Are short-term missions just "holy holidays'?

The question burned in my mind as I sat in a Wattle Grove sitting room, waiting to meet Samuel Stevens, the president of the India Gospel League (IGL) who was visiting Australia.

I was part of a group of young people planning a month-long trip to southern India: teaching in schools, speaking in churches, that kind of thing.  But when I added up the combined cost of the trip - $20,000 " a heavy, guilty weight had settled on my heart.

Were we kidding ourselves? Was this short-term mission thing just a junket? A baptised adventure holiday?

IGL is an incredibly dynamic organisation, planting some 5000 churches amongst seriously poor people. Twenty grand would go a long way for them.

Could a bunch of underqualified youths with no foreign language skills be any kind of help? Would we just place extra burdens on the gospel workers already there?

Sam Stevens arrived and I earnestly blurted out my question.

"Are we better just to give you that money instead?"

He didn't answer straight away.

1,000,000 short-termers a year

Short-term mission trips have become the key way that most western Christians experience cross-cultural mission: 1,000,000 Americans went on these trips in 2003, and they are similarly prevalent in Australian church culture.

Most mission thinkers agree that for lasting relationship-building, and to complete projects effectively, long-term, well-prepared missionaries are essential.

But Rick Sirico from International Teams, and member at St Paul's, Castle Hill, is adamant that short term missions " the term can mean anything from a three- or four-week trip to a year-long placement - can also be useful if they're prepared for in the right sort of way.

For most short-termers, he says, their focus is on what they can achieve.

"We try to shift that focus," he says. "Not that we don't want them to serve, but the primary purpose is less about what you're going to do, and more about what God's going to do in you."

"Their whole worldview can be challenged and shaken, and they start to see what God wants to be different in them."

He says that the question of whether or not short-term missioners go on to long-term overseas mission misses the point.

"It's when they come back: what are they doing? Are they growing in faith?"

He says he sees short-termers return with their perspectives radically changed, their prayers wide-ranging, and their giving increased.

And, he says, plenty of them do go on to do long-term mission work.

Effective short-term mission?

There are risks: there are the horror stories of cultural insensitivity and good intentions: mission teams coming to build houses for the poor and unintentionally depriving local tradesmen of work.

Rick says that good preparation is essential.

"Make sure people are trained: that they can share their testimonies, are ready for different cultures as well as teamwork and conflict resolution."

The second component, he continues, is good preparation on field: missioners need to be well-lead and well-matched to their tasks.

"And good debriefing," he concludes. "We do things like helping people with Bible reading and journaling: getting people to see what God is saying to them through his word and their environment."

The church back home

Faith Blake, the Mission Personnel Secretary for CMS Australia, says that sending short-term missionaries " particularly for a few months to a year - can have a powerful impact on the sending church as well.

"The difficulty for Australians is we think we're the middle of the earth," she says. "When short-termers go away, suddenly their church is interested in that part of the world."

She says that the sort of cross-cultural experience that short-term missions provide can be particularly helpful in a multicultural context like Australia.

"You appreciate that people learn differently and have different world views," she says.

"And you may slot in better with people from different cultural backgrounds."

But she adds that Christians don't have to go overseas to become focused on God's work.

"Look at the number of CMS missionaries who started out through beach mission," she says.

Holy holidays?

So, then, what did Sam Stevens say?  Here was a man well acquainted with his country's dire spiritual and material needs.  He knew the score.

His answer surprised me a great deal.

"I'd rather have the mission team come, every time."

He smiled. "Because when you go back to your churches you are a far greater asset to them - and to us - because you have come."