Rethinking short term missions

In case you are unfamiliar with short term missions (STM), it has been a fast growing phenomenon here in the United States (among many other places) for students to take a week or more to get out of their home environment and serve in another community as a form of "mission" or fleshing out of their spirituality. Whether foreign or domestic, millions of people each year commit time and money to serve God on an STM trip. Because I work for an organization that hosts such trips, I was invited be a part of a think tank this past week at the National Youth Workers Convention in Anaheim to discuss best practices for such endeavors.

All that said, I simply want to record here some of the great questions and concerns that arose from our discussion. Most of us who have taken students on STM have traditionally seen the value of STM as two-fold; the first being to serve the community to which we are going (though many may differ in motive or method of service), and the second being to develop "life change" in the students who go to serve. While many have called into question the effectiveness of our service efforts and whether the ideas "short-term" and "mission" are oxymoronical, there has seemed to remain a consensus among many youth workers that the "life change" that is produced in the students who go is worth the investment in STM. In fact, many refer to the "life change" that happens in students not only as a primary outcome, but increasingly a primary objective.

So when the life change aspect of STM was called into question in recent research, many in the STM community, including myself, started asking some tough questions. Do STM trips really create life change? What does life change look like? What are the desired outcomes from an STM, and do our current practices (both as youth workers and STM agencies) effectively engage students in spiritual formation? Do students have any more cultural intelligence (CQ - an idea brought forth in David Livermore's "Serving with Eyes Wide Open") as a result of STM? What is needed for students to integrate learning from an STM into their theology and practice of spirituality? Does STM break down cultural barriers or reinforce stereotypes? Or as my friend Eric Iverson says, can we learn how to do "missions without pimpin' the poor?"

Don't get me wrong, I love teenagers... and I love the church... and I believe that STM have and can produce valuable growth in students. Yet, I must confess that there has been a severe lack of critical thinking and strategic development of STM in youth ministry. I am encouraged that the conversation is beginning and I feel that there are many who care enough about the students who we take on STM and the communities that we serve to not allow us to be satisfied with the status quo. So let the questions come, and let us do the hard work of integrating STM into the formation of missional students and transformational faith communities.