Why Do Christians Use Short-Term Mission Trips?

According to the Bible, Christians must "make disciples of all the nations” and one of the key ways that Christians make disciples is to go on mission trips locally or across the globe. In general there are two types of mission trips differed by duration: short-term and long term mission trips. In addition to that there is also one more factor, and that is wheatear or not it is a local trip or a trip abroad. There has been an ongoing debate in the missionary world about the effectiveness of short-term mission trips and what role they play in the lives of the community and those going there to serve. There are some clear negative consequences that affect the people being served and the people going, however there are some major benefits that …show more content…
Sometimes people go on short-term mission trips for the right reasons but do not know how to best help. Catilin Johnson (2015) who frequently goes on short-terms missions stated that “If you don’t go in with the right mindset you can upset people, insult the culture, and if issues not addressed friendships can deteriorate” Many times short-term missionaries do more harm than good because they do not know how to relate with the culture thus resulting in a frustrating trip. They often times think that the service is about themselves instead of trying to help a community. It has also been shown that when people come back from short-term mission trips they still remain unchanged and do not donate any more to charitable causes. According to Kraig Beyerlein (2011) who “[compared] students who had been on short-term mission trips to those who had not,” he “found no significant differences in giving to international causes” (p. 781) This goes against what mission trips stand for and most of the time people that went on short-term mission trips do not even want to participate in local community service jobs. If the main point of the mission trip was to encourage service, then it looks like the short-term mission trips are not doing their job. Many High Schools and Colleges require some sort of community service work or mission work as well. This can even be seen at The King’s Academy where “there is service requirement, so it is a bit of challenge doing it because they [ the students] also have to go” (J. Jahde, 2015). This can be a problem because it takes away the heart of service and it can be easily seen how lots of people go for the wrong reasons and how their negative attitude can destroy the entire trip. Another negative issue that arises with short term missions is that sometimes the mission group does not return to the same location so they cannot provide the same