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.
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4 comments:
Those are important questions and it's great to see them being addressed. Having been on a couple of STM in my youth...I'm not going to say it wasn't a valuable experience or that I wasn't challenged, but yeah, the "life change" may look differently then one might expect or hope for. I can only speak for me and my friends and that we were more spiritually focused after returning, but that intensity faded pretty quickly, and I do bristle at the "pimpin' the poor" aspect. However, interacting in a team and with other people that have a different lifestyle are always valuable. There are a lot of complexitities there for sure.
Hey Bratty,
I have heard the questions and concerns before. I think I certainly feel the tension in my current job, where we go in for 5 to 6 hours to get kids in schools to treat each other better. We are trying to show the lasting impact to prove our results. It is very difficult o measure the results of STM or my current job.
However, this is what I know to be true. To not provide these experiences would be irresponsible. In my years of experience, how do measure the impact of a trip like this, how do measure the impact of a retreat weekend, how do you measure the life change of any given moment? We'll the truth is we probably cannot measure those things because it wasn't one given moment that lead to that life change. Sometimes on atrip just introducing a kid to missions will lead them to impacting 3 people or millions of people. Sometimes kids go and live a selfish life never looking back. Which result is more valued?
I do think it is important that Youthworks continues to ask, "Are we being responsible with how we run these trips?" Done poorly they can have negative effects.
The good thing is in my 10-12 different mission trips with youthworks, not once have I ever felt that this responsibility was not taken seriously. Part of the reason is you gave me as the youth pastor the freedom to spend time with my kids processing the events. Not all youth pastors on those trips were great but you can only control so much. How do measure unprepared leaders taking their kids on mission trips? How do you measure, kids who parents undermine the experience once they get home?
The world wants results...and some things you can't use scientific measurements on...
-Todd Maas
todd, i am certain you won't remember who i am. i served as site director in milwaukee two years ago. anyways, i found your blog in a very random manner; nonetheless, what a great topic to think about. my summer with YW in milwaukee begged these very questions. certainly there is value in students' (and adults) being exposed to situations and realities outside of their own. but does the value of their experience occur at the expense of the dignity or value of those being served?
the questions i left with that summer coincided with questions i asked later that fall in my seminary mission courses. what is the best way to develop individuals and the church corporately to live missional lives instead of just snippets of service toward others? anyways, just wanted to say, great questions and i think it is important for organizations such as youthworks to ask these questions even when it threatens the very heart of your purpose and mission statement. i hope you are doing well.
Hi Todd; How much research have you done into Service-Learning? It is of course the big trend in the education circle but in my experience there is much to be gained from its perspective when applying it to "STM". I have lots of information on this and am in the process of developing service-learning curriculum for our organization with the help from an outside Service-Learning Social Change organization. I think you would dig it. Let me know if you are interested and I will connect you.
Janet
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