The following was written by my dear friend Brad Whipple from Des Moines, Iowa. For seven years (the first five as a youth pastor) he has been taking teams of people to an American Indian reservation called “Rosebud.” Here, he reflects some of the frustrations that he and I have shared about “short-term missions” and their place in our churches.
After continuing my relationship with those on the Rosebud and Pine Ridge Reservation for the eigth year I have been thinking a lot about the meaning of missions and felt compelled to share a few of my thoughts in an unedited article form:
I have been co-directing a mission organization over the last eight years. It bares the brand The Lakota Journey. This has been an incredibly frustrating and rewarding experience. We are an organization that introduces, resources, and mobilizes local churches to communities on the Rosebud and Pine Ridge Reservation. There are twenty communities on the Rosebud and we are currently in ten of those communities. Our hope is to see a long-term relationship form between the church and community. We hope this relationship is marked by compassion, love, understanding, respect, creativity, reciprocity, and gospel. It is a relationship that seeks to alleviate suffering and broadcast strengths. Our framework is in no way short-term. Which brings me to my first struggle with current missiology among many churches and youth ministries. There appears to be a short-term orientation towards missions to which many groups are subscribing. Noticing this trend has led me to a question. What does the descriptor “short-term” imply about our approach to missions? Short-term, to me, implies a lack of extended commitment. It reminds me of several local work-a-day job services. Having talked to several people who have worked for this type of job service their commitment extends only as far as is necessary to collect a paycheck. No extra effort required. I wonder if we approach “short-term” missions this way? It is as if we put forth only the needed effort to expose our parishioners to a needy community one week a year. In effect we make little difference in the community we exploit but the short-term participants come back with a sense of fulfillment and a short-lived commitment to short-term missions. If the primary benefit of our missions experience is with the church participants and not the community engaged should it really be called missions?
This leads me to a concern for the way in which the gospel of Jesus is represented. I think we can justify a short-term missiology by conveying the gospel in a future oriented (eternal life) incomplete way. If the gospel is simply a matter of pointing people towards a relationship with God that grants them entrance to heaven at the end of their life we can happily return to suburbia armed with the pride of our accomplishments, conversion stories, and salvation statistics. This leads to compelling others from our church to gear up for next year and finding a new place that hasn’t been “reached” yet. In the wake of our past trips we leave a people with an understanding of God’s primary concern for their future destination and of His apathetic orientation toward their current predicament. This, for me, seems to lack the full nature of the Gospel. If in our drive-thru approach to missions we leave a people suffering, hungry, and fatherless with no attempt to restore, redeem, and make things right we have done a great disservice to the community we have engaged and God himself whom we represent.
I wonder if we can dream of missions not in terms such as “short-term” or “trips” but rather as an indelible commitment. A commitment to represent a gospel that values the God-created nature of people in the places we find ourselves, whether it be in our office or Oman; a commitment to befriend and appreciate the strengths and differences we discover; a commitment to alleviate suffering whether it be physical, mental, emotional, social, or spiritual; a commitment to represent a God who is concerned not only with peoples eternal destination but also with where their next meal is coming from. This is an approach to missions that resonates with me. What about you?
by – Brad Whipple July 5th 2007
original article can be found at: http://whipple.wordpress.com
