Interesting article

Sustainability in Short-Term Missions

By ddyck
Created 02/01/2010 - 16:49
Sending teams and money isn’t enough; churches must aim for sustainable ministry
Matthew Schulte

It had been two long, hard weeks of work. We stood in the rain for hours shoveling mud, while dump truck after dump truck delivered more. Along with brothers and sisters of an impoverished community, we had poured concrete, set pillars, and ultimately constructed a new sanctuary. But was it worth it? Would this local church continue to reach the unreached? Would their congregation grow?

Well-developed short-term mission programs should place high priority on sustainability. When I say sustainability, I am talking about something different than carbon offsets and recycling programs. I am referring to the need to develop communities to maintain ministries without the indefinite support of external forces.

Western countries have been extremely generous with developing nations. Churches, governments, and NGOs have given large sums of money leading to the creation of some fantastic programs. Unfortunately, many of these programs die as soon as external funding dries up. You do not want your church or organization to perpetuate this pattern. You want to use your short-term trips to promote sustainable, healthy ministry.

Your short-term mission trips can promote sustainable ministry by encouraging an existing ministry, empowering the indigenous church, and meeting real needs.

Encourage an existing ministry
Every week for years, Pastor Horacio and his family have been going to Guarari to meet the needs of the poor, share the Gospel, and ultimately to revitalize a dying church. Guarari is an extremely oppressed community often referred to as a “precario,” Spanish for “precarious,” an apt description that troubled community. Homes literally hang off the edge of cliffs, ready to crash down with the next earthquake or heavy rain. At any given moment, you might witness a drug deal, while just feet away, a group of children play soccer . . . until their ball falls into the sewage ditch again. Pastor Horacio brings hope into the community. With his goal to revive an abandoned church, he and his family bring clothes, a simple meal, and the good news of Christ.
The relationships that Horacio and his family have built over the years will never be replicated by a short-term trip. But a visiting team could come alongside a man like Horacio to encourage him, help him complete some projects that were previously only a dream, and play an active role in sharing the love of Christ with more people than he could reach on his own.

That is exactly what our group did. I recently led a corporate mission trip to Costa Rica, and we took a day out of our regularly scheduled activities to serve with Horacio as best we could. We asked him how we might serve him and the community, and he immediately pointed us to the homes of two families he works with on a regular basis. We replaced a feces-covered dirt floor with a concrete slab and replaced a rickety lean-to with a solid support system and new tin roofing. These simple service projects gave Horacio a stronger voice in the community. Three days later, Horacio was back in Guarari serving the poor when he was asked by community leaders to bring more service teams to continue “mejorando” (improving) Guarari.

Empower the Indigenous Church
I recently met with a campus pastor, John, who used to be a missionary in Indonesia. I asked him how he viewed short-term teams while he served overseas. He told me the story of two indigenous churches he supported during his time as a missionary.

Two small neighborhood churches were both a few years old and had been founded by nationals. Both churches had grown at about the same pace and needed more room. John advised both churches to begin a capital campaign in order to expand their facilities. The first church began the long, slow process of raising the $10,000 needed to expand their church. Three years later they barely had enough to make the addition, but they did it. However, the church was theirs. They had responded faithfully to God’s call to reach the community by expanding their church’s capacity. After the project was done, the church continued to grow and mature.

The other church said, “We can’t raise that amount of money,” and never began a campaign. The church continued to minister to its members and grew slightly until one day an international team from their denomination showed up. The team spent two days with the church, and at the end of their visit they handed over a $10,000 check. While I am sure the money was given with pure hearts and good intentions, the result was destructive. In-church bickering led to a church split over the use of funds. Eventually the congregation fell apart.

Short-term teams should make sure all their actions truly empower a local congregation. It is in the context of the local church that the Gospel will be shared and a community of believers can flourish. Instead of simply writing a check, here are some ideas of how a short-term team could have empowered the local congregation in the construction of their facility.

- Match local gifts to the capital campaign for two years.
- Offer to split the materials cost for construction if the church provides the labor.
- Provide the supplies and work shoulder-to-shoulder with church members to build the church.
- Work with the church to initiate a ministry of the church outside its walls.

Meet Real Needs
I recently attended a church not too far from my home. The mission trip they had planned caught my attention: “Two week trip to Romania. Primary work project: library organization and categorization.”

They were sending a team of 8-10 people at $1,300 each, to sort library books!

I was disgusted. I couldn’t believe that a church would spend that much money to sort library books. There are millions of children living in orphanages in Romania, I thought, and you are spending $13,000 to sort library books?

Later I had the opportunity to hear a report from one of the trip participants. Sure enough, they had spent most of their time sorting books in a seminary library. But I discovered that sorting these books was a real need of the seminary. The seminary had contacted the sending church and specifically requested a team of librarians to take the large collection of books they had recently received and convert it into a working library. It would have taken seminary volunteers months, if not years, to sort all the books. The short-term team was able to categorize all the books as well as train these volunteers to maintain the library over the course of a week.

I had to check my judgmental attitude, and I was encouraged to discover that this team had been sent to meet a real need of the host ministry.

What Does Sustainability Look Like?
Three years later I returned to the church where mud had filled my boots and sweat mixed with rain. It was a joy to see a growing, active, and vibrant local church. Their feeding program had expanded to serve 125 meals a day, their congregation had doubled, and they had renewed a commitment to care for orphans. Prior to that trip we had done the hard work of making sustainability a priority. We came alongside an existing ministry, empowered an indigenous church, and met real needs. It may have been difficult, but it was worth it, and God continues to move through the ministry.

Before you plan your next short-term mission trip, make sustainability a priority. You’d be grateful you did, and so will the people who go and serve.