Short Term Missions

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Check out this article about short term missions trips (I'm not completely confident in the link so I apologize if it gets removed at some point) by Jim Lo. Pretty good stuff.

Comments

Chad said…
I've always felt uneasy about short term 'missions' trips. He brings up several good points, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who wondered about them.

I still have half of the article to read however. I can't believe someone asked him for money to go on a cruise... that's a bit absurd. Aside from those extreme examples though, I would have to agree that short term trips have to be carefully guided so that the heart and purpose behind the mission is most serving to God and not to self.
December 3, 2008 at 11:19 AM
Terry said…
What intrigues me more about this is two things. One that instead of spending a ton of money on plane tickets and other things why don't we just send them the funds if they have the native church that is viable. The second thing is there is a benefit in spoiled Americans to get out to the real world and see how the vast majority of folks live. I think the folks that have been going on the Nicaragua trip do work and help out - much like the Katrina relief efforts over the last few years. So lets send our plane ticket money to the native church to support them and start reaching our own pagan nation.
December 4, 2008 at 9:19 PM
Tim said…
Hey man, didn't realize you had a blog.

These are the two things I struggle with when it comes to "missions trips". The money we spend to get there could support work there for months, often years. But I also think it's easy for Christians to disengage in mission when it's not tangible for them. I have no idea what the answer to this delima is???

That said, if our church decided tomorrow that we were going to start sending the money instead of spending it to get there, I'd have a hard time arguing with the decision. We'd just have to work hard to get people engaged at home. I don't think that would be too difficult.
December 25, 2008 at 12:19 PM
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