Researching the Short-Term Mission Movement

Abstract

This paper explores the scope of the short-term mission movement and calls on missiologists to place this movement at the center of research, missiological reflection, and classroom instruction. It reviews research related to two questions: What has been the impact of short-term missions on the recruitment and support of career missionaries? How does participation in short-term missions abroad affect short-term mission participants' relations inter-ethnically at home? he short-term mission (STM) movement is rapidly transforming the ways in which churches from wealthier regions of the world are engaging in global T mission. This merits careful attention.' The Size of the Short-Term Missions MovementThe latest Protestant Mission Handbook (Welliver and Northcutt 2004: 13) tracks data on the U.S. personnel of 690 mission agencies. The chart on the following page employs this data to compare the numbers of long-term missionaries (defined as being "overseas" more than 4 years) with the numbers of short-term missionaries (overseas from 2 weeks to 1 year). These numbers show the trend, but d o not document the full scope of the phenomenon. Catholics are not included and scores of organizations specializing in short-term Robert J. Priest (PhD, Anthropology) is professor of mission and intercultural studies and director of the PhD program in intercultural studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He is co-editor of the book This Side of Heaven: Race, Ethnicity, and Christian Faith (Oxford, 2006). His published work appears in various volumes and journals, such as "Missionary Positions: Christian, Modernist, Postmodernist" in Current Anthropology 42:29-68. He is currently researching Peruvian experiences and perspectives on visiting short-term missionaries.Terry Dischinger (PhD student) formerly served for seven years as country director for the Evangelical Free Church of America International Mission in Ukraine, where he hosted and worked with scores of visiting short-term missionaries. Terry is currently the pastor of equipping at Winnetka Bible Church. His dissertation research is focused on the impact of short-term missions on the acquisition of intercultural skills and on ethnocentrism.Rev. Steven Rasmussen (PhD candidate) has trained ministers at Lake Victoria Christian College, Mwanza, Tanzania since 1995. He is founding director of Training East African Ministers. He has been a pastor and a short-term missionary.C. M. Brown has extensive cross-cultural experience in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and is conducting dissertation research on partnerships between congregations in the Ukraine and congregations in the USA.

New mission paradigms and the encounter with Islam: Fusing voluntarism, tourism and evangelism in short-term missions in the USA

“…It was incorporated into the ministries of non-denominational parachurch organisations, such as the Campus Crusade for Christ, now known Culture and Religion 307 as Cru, in the 1960s and 1970s, while also being adopted among mainline agencies as an alternative to colonial mission models (see Koll 2010). Mainline agencies have continued to sponsor short-term mission, but by 2000, it was a routine feature of evangelical youth ministry, facilitated by scores of national sending organisations, most non-denominational, and it has only continued to gain popularity since then (Priest et al 2006;Priest et al 2010;Weber and Welliver 2007;Wuthnow 2009). 7 Short-term mission's popularisation conforms to the 'missional' orientation of many evangelicals, a theological perspective on the mission field that views it as lying as much in one's immediate surroundings as in the distant worlds of nonChristian Others (Barth 1962;Bielo 2011;Bosch 1991;Newbigin 1989).…”

Developing cross-cultural healthcare workers: content, process and mentoring

“…12 In contrast, most short-term service has limited impact on the intended beneficiaries. 10,11 For one, neither individuals nor communities change quickly; furthermore, conversion occurs through strong and culturally embedded relationships, not short-term encounters. [12][13][14] Therefore, the proposal of this paper for incountry training through a mentoring process can be implemented even for short-term mission experiences and, thus, begin an individual on the road to career missionary service.…”

Religion and Volunteering

“…More fundamentally, they present STM as the product of a theological paradigm-the "missional church"-that views the mission field as lying as much in one's immediate surroundings as in the distant worlds of non-Christian Others (Barth 1962;Bosch 1991;Guder and Barrett 1998;Newbigin 1989). While eschewing the colonial associations of "mission," they assert that STM, like other forms of contemporary mission, comprises practices at the center of Christian life, pointing to the centrality of notions such as "witness" (assertions of Christian principles through action), "fellowship" (relations of mutuality and support), and "servanthood" (emulation of Christ through self-sacrifice and service) in STM practices (see also, Fickert and Corbett 2009;Howell 2009;Koll 2010;Priest 2006Priest , 2008Priest et al 2006). Assertions of the missional core of Christianity are hardly new but their expression through STM practices and institutions raises questions about how, why, and to what ends mission practices are transposed from "mission field" to "home."…”