CHAPTER 124

Missio Dei or “Missio Me”?

Using Short-Term Missions to Contribute toward the Fulfillment of God’s Global Purpose

Roger Peterson

Roger Peterson is the executive director of STEM International, an organization that works to mobilize and increase mission activity among churches in North America. STEM implements and provides training for cross-cultural short-term mission programs. He is also the founding and former chairman of The Standards of Excellence in Short-Term Mission (SOE) and former director of mobilization for Converge International Ministries.

If you haven’t already participated in a short-term mission (STM), it’s likely that you will in the days ahead. Christians all over the world will have an increasing opportunity to serve in one of three roles: senders—those who support and send, goer-guests—those who go and become guests in a mission context, or host receivers—the people and context that receive the short-term guests. Can STMs contribute strategically to God’s global purpose? Can STMs bring a return on the investment for Christ’s kingdom? Can we increase the percentage of STMs done well? Can STMs work effectively within unreached people groups?

God’s global purpose, sometimes summed up with the Latin expression missio Dei, or “mission of God,” has been unfolding all over the world for thousands of years. The degree to which we honestly attempt to understand and to contribute to what God has already been doing will be the degree to which our short-termers will work in sync with the missio Dei rather than mutating to the “missio me” of STMs done poorly, which are sometimes little more than spiritual sightseeing trips with a humanitarian goal.

Defining “Short-Term Mission”

Just one generation ago, most missionaries thought of a short-term mission as a two-to-four-year commitment to overseas ministry. Today it can mean a youth group’s week-end trip across the border or an adult Sunday school class one-day ministry venture into the inner city. One generation ago, the term “short-term mission” was defined by traditional mission agencies. Today the term “short-term mission” is being defined in many ways, usually by the local churches that send many of them.

Describing, rather than defining, STMs will help us to evaluate and advocate for better STMs. Three simple STM descriptors are: swift, temporary, and voluntary. In other words, in contrast to traditional longer-term or career missionaries:

1. Short-termers are generally mobilized and sent swiftly (specialized education and a year or two of fundraising are not needed).

2. Short-termers go temporarily (often for two weeks to a month).

3. Short-termers are usually volunteers who donate their time and are often not trained as professional missionaries.

The missing element in this description is what constitutes “mission” itself. For too long, STM leaders have tended to define their mission in terms of the serving or active compassion that the short-termers hope to do. What will better serve us all is somehow seeing that STM, as with any kind of Christian mission, is best defined and evaluated by how closely we align ourselves with God Himself as He pursues the fulfillment of His mission.

STMs “Done Poorly”

The most prominent factors that contribute toward STMs being done poorly can be changed. In each of them, STM leaders have the greatest role in making needed changes. Three common mistakes are:

1. Failing to recognize, understand, and connect with the missio Dei or God’s already-at-work global purpose. Without a clear vision of a greater work being accomplished that has been taking many lifetimes to fulfill, it’s easy to see how the very idea of mission can become trivialized as nice people serving other people in need. While such compassion is a noble thing, too often STMers become overimpressed with what they have to offer and what they can accomplish on their own.

2. Planning and acting independently of the seasoned time-tested mission agencies and national/local churches. Who are the believers, churches, or missionaries who will be continuing in the work for years to come? Serving alongside these servants of God is the easiest way to participate in the admittedly grandiose notion of missio Dei. Unfortunately, many highly energized and godly sending churches often don’t know how to coordinate their well-intended endeavors with other sending entities or with the partners and churches of host locations. Without connecting in significant ways with existing missions and churches, they sometimes return home without even realizing that they may have been burdensome or sometimes even harmful in sensitive situations. Short-term workers may keep busy and return with interesting stories, but sometimes their disjointed efforts overlap or collide. Their efforts prove to be futile instead of fruitful. For example, one Mexican pastor had his church painted six times in one summer—by six different short-term teams. One Brazilian orphanage director found that a church-sent STM had built a simple but very nice concrete block wall right in the middle of his kids’ soccer field, simply because the church mission trip leaders had taught their youth that short-termers build walls when they go on “mission trips.”

3. Using short-term ventures primarily as experiences to further personal discipleship. You often hear of STMs referred to as “short-term mission trips” rather than “short-term missions.” That shift in vocabulary may reveal that the primary value for many STM leaders is not so much to accomplish mission, but to exploit the experience to build participants as growing disciples. If the stated or unstated goal is to disciple believers instead of helping to disciple the nations, what could have been significant moments in the missio Dei turn out to be more of a “missio me” experience. Discipling short-term team members is certainly not a bad byproduct of an STM, but not at the expense of missing out on the mission of God. If all our STMs aim at is building up believers or some other personal blessings, we have our priorities in the wrong order.

Note that in all three of these factors, it’s not that the short-termers themselves do poorly, it’s that many STMs have been designed and led in ways that result in STMs being done poorly. STM leaders can do more than anyone else to be sure that short-term ventures connect solidly with what God is already doing and therefore contribute significantly to the fulfillment of His age-old global purpose.

STMs “Done Well”

God is on mission today—as He always has been. We’ve seen that millions are setting out each year on countless STM opportunities. What will it take to make sure that our STMs are cooperating with what God has already been doing?

1. STM leaders and participants need to realize we are not “starting” mission. When our churches or youth groups or schools or agencies gather a team and go help someone somewhere, as noble and even measurable as that help may be, we are not “starting” mission. God has always been in active pursuit of every nation and every ethne around the globe. No tribe, tongue, or nation has ever been exempt. STM leaders have the job to get acquainted with what God has already been doing in that setting and discover how to join with God in advancing that work. To do that we’ll need to cultivate relationships with seasoned practitioners of short-term and long-range mission. We will do well to keep placing ourselves before God and humbly ask Him how we can join Him on today’s page of history.

2. We need to repent of our independent, I-can-do-it-by-myself attitude. Let’s subordinate what we would like to attempt on our own in favor of God’s ongoing global plan. Let’s search out the battle-scarred, seasoned mission agency leaders who can help us frame our STMs around the missio Dei. Let’s get our STMs vitally linked with national churches and mission agencies that have been locked in the ongoing work for generations within a particular culture and people.

3. We need to stop creating “short-term mission trips” and instead begin participating in true “short-term mission” that contributes toward the fulfillment of God’s global purpose. We do this in part by holding ourselves accountable to excellence. One tool that can help is the Standards of Excellence in Short-Term Mission (see sidebar “Standards of Excellence in Short-Term Mission”). By adopting these seven standards, short-term mission leaders can improve their STM efforts through key quality indicators focused on God-centeredness, empowering partnerships, mutual design, comprehensive administration, qualified leadership, appropriate training, and thorough follow-up.

Conclusions

In the days ahead, more Christians than at any other time in history will find themselves with opportunities to be part of short-term mission efforts. As you lead or participate in STMs—as one who sends, hosts, or goes—be one of those who envisions short-term missions being done well and contributing greatly to the fulfillment of God’s purposes.

Be one of those who eagerly learns of God’s ongoing work from those who are already living in the host context. Be one of those who keeps searching to find the unique ways that volunteer outsiders can serve and learn from those who are pursuing long-term work. Short-term workers can bring unique blessings . . . whether by reaching the lost, clothing the naked, healing the sick, building buildings, praying great prayers, teaching useful skills, or bringing relief to people oppressed and hurting. The Lord may open doors you would have never imagined. Choose to step into the big story of God and then you’ll be on missio Dei!

CONTINUE READING Sidebar: Standards of Excellence in Short Term Mission

RETURN TO LESSON 15: World Christian Discipleship