Is the Era of US Cross Cultural International Missions Over?

On June 6, 1944, the US and her Allies landed at Normandy, France. That invasion, known as Operation Overlord was a combined effort of over 155,000 troops, representing more than ten different countries. Within days, the Allied forces, while suffering thousands of casualties had established several beachheads across France. 

D-Day as it soon came to be known, as important as it was as events unfolded, was even more important when you consider what came to be as a result of those deadly days of fighting. There is wide agreement among historians that the events at Normandy set the stage for the eventual victory of the US forces in the European theater.

While there was still much fighting to come, the die had been cast in Normandy and and it was just a matter of time before official victory would be declared.

I’ve been thinking a lot about those events the last few weeks. I wonder if General Eisenhower knew as he was overseeing the invasion if that invasion would turn out to be the lynchpin upon which victory turned?

I’ve also been wondering a lot lately if we are in another of those moments. A moment, as Ken Blue explains it in an essay included in the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement Reader, of the “already and not yet.”

I’ve asked myself repeatedly the last few weeks the following questions…

• Is the era of US Cross Cultural International Missions over? 
• Has the era of US church’s and denominational involvement in worldwide Christian evangelism effectively ended? 
• Has the country that sent out people like Adoniram Judson, Jim Elliot and William Cameron Townsend decided that it is no longer interested, or able to stay engaged missionally around the globe?
• Are we in Blue’s period of between? That time where we will still see missionaries leaving our shores but in reality, much like the German forces fighting for their homeland after D-Day it will be for naught?

Sadly, I think the answer to the above questions are not just yes, but a resounding yes, yes, yes and yes! 

But it’s not just me. 

I reached out to a number of colleagues across the spectrum who have years of experience as missionaries, pastors and leaders of mission organizations to get their opinions. And there are not many of them bullish on the ability of the church to effectively mobilize people to be part of calling people into a relationship with Jesus. A few even posited that this closing of an era may be a good thing.

While some will argue that we were never the great missionary force we believed ourselves to be, numbers don’t lie. Long term numbers for commissioned missionary and their families stayed constant at around 35,000 for years. Pre-pandemic levels of short-term participants went as high as 300,000 participants annually with budgets stretching to over three billion dollars.

During the pandemic restrictions of the last two years, short-term missions have all but dried up. Many long term missionaries are still on extended home leave, unable to get the needed approvals to serve the countries where they believe God has called them. Others have seen their financial support dry up and as a result have been forced to seek out other work to feed their families.

I do not believe we will ever again see massive numbers of young people piling into vans to head south for their Annual Mission Trip. The call in US churches to “take up your cross” and go to the “ends of the earth” will not be answered as it once was if it is even given. 

US airports will see fewer groups of people traveling in packs with like colored shirts and fewer couples with all of their earthly belongings in a few suitcases heading off to far flung locations for the cause of Jesus.

How did we get here?

It’s a mix of reasons, some within our control, others perhaps not.

Next up I’ll explore some of those reasons and try to point us in a forward direction.

Cultural Awareness... the key to effective mission and connection in todays world

You should "Read the Bible in one hand, and the newspaper in the other".

That quote has been attributed for years to the great German theologian Karl Barth. While the Barth Center has been unable to authenticate that he actually said it, the quote lives on in theological mythology, t-shirts and numerous quote books.

Perhaps because authorship does not matter. What matters is the reality of what is being said.

Stop and think about that statement for a moment. We are to have an awareness of what is happening around us. For the sake of the Gospel!

The Mexican Chupacabra

Years ago I was in Baja California talking to a family I'd known for years. They had made me breakfast at their very "rural house." As we talked, Gloria told me a few of their chickens had been killed recently, probably by the Chupacabra. The Chupacabra is a legend in the rural areas of Mexico. It's famous for killing animals, babies and causing all sorts of general mayhem. Think of it as the Mexican version of the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot.

The truth of the legend did not, and does not matter. What mattered is that Gloria, and indeed, millions of Mexicans across the country were aware of the Chupacabra. 

Later that week I was walking with another missionary who knew Gloria and who had also served in her village for years. I shared with him her concerns about her missing chickens and that she felt it was the Chupacabra. I expected that we'd be able to share a little laugh together. What ensued has stayed with me to this day.

That missionary, after spending almost 20 years serving in Mexico, had no idea what the Chupacabra was. He said he tried to keep his focus on God and did not involve himself much with locals events, news or culture.

If I could've sued that missionary for malpractice I would have do so. How is it possible that a person serving a specific group of people for any length of time could be so willfully unaware of the things that animate, or matter, to that community? 

Recently we have faced a significant level of unrest in Oaxaca, primarily as a result of massive ongoing protests from the teachers union in that state. In response to a ton of questions about those protests, I decided to write an article providing some detail and background. You can read it here.

Thousands of people across the US and Mexico read that article, shared it and commented. But two specific Facebook comments stopped me cold. One said as he shared, "read this article, it is the ABC's of what is going on." I appreciated that a local thought I had a good understanding of the facts. But it was the second comment that really hit me... another person asked how it was possible an outsider like me could understand the issues and culture of Oaxaca as well as I did.

The answer is simple... it's my job! 

As a missionary, I need to know and understand the culture where I am serving. It makes me a better communicator of the Gospel and enables me to better love and understand my neighbor. I spend hours on this. Reading, thinking, studying. Because I believe effective mission demands it.

If the church is going to have a prophetic witness in the world today, I believe this approach can not just be relegated to missions work "over there." It must be part of how we act and live everyday in our local worlds too.

Being unaware of the happenings of the day, needing to catch up with happened last week, or choosing to ignore cultural events make us woefully unprepared to effectively communicate the Gospel in a rapidly changing world. 

Most of you will never be called to "the ends of the earth." But you are called to be a prophetic witness for Jesus in your local worlds. That means understanding the culture, knowing what is going on and being able to not just see both sides of an issue, but figure how Jesus fits into some difficult situations. 

If we really want to change the world around us for Jesus, the words ascribed to Barth are as relevant here in the US today as they are in my missions work in Mexico... 

Read the bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other!

Mission and Ministry, Just Like a Great Rack of Ribs, is Best When it's Done Slow...

If you’re a barbecue lover, you know slow is good.

Few things make your mouth water like a rack of ribs that’s been slow roasted for hours over a low heat. Just the thought of it has me wondering if I can pull something like that off here in Oaxaca, Mexico, where I serve.

The idea that slow cooking was good seemed to really take hold with the masses in the 70’s with the crock pot. 

Rival, the number one maker back then was incredibly successful in teaching an entire generation that if you slow cooked your meat in their crock pot, using their recipes, you could have an incredible meal, full of flavor and as tender as can be.

Today you can find entire web sites and blogs dedicated to the art of slow cooking.

It’s too bad it is so difficult to convince people that when it comes to short-term mission [STM], just like barbecue and the crock pot, slow is usually better. Let me explain what I mean.

Years ago AIL Ministry partnered with First Baptist Church in Oaxaca [PIBO] to build a training center in Tlacolula. The plan was to have a dormitory, kitchen, restrooms and use the existing church building as a classroom to train Zapotec leaders from the churches where PIBO was planting missions.

We started construction in 2005 and in a couple of years we had it mostly finished. Except no one was ready to use it. So it sat, for a couple of years, mostly vacant, except on Sundays when there was a church service there.

Then one day the pastor and his wife asked me if they could live there while pastoring the church. That was one of the quickest answers I’ve ever given. “Of course” I said, “why not?” And soon, with the pastor living there, classes began to be offered to the very group that PIBO had dreamed about, almost 7 years earlier.

Now, more than 10 years after we started construction there, there’s been another change. While classes are still being offered from time to time, the church, under new leadership has started to grow. And grow. The church now has almost 100 people in their community and all the rooms we built for dorms and restrooms are being used on Sundays and during the week by this growing congregation.

Why is this important? Because there were some who wanted to see that facility used the minute we finished, but that doesn’t always happen in mission. One of the reasons for this can be found in culture. One of the things Americans do well is plan for the future. Other cultures, sometimes not so much. They won’t start planning the next step until everything is ready to go, because they’ve seen many unrealized dreams when funding, or resolve ran out.

It’s not wrong, it’s just different.

That difference can be very hard for Americans on short-term mission to understand, especially when their hard earned dollars are involved in the financing of projects like this. Understandably, if you’ve given money to a project, you want to see it being used as soon as possible.

But sometimes, the culture is not ready, even when, like in this case, the building was. Why? Because just like good barbecue, or a great crock pot dinner, the process cannot be rushed. Ministry and mission, especially when you are working in other cultures, takes time. Often, more time than us folks from the states want to admit.

To get a great rack of ribs, or an incredible stew from a crock pot, you need patience. Sure you can microwave your food, or add some liquid smoke to get that slow cooked barbecue taste, but it won’t be the same. The taste you want just won’t be there.

Simply put, there are no short cuts in mission and ministry, no way to speed up the process. No matter how much money we put into a project, or a mission, when we are crossing borders and working in other cultures, often times the best results come after a long, slow process.

Contrary to our thinking here in the US, over there, where ever there is, just like barbecue and a great crockpot dinner, slow is good! 

Think about it.

The Presence of God Defeats a Hopeless Mad Max World!

Like about 47 million other folks, I went to the movies Memorial Day weekend. Which means in addition to the movie I wanted to see, I also saw significant portions of movies I'll likely never see. You know what I'm talking about... the previews.

One of the previews was for Mad Max Fury Road. As the trailer played on suddenly the screen filled with the words, WITHOUT HOPE. A few seconds later another message flashed on the screen, WITHOUT MERCY.

The Mad Max movie series, being redone from the Mel Gibson 1979 original is all based on a world gone mad. It is a world where literally there is no hope and no one has, or shows any mercy towards anyone.

Years ago when I went to San Dionesio Ocotepec in Oaxaca for the first time, I sat down with a group of children, all under 12. I asked them about their plans for the future. The answers stunned me. Almost all of them, boys and girls alike had a variation on the theme of going to the Estados Unidos, the United States.

When I asked them why they would want to leave Oaxaca, they had all sorts of reasons. No work. Too hard to raise a family. Little, or no opportunity to advance in life. And then one of the kids said the words that I'll remember all of my life... "there's no hope here."

Think about that for awhile. No hope. Or as the movie Mad Max would put it... A WORLD WITHOUT HOPE! How could you live, thrive, or even survive?

That's a major part of the ministry of Adventures in Life in Oaxaca. Working to bring a holistic emphasis to ministry, we are striving to address not just spiritual hopelessness, but economic hopelessness as well. We are trying to bring hope, and live mercy for today, and eternity.

One way we are doing this is through our Vocation Camp Week. We are expecting about 40 teenagers this year. They will be studying Photography, Agriculture, Science and Culinary Arts. Each of these disciplines will begin the steps to help the students at camp learn a skill that will enable them to make a real salary in Oaxaca.

Every village needs a photographer. Part of the culture of Mexico revolves around photos of family events, just as it does here. So, if you can shoot, you can work. Our agriculture classes will help people understand better ag practices which will increase crop yields and allow them to better care for their animals, increasing food output. Our science track will hopefully instill in people a love for experimentation and exploration that is so central to entrepreneurship. It may also inspire a few of our kids to become scientists.

Finally, our culinary arts track will be totally hands on giving the kids a chance to develop some of the skills necessary to succeed in one of the high end restaurants prevalent in Oaxaca, the gastronomic capital of Mexico.

Perhaps most exciting about all of this is that it is a ministry of the local church! 

Every person attending our camps will know and understand that the church, and Jesus, stands with them, and wants to be a part of giving them hope, not just for eternity, but for today, tomorrow, next week and beyond!

The people of the Mad Max world are living in a hopeless, merciless world, a world gone mad. For me, and AIL Ministry, mission is most effective when it is holistic. Because that holistic style gives witness to the mercy and love of Jesus and his power to transform and bring order to our lives. Both for eternity, and for today.

Learn more about Dave and Adventures in Life Ministry

Long Term Missionaries... is the clock winding down while the church stands by?

Quick, when was the last time you heard someone in church encourage a young person, or anyone for that matter to consider spending their life as a cross cultural missionary?

I’ll wait.

Okay, time’s up.

It’s been awhile hasn’t it?

Years ago, that was a call we heard regularly from the pulpits of churches across America, especially on Mission Sundays and in the almost extinct Sunday evening services. The world, we were told, needed people to step up and boldly answer Jesus call to share his love on mission in some far off land.

Africa, Asia, South America… it didn’t matter. Jesus needed us and our spiritual leaders made sure we knew it. But they did more than that, they encouraged us to answer that call, get trained and go. For the sake of the Gospel.

It all seems so quaint now.

One of the by products of the short-term mission [STM] movement is that it has, in a sense, demystified missions and missionaries. That’s both good, and bad.

Here’s why…

The good has been our ability to open eyes. Missions is no longer seen as the providence of a few. 

Regular, everyday folks are as likely to get on a plane and serve overseas as those who study for years to prepare for professional ministry. There can be no doubt that the cross cultural exposure literally millions of people have as a result of short-term mission is changing the way people view and interact with the world. 

However, our current emphasis on short-term mission, and with it the sugar like rush people get from serving, is giving us a false belief that we truly can share Christ effectively in one week micro ministry bursts.

We can’t, and in fact, effective short-term mission relies on dedicated long-term missionaries in the field. 

The bad is that the current emphasis on STM in our churches is pushing long-term missionary recruitment to the back burner. Add in the current rage of programming every minute of our weekend services tightly around a specific theme, and we literally have no opportunities to share the need for people to go overseas full time.

Gone are most Mission Sundays, gone are services where missionaries share their stories, gone are the messages calling people to forsake the comforts of home, take up the cross and share about Jesus around the globe.

In our efforts to identify everyone as a missionary, we have robbed that term of its power to call. No longer is the overseas missionary seen as having potential for an individual or a young couple.

A few years back I was asked to say a few words at a local denominational missions conference. I was excited when, after I spoke, they announced they were commissioning a new couple to go to field. The new couple was in their mid 60’s. 

Now I am not saying people in the 60’s, and beyond cannot be effective. I’ll be there myself soon, but I was saddened that the new couple was not younger. The reality is that the clock is ticking towards retirement for an entire generation of long term in country missionaries and the church does not seem to have a Plan B in place for when those folks return home.

Cross cultural missions work is hard, heroic work. The Kingdom needs new blood in the field. In all of our ministries, be they youth, women’s, men’s or pulpit based, the church needs to once again take up the mantle of recruiting and sending not just short-term teams around the globe, but long term in country missionaries as well.

What say you?

A Village, A Mission, A Ministry, An Opportunity

We made it.

Leaving Oaxaca City about 9:00am Sunday, we arrived in Eloxochitlan de Flores Magnon [formerly San Antonio de Eloxochitlan], site of our medical clinic last week, about 4:00pm.

Along the way we ate a great lunch, sucked down a few Dramamines, passed through a cloud forest, crossed the Continental Divide, and even saw a few waterfalls before finally arriving.

As we got out of our vehicles, about 150 people were crowded around the house we would use for our clinic getting a small bowl of beans and a handful of tamale masa to dip in the broth. I wondered how many of them would be at the clinic the next day.

When I woke up, there were already people lining up. By the time the day ended, we had seen well over 100 people. But the number doesn’t really matter, it could have been 50, it could have been 500.

Our intake and triage center

What really mattered was the church... and God... and Jesus.

For the community of Eloxochitlan, what mattered was that Jesus showed up in ways many had never imagined. People walked hours to be seen by a dentist, an internist, a pediatrician or a physical therapist who was literally working miracles.

Dr Sue seeing one of our smaller patients on our second day

They came in the back of trucks, in friends cars, any way they could to get a chance to see a doctor, or get some level of medical care. And they came in waves. Just when we thought there would be a break, or perhaps the day was winding down, another collectivo with a dozen patients would arrive.

We saw children with untreated extreme cerebral palsy, people who would soon lose their toes and feet, bad backs, colds, gastritis and sore knees. Almost everyone we saw had at least one cavity. We saw people with Parkinson’s disease, parasites and cases of lice so bad kids had literally ripped their faces off. 

When Pastor Chable was not talking with his community, he helped out by sterilizing medical instruments

And we saw Pastor Chable in his element, serving his people. The people God had called him to years ago. This was the first place he pastored and he has never really left. It’s where his son Abi calls home. His daughter Cesi was born there. It’s where he held a little baby many years ago that died in his arms. 

That baby changed his ministry, and many years later, me and Adventures in Life.

Chable’s son Abi told me I was only the second “gringo” to ever work with the people in Eloxochitlan, the first being the missionary who helped his dad plant a church there years ago. As I listened, I learned that there had never been a clinic in town with more than one doctor. We brought four. I learned that no clinic, including the town health clinic, ever had medicine for the people they treated. I learned that no church sponsored clinic had ever treated non-Christians before. We treated all comers.

Here I am with Doctors Milton and Ita between patients

This time, this year, last week, the church showed up. People were cared for, prayed for, held, touched and loved in ways many had never experienced. The Gospel was shared in word, deed, action and proclamation. 

It was shared people to people, as when Pastor Chable sat with a couple that needed counseling, or when one of our doctors prayed with a patient in need.

Looking back, I shared with my ministry community last week that I was scared. Scared of the unknown as we prepared to head up to our location in Eloxochitlan. Now I ache.

Without a doubt this was the hardest week of ministry I have ever experienced in over 20 years of mission. I know it will never leave me, even as I struggle to understand what I saw there and what should be the role of the church in addressing incredible pain, suffering and poverty.

What I do know is this... we’re going back next year. And we need you. 

In addition to our current, already committed group of physicians and dentists, we need nurses, dietitians, dental hygienists and people who understand public health issues. We need an eye doctor or two to help provide sight to people who have struggled all their lives to see clearly.

We also need a team chaplain. This is a ministry that needs a pastor’s heart to hear the struggles of God’s servants, as they work, and to be praying for, and with them. It is that hard.

Viktor E. Frankl writes in his landmark work, “Man’s Search for Meaning” that everyone must have something for which they live. Perhaps this ministry is that something for which your soul yearns... that something for which you live. 

We are trying to change a pueblo. The pueblo of Eloxochitlan! We are striving to meet immediate needs now, while sowing the seeds of Christian development for tomorrow. Imagine if in a few years, the people of this area could say that God heard their prayers and sent some men, women and children from the church to help.

Then imagine if those He sent, included you.

Please pray about it and if you have any questions, contact me.

A big thank you to Mission Focused for their help documenting our work with their excellent photography. All pictures here are copyrighted and cannot be used without the express permission of Adventures in Life Ministry and Mission Focused.

ISIS, and making Jesus accessible... is it possible?

Sometimes the real world forces its way into our little enclaves.

Over the last few weeks we've been assaulted by the beheadings of two American journalists at the hands of an alphabet salad of terrorists in the Middle East. Be they ISIS, ISIL, The Islamic State, Levant, or whatever, let's face it... we're angry.

This week, our politicians are supposedly going to fashion a response. Maybe.

It is clear that few Democrats or the Republicans want to go on record with a vote on what to do about this just weeks before an election. Apparently, reelection is more important than a reasoned debate leading to a unified response.

But their weakness should not change how Christians should respond. Our response, as the family of God, should reflect the values our savior holds dear, not necessarily a response that will make us feel better, or even make us more secure in the world today.

For me, that is part of the tension of being a Christian in America, trying to balance my earthly security with my eternal destiny and how I believe Jesus wants me to live on a daily basis.

A friend sent this article, A Reasoned Response to ISIS, to me recently. It is from author Carl Medearis' blog, Making Jesus Accessible.

As a missions guy, the thought of making Jesus accessible is what it is about. I think daily about how our actions, as a church, as a mission, as everyday Christians, communicate to people what we believe and how we prioritize our lives.

I often wonder, as did the great French theologian Jacques Ellul in his book, Prayer and the Modern Man, that if prayer really can change the world, why go to war. Anyways, enough of my words... Please take a few moments and read what Medearis has to say, because in the next few days, our country will be responding in some way.

A Thoughtful Christian Response to ISIS

Carl Medearis

Obama admits to not having a strategy.  Duck Dynasty Godfather, Phil Robertson, wants to “Convert ‘em or Kill “em.”

So what is a thoughtful honest strategy for confronting a terrorist group like ISIS?

ISIS doesn’t need any more explanation. We know what it is – evil personified. They have morphed out of Al Qaeda who were ironically too liberal for their most radical Islamic interpretations, namely that there should be a new national Muslim identity – a Caliphate. They have chosen Iraq and al-Sham (the Levant) as the territory from which this new “state” will emerge.

ISIS has brutally killed 1000’s, mostly non-Sunnis, in this quest for power. Ethnic Christians and a small people-group called Yazidis have found themselves in evil’s path, but so have the armies of Syria (both the national army and the various rebel groups), Iraq and even Lebanon.  It seems anyone who isn’t willing to lay down their “flag” and join the newly self-appointed ISIS Caliphate is deemed a traitor and deserves to die.  The execution of two American hostages by beheading has horrified the West and captured our daily imaginations – mostly how we can “demoralize and destroy” to use our President’s words, this new evil encroaching on our freedoms and international interests. 

Read More

Short-term Mission... the indispensable key to funding effective long-term global mission

Now we move on to the heavy lifting.  In Part I of this series, I wrote about direct support of missionaries and pastors in other countries.  Part II focused on Short-Term Mission and how funding this important missions work can be a positive part of effective Great Commission work.

Part III, the last part of our series will offer some real world suggestions for financing the ongoing mission work of the church around the globe.

Let’s start with a few realities.

1. Short-term mission [STM] is here to stay.  Hundreds of thousands of people serve each year and STM is effectively a billion dollar industry when you factor in not only direct costs like fees and offerings, but travel and lodging as well.

2. Denominations are cutting back on their historical support of in-country missionaries as they scramble to fund their domestic operations and service churches closer to home base.

3. Cross-cultural Great Commission work is hard, takes a huge commitment, and is exceedingly costly. 

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Case Study 1.  A few years back, the American Baptist Churches [ABC] responded to a series of bad financial decisions by breaking a historic pledge to their in-country missionaries, telling them that they now had to build teams to help raise part of their personal support.  Sadly, this was decided not as good missionary policy, which I believe it is, rather, in response to the denomination’s inability to continue funding their global missions force.

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Case Study 2.  Recently I had a discussion with a pastor who wondered why his church should pay for anything beyond actual expenses if his church group served overseas.  He saw no need for professional help and guidance, preferred to go it alone, and said paying host receivers for their time was bad stewardship of the dollars God had entrusted them.

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Case Study 3.  Not too long ago Adventures in Missions, founded by Seth Barnes had a little survey on their web page.  The results showed that cost was the top factor in determining where to serve on short-term mission.

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Short-term work, long the bane of career in-country missionaries is a growth industry.  We need only look to the explosion of web sites like gofundme and You Caring for evidence.  In a tangential way, STM even made it into a recent Jeopardy episode with the answer being “donor fatigue,” that feeling you get when you open the mailbox and see envelopes from every student you’ve ever known. 

I believe that the future of our ongoing Great Commission work around the globe is dependent on Short-term Mission and Ministry [STM].  Without the energy, vitality, youth and direct personal experience from these ministries, we are going to struggle to fund and continue our long-term work.

So, what should we do?

First, long-term missionaries need to reorient their ministries to take advantage of this incredible resource and opportunity to call people to a long-term commitment to cross-cultural missions.

Gone are the days when these faithful servants served and lived their lives in isolation from anyone from their home country.  With the availability of relatively cheap, and quick, air travel to even the most far off locale, folks are going to visit.

Simply put, there are people back home that want to visit and serve in other countries alongside knowledgable, God-loving people who are involved in God’s work over there.  A long-term missionary in a stable country that is not open to short-term work, is a liability.  

If you are a long-term missionary and are not making use of STM in your ministry, you are robbing yourself and your work of a valuable partner.  Worse, you are refusing to develop relationships with the very people most interested in prayerfully and financially supporting your ministry over the long haul.

It is ironic that even as denominations like the ABC recognize the necessity of career missionaries building partnerships with potential donors, those missionaries who will benefit from these partnerships still try to keep STM at arms length.

The very people you cast aside as not worthy of your time and effort, are those that will organize people back home to raise money for your work and causes.  Does the seminary where you teach need a new computer lab?  Do you need a financial shot in the arm to jump start a new church plant?  Would you like to finally move that long hoped for project from the shelf to reality?  Short-term mission can help you in all of these, and more.

As a career in-country missionary, the short-termer is your friend, not an enemy, or an adversary.  He, or she, is there in response to a call by God to serve you, your people and your ministry.  Make use of them, encourage them and maybe one day they will be your biggest supporter, or even the much needed replacement to continue the ministry you spent a lifetime developing.

Next, we need to recognize that it takes strong leadership to do effective mission, and that leadership costs money.  It takes even more money to sustain long-term mission.  If you are choosing your short-term ministry site primarily because it is a cheap option, you need to rethink your priorities.

Talk to anyone who has served long-term in another country and ask them how long it took before they felt like they were beginning to understand the people and culture where they served.  It has taken me more than 20 years to finally feel like I have a grasp on “some” aspects of the Mexican culture.  Without a doubt, I made a myriad of mistakes in my early years serving.  Mistakes that thankfully were forgiven both by God, and those I harmed.  Grace and forgiveness were accorded me from many different quarters in those days.

However, the presence of grace and forgiveness should not be an excuse to not do all we can to ensure effective ministry.  Often that means spending the money necessary to do mission and ministry right.  The first step in this is partnering with a person or organization that has invested the time necessary to learn and understand not only the church culture, but the larger cultural issues where you are going to serve.

It is not bad stewardship to make use of an experienced person, or organization, when you go abroad to serve.  In fact, it is exactly the opposite!  It is bad stewardship not to use a person who is experienced with the people and the culture you are going to serve.  

Church planter and missionary Roberto Guerrero of Del Camino Connection says  that any ministry that thinks they can sustain an effective cross cultural partnership without someone standing between those two cultures is "doomed to fail."

Churches, groups and individuals need to repent of their cheap gene.  In all my years of hosting short-term groups, the strongest partnerships we had were ones where I knew if something came up, the church, or group was prepared to respond.  They had raised extra money for their mission, were looking for God’s guidance, often through the missionary they were supporting, and came with a generous spirit and the resources to back that up.

It is that spirit of giving, and the wisdom to plan for it that leads to my final point.

Finally, double up.  I’ve proposed this before but with every passing day, it’s simpleness continues to gnaw at me.  It is an idea first floated by Larry Hovis, the head of a local Baptist organization for their area a few years back.

After getting a price for a short-term mission, each and every leader and participant on a team should agree to raise double those fees.  Let’s face it, those people on short-term teams have huge networks of friends and family that are not even part of our local faith communities.  Those networks, and the people that make them up, are going to be personally vested in making sure little Billy raises the money he needs to be successful.

Let’s put little Billy and his networks to work for not just his mission, but the larger Kingdom need.  And when that extra support comes in, give it directly in support of the local missionary with whom they are working.

Give to their denomination, their organization, or directly to their mission, but make it clear that the funds are a direct gift to the mission and ministry of the missionary you are serving.   

Think of it as a gift.

This type of approach will go a long way towards helping our long-term in country missionaries achieve financial stability and fund a vision that often goes unreached for lack of resources.

Imagine the impact this could have on a global scale.

If young people knew they could have financial security on the mission field, they may be more willing to enthusiastically meet the ongoing call for career in-country missionaries.

If those of us in the field knew with certainty that we had the resources available, in many cases, we could move from Christian relief to Christian development.  Churches would be planted, workers would be resourced, lives would be changed and God’s Kingdom would grow.

The resources are there.  Short-term mission holds great promise for the continued resourcing of vital long-term mission work.  It’s proven ability to raise money and potential future missionaries cannot be discounted.

If I could rerun that conversation I had with the pastor who suggested paying host receivers for their time was bad stewardship, here’s what I would say.

Bad stewardship on the part of career missionaries, churches, groups and individuals is a failure to leverage this billion dollar industry for the greater good of the Kingdom and financially provide for our ongoing Great Commission work now and for generations to come.

[The 1.6 million statistic is from Robert Wuthnow, author of Boundless Faith, the Global Outreach of American Churches.  The $20,000.00 STM team statistic is from Asher Sargent, Church Missions Coach at sixteen:fifteen.]

Mission Support... 4 essential guidelines for effective cross cultural mission giving

Let’s talk about missionary support. 

Not the easy type that includes stuff like prayer and encouragement. We’re talking financial. Money. Dough. Greenbacks. Benjamins.  Are you getting the picture?

What I want to open up is the whole discussion of support of both long-term and short-term missions.  With more and more churches and groups opting to send people directly to the field, as opposed to through denominational systems, the time has come for some frank talk on how we can better fund our Great Commission work.

As I have heard many times, rarely does a day go by without some sort of financial appeal making its way into our mailboxes, be they electronic or that old standby in front of the house or on a post.  

We should also be honest about something... short-term mission is here to stay.  Any discussion of funding ongoing mission work around the globe that does not deal with this reality cannot seriously address the issues.  As such, it forms a central part of my thinking and suggestions.

Here are three areas I believe we need to consider:

• Direct regular support of national pastors and non US based churches.
• STM leadership and host receiver support.
• Goer-guest, short-term [STM] participant support.

Today, we will deal with in country national pastors their churches, their needs, and our ability to offer financial support. 

As a person who leads numerous short-term mission experiences every year, I am involved with many pastors and leaders on the field. Often these pastors have only one goal in life, to serve God with all of their heart, mind, body, and soul.

The decision to become a pastor in Mexico where I serve, and many other emerging countries around the world, is a decision to struggle financially, often to leave behind family and friends, and lead a life constantly under examination by others.

Let’s look at the financial side of this and the impact of short-term mission. 

Here’s a picture of what that might look like. You decide whether it rings true to you or not.

A perspective pastor begins by sharing the Gospel to his family, friends, and people who live nearby. Soon he has a small group of 10 – 15 people gathering weekly for a time of worship and bible study. As the weeks go by, this newly organized group continues to grow and quickly multiplies to between 20 – 30 adults.

Maybe, through various means, a US church gets connected through short-term ministry and the two leadership teams dream about future ministry. At some point during the relationship, the US church expresses a desire to help support this fledgling ministry.

When the US group returns home, their leadership makes the case to the home church that there is a vital Kingdom interest in helping this new church and their pastor financially.

Up to this point, every thing is good. However, this is where many US churches, all with good intentions, get off track. Because with big hearts, we respond without any guidelines. Guidelines that can make the difference between just throwing money at a problem, and being part of the solution to a very real issue.

Here are some guidelines that I believe can make a difference for you, your church or mission board, and that national church, or pastor you want to support.

Be generous. Give enough to make a difference. If your objective is to support a pastor or a church, make sure what you give can do the job. Often a US church decides on a gift of $100.00 a month, without regard to whether this amount will actually be a help, or a hindrance.

Let me explain. 

Often a gift that only does part of the job leaves the church, and the pastor, in a place of always needing more. With scant resources, it is nearly impossible to stay afloat, never really having an ability to move ahead. This leads to the frequent letters or e-mails sharing about a new urgent need.  When you don’t make enough money to care for your family, or pay your bills, there are always new urgent needs.

Support and all its synonyms, words like undergird, bear, carry and hold up suggest something much more.  Perhaps a gift of $500.00 a month is a more realistic amount in light of local living expenses and church expectations. Think about that for a moment.

Would you spend $500.00 a month on a ministry in your own church if you knew that ministry would be serving between 20 – 30 people each week? If the answer is yes, why not a Kingdom ministry elsewhere that also is making that kind of difference?

Whatever amount you can give, you will feel better about it if… 

You only give money to an established church. By established, I mean a church with a leadership team that makes the decisions, a level even a small mission church can reach. This ensures that there is accountability within the local body and that the members of the local church body you are supporting is aware of all outside support of the local ministry. 

A corollary within this, to protect both the pastor and his family from charges of abusing his position for financial gain, is that the treasurer of the church should not be related to the pastor or his family.  Now this can be a big hurdle in small churches, but you should hold firm on this, as it helps ensure accountability.

Do not designate your funds. This is hard for US churches, but I believe it is vitally important. Let the local church leadership make the decision on where to spend the money. As people who are there 365 days a year, they, better than us, know where the needs are greatest. 

Years ago I was helping a church in Ensenada build their worship center.  A church that was not serving through Adventures in Life came to do some work.  They had explained to their home congregation that they were going to pour a floor, even though at that point in the construction, we did not need a floor.

I tried as hard as I could to explain to them that it would be better to not pour the floor and allow us to use the funds as local leadership saw fit on another part of the project.  They politely explained that their church had given money for a floor, not some other part of the church we were building and it would be dishonest and deceitful to their people to not use the money for a floor, even if it was not in the best interest of the local church.

On their last day the leader apologized to me explaining that he needed pictures of his group working on a floor.

If we trust a local church, and her leaders enough to serve along side their ministries, we should trust them enough to make good decisions with the resources God has provided.

You will be amazed at what this simple step will do for your ministry partnership.

Have a clearly agreed upon exit plan. in the late 1980’s I was involved in a new church plant here is Las Vegas. As a small group there was no way we could support a pastor. So our denomination agreed to support us for a period of five years, with that support declining by 20% each year.

That was such a blessing for us. Their support told us they believed in what we were trying to do, but it also told us that at some point, we had to be self supporting.

Open ended outside support of national churches is the kind of support that encourages dependence. It does not lead to stronger church bodies and in fact tells the local members that they themselves do not have to sacrificially support their ongoing ministries.

A clear, agreed upon exit plan, will help you avoid hard feelings in the future, and give the local church the time it needs to build a strong financial base.

Let me give a final note on your exit plan. There will be times when circumstances change. The recent economic downturn here in the US is a perfect example. That will demand that everyone involved be somewhat flexible.

But please understand this. Those working on the field, and receiving outside support, have few, if any options to replace a sudden withdrawal of support.

If your church finds it necessary to eliminate, or substantially altar an agreed upon support amount, or plan, I believe you need to give that church at least one year notice to avoid a potential catastrophic situation.

So there you have it. Four guidelines that can help you become a better steward of the resources God has given you or your church when it comes to direct regular support of national churches and pastors.

Be generous, give to an established church, do not designate your funds, and have an exit plan.

Next up... STM Leadership and Host-Receiver Support

[this is a reworking of a previous piece and the first of a three part series]