future of missions–particularly short term efforts–begins to look differently whenever we recognize the importance of transnational social networks and the hand of the Divine Maestro orchestrating the movement of the unreached peoples into our communities.
Imagine the possibility of connections made at a well over here opening opportunities to serve in a village over there.
“Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world” (John 4:40-42, ESV).
We live in a highly integrated world. The world knows this. If only the Church would grasp this. Kingdom stewards are quick to recognize the hand of God among the nations in their communities and ask, “Can faithful service among the strangers next door over here lead to global possibilities over there?”
Is “Over Here, for Over There” a future for short term missions? It has already become a present reality for some churches. What about yours?
(Image credit: Microsoft Office)
This is so great! Just today I was reading over on Larry McCrary’s blog about how important it is to be a learner when going on short term trips. We like to go on trips where we are here to do/show/teach something. A trip like this would force us to go in simply as guest and learners of the culture. Great read. Thanks!
Thank you, Julie! Appreciate your insight!
Okay. Interesting. I see what you are saying. I would suggest you read everything that Robert Priest has written on STM, if you haven’t. He a great missiological and anthropological thinker.
Here’s my brief summary of one of Robert Priest’s articles:
Short-term mission trips travel to numerous countries all over the world. Robert Priest et al. surveyed mega churches and with 405 responses he found the top ten destinations of STM teams: Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Dominican Rep., Nicaragua, Brazil, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, and Haiti (Priest 2010). He also found that most trips are to places that are less well-off materially. The destinations, percentage wise, of the trips are as follows: 59 percent to Latin America, 20 percent to Africa, 9 percent to Asia, 9 percent to Europe, 2 percent to the Middle East, and 1 percent to Oceania. The places to where STM go are places that Philip Jenkins classifies as new centers of global Christianity (Jenkins 2002). This means that STMs travel to places where an existing Christian presence exists. Priest utilizes David Barrett and Todd Johnson’s typology to show where STM are traveling. The typology is World A (least evangelized countries), World B (the somewhat evangelized countries), and World C (countries that are most evangelized) (Barrett and Johnson 2001). Priest found that mega churches send 6 percent to World A, 12 percent to World B, and 82 percent to the third world in World C (Priest 2010: 99). He added more data from 4,671 mission trips from Christian colleges and seminary students, finding that 3.5 percent travel to World A (least evangelized countries), 12.5 percent to World B (the somewhat evangelized countries), and 84 percent travel to World C (countries that are most evangelized). This means that STM are not mainly going to the least evangelized countries of the world, such as Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia. Priest states, “Whatever the STM movement is as a paradigm, it is not, as an empirical matter of fact, primarily a paradigm for reaching the least-reached portions of the world evangelistically” (Priest 2010: 90). We can’t argue with his data. STM is not reaching the unreached the most of the time. They are to places where the gospel has been for a long time. In South America, the gospel has been there for at least 400 years but because many Christians are weak on their Christian history they do not realize this.
Appreciate your thoughts on the blog.
Thanks, Jeremy. Yes, Bob has done some great research on the STM movement.
True. I am in debt to his work.