the running reverend

In July of 1997 I took my first “mission trip.” Our youth group and numerous chaperones packed our bags and headed to Jamaica with Yes!Ministries in response to a challenge that had been extended at the previous year’s Acquire the Fire.

Long hours of preparation went into the trip. Countless fundraisers were undertaken. We traveled to various churches to share about the upcoming trip and to ask for prayer and financial support. As a group we participated in a study to spiritually prepare us for the trip.

For well over a year we poured ourselves and everything that we had into preparing for our mission trip to Jamaica.

The time came. We went on the trip and helped many people in need. Buildings were constructed. Spiritual commitments were made. In fact, it was in Jamaica that I experienced what in most Evangelical circles would be referred to as “my call to ministry.”

The purpose of this post, however, isn’t to recount the trip. Nor is it to brag about what was accomplished.

Instead, I wish to challenge an assumption that underlies such trips.

Before I go any further, please let me be clear: I am not suggesting that mission trips are evil or that they should be avoided. We have a gentleman from our congregation going to Haiti in March of this year on a mission trip. A father and his teenage daughter will also be embarking on a mission trip in March, their destination: Jamaica. Later this summer, a number of teens and some chaperones will be headed to Cleveland for a mission trip with Yes!Ministries. All of that to say, I will be the first person to tell you that mission trips are terrific. (It was on a mission trip, after all, that I experienced my call.) Short-term trips such as these serve a spiritual purpose for those who go; they meet physical needs of those who are ministered to; they provide encouragement and much-needed resources to missionaries who are on the field. The list could go on and on.

That being said, however, the ever-popular short-term mission trip poses a serious threat to the church (a threat, I fear, that may in some regards already be realized). It is a threat that I would describe this way: Short-term mission trips encourage us to see mission as something that is engaged “out there” or “over there.” Mission becomes relegated to a week-long project that we engage in at a place removed from where we eat, live, and play.

The danger of this logic is that one of the most important mission fields is left deprived of its missionaries. Missionaries who should be living out and fulfilling their mission at home, work, school, and play end up saving up their time, energy, and resources for the upcoming trip. And, as a result, an important mission field is deprived of those who know, to borrow a phrase from Ed Stetzer, the missional code.

Pastors and paid staff are left to oversea “home missions,” in addition to the pastoral care, discipleship, administrative, and other aspects of “church life.”

The mission trip, while important, has caused many to forget about an all-important but neglected mission field that exists just outside of their door (and even sometimes within their own home).

May God grant us the ability and heart to see the mission field in which we live, work, and play each and every day!