Mission Agencies and Pizza Parlors
Mission agencies are a lot like pizza parlors. What they offer sounds about the same wherever you go, but what you really get and for what price varies from place to place. Since the same pizza terminology is used everywhere, you have to pry a little deeper to be sure what is meant. How many toppings are on a supreme? How many pieces of pepperoni are on a slice? How large is a “large”? What kind of crust? Just how thick or thin is a “regular” crust anyway? Because of not asking any other questions, we’ve all, no doubt somewhere, received a pizza that wasn’t what we thought we were going to get. The “large” was the size of a medium anywhere else. A “supreme” had only four toppings. The pepperoni pizza had to be cut in an odd way to make sure each slice had one piece of pepperoni on it. They only had “regular” crust, but it was either as thin as a cracker or thick as a brick. It was okay. You still ate it. But you were a little, maybe even greatly, disappointed. Had you known beforehand what you were going to get, you would have adjusted your expectations and probably enjoyed it a little more. Or, you may have decided to get your pizza somewhere else, some place that offers more of what you are looking for.
And such it is with mission agencies. They use the same terminology about their summer trip offerings. Be a summer missionary! Experience missions! Be a part of the fulfilling the Great Commission! Be a part of world evangelism! Work along side experienced missionaries! All this and more conjures up a picture in your mind that may or may not be the same as the next person who reads it. If you have never worked with that agency, it is safe to assume that what you picture doing is probably not what they picture you doing.
Typically, the mission agency has two goals for their summer missionary program. One, utilize the summer missionaries so that they are a help to the field ministry in some way. Two, give the summer missionaries an experience on the mission field that will make them more missions-minded, stretch their faith, and, hopefully, consider becoming full-time missionaries. How well an agency accomplishes these two goals, and how they go about doing it, varies from agency to agency as does the pizza from parlor to parlor. An exception to these two goals would be found in summer mission agencies that specialize in construction or service projects in the U.S. In these cases, the emphasis is on experiencing sacrificial servanthood rather than an experience to consider missions full-time.
Often the first goal, being a help to the field ministry, is the emphasis in which the agency has made detailed plans to accomplish. The standard plan for this goal is a construction project of some kind. Then the second goal of instilling the missions-mind, stretching faith, and considering missions, has no detailed plan of action beyond taking them around and showing them the sights. The approach often appears to be one of osmosis. The summer missionary will just somehow absorb or soak up these things by being on the field.
With these two approaches to the goals, then it is no wonder the summer missionary often returns home with a report that sounds like a vacation with some daily work. The excitement of the report is, “This is what we built! And these are the people and places we saw!” Then the “Naysayers” in the church continue their grumblings against summer missions:
“Why’d we send him half-way around the world to do that?”
“She could have done that kind of work right here at home!”
“That’s a lot of money just to dig a ditch and poor some concrete.”
“It’s just a glorified vacation!”
Unfortunately, such negative commentary on summer missions is largely deserved. Admittedly, sometimes it is the result of a poor summer missions presentation by a teenager who was given no guidance in preparing a presentation. However, most of the times, what was presented was an accurate portrayal of the trip. If you want to get away from those kinds of trips, then you must get away from the summer mission agency that offers those kinds of trips. That means you have to do research beyond reading advertisements and agency brochures.
Before selecting an agency, it is essential to call the agency on the phone and interview them about their philosophy of summer missions and the ministry details of the trip you are interested in. Several agencies should be called in order to compare and contrast the summer missionary trip offerings. You want to find a trip that best matches up with your own goals for your summer missionaries and their ministry capabilities. Here are some sample questions:
1) What is it you hope to accomplish through your summer missions program? (This
will give you their philosophy of summer missions.)
2) What ministries will the summer missionaries be involved in? (This will give you the variety of possibilities, which may or may not actually happen.)
3) What will the summer missionary be doing most of the time while on the field? (This will tell you what for sure will happen, to the possible exclusion of the other possibilities mentioned in the previous answer.)
4) How much involvement with the local people will the summer missionaries have? (Believe it or not, it is possible to go to a foreign field and have little or no contact with the nationals that live there. Seeing them from the bus or in the market is not involvement!)
5) In non-English speaking fields, will there be translators available for the summer missionaries to interact with the local people? (This will give you a hint to how much ministry TO the locals themselves can be expected.)
6) With a translator, will we be able to share our testimonies and the gospel message one-on-one with individuals? (Now you will find out if they allow summer missionaries to try personal evangelism with the locals.)
7) How much of what you have told me occurred on the last summer missionary trip there? (Go over the answers to the first six questions and find out how much actually happened last time.)
8) Have you seen God use the summer missionaries to lead people to Christ? (Remember, God controls the harvest. But if their history indicates little or no harvest through the summer missionaries, then most likely little emphasis or opportunity is presented by the hosting agency to evangelize.)
Now, in all fairness to the mission agencies, it must be pointed out why many are hesitant to allow summer missionaries to do much more than construction. Full time missionaries work year-round in their ministry to the people of their field. It often takes years to establish their ministry and see fruit produced. Summer missionaries are viewed as a mixed blessing. The physical labor is much needed. But the typical bumbling, ill-prepared, rowdy American summer missionary is a threat to undo the testimony and rapport that has been established with the locals.
The missionary needs help, but doesn’t want his ministry damaged while getting it. Few summer missionaries have gone through any type of ministry training, not to mention cross-cultural ministry training. The summer missionaries usually have not studied about the country or the people group they are going to supposedly minister to. They haven’t studied the religious background that blinds the minds of this needy people group. Often, a summer missionary’s recited testimony is a fuzzy rambling about God. A gospel presentation, if it can be done at all, is not thought through, uses little if any Scripture, and often is not entirely accurate.
Therefore, the resident missionary is somewhat protective of his flock and is usually not anxious to allow the summer missionary free access to them. The easiest way to restrict the summer missionary is to maintain the language barrier between locals and summer missionaries. Because of the language barrier, the summer missionaries are pretty much limited to physical labor, which again, is what the resident missionary needs the most from them anyway.
This is not to deny that the missionary hopes the summer missionaries will become missions-minded individuals that will bring excitement about missions to their home churches. Nor is it to deny that summer missionaries can be a tremendous encouragement to those full time workers in the field. This is just the “mixed blessing” view of summer missionaries by the full timers. This doesn’t mean they would rather not have summer missionaries. Children are mixed blessings too, but that doesn’t stop parents from wanting them.
Most of the time, neither the mission agency nor the missionary on the field are familiar with the summer missions team’s ministry capabilities. Therefore, they expect an “average” summer missions team to show up. They do not have very high expectations of the team beyond being hard workers at physical labor. Hopefully, the team can put on a VBS or music program at the local church. Any other effective ministry skill the team has will be a pleasant surprise that those supervising on the field may not be prepared to utilize.
The Middle-Man of Summer Missions
The summer mission agency is the middle-man between the local church’s team leader and the missionary on the field. This is obviously true of agencies that specialize in summer missions only. However, it is just as true when the trip is through a full-time mission board’s summer program. The local church team leader will set the trip up with someone behind a desk in a home office somewhere in the United States. This “someone” will be the source of information about everything that will take place on the trip, to the best of his knowledge. That ought to be underlined. To the best of his knowledge.
Any summer missions trip that turns out exactly as advertised is a rarity. The team usually ends up doing something or even a lot of things they weren’t told about beforehand. They may not do the thing they thought they were coming to do. Such a change in the preconceived program can be very frustrating to the team leader who expected the trip to fit the daily schedule that “someone” told him it would be to the best of his knowledge. Feelings of betrayal and resentment take root toward that “someone” who must have been either an uninformed idiot or a blatant liar.
In order to avoid such judgmental attitudes, it must be recognized that the “someone” cannot know all the details that will transpire in the future when a team reaches the field. Tentative plans can be made, but that is all they are, just tentative. Usually, in the months prior to going on the trip, “someone” keeps reminding the team leader of the need to be flexible about the construction and/or ministry schedule. The team leader, however, does not realize that being “flexible” means being ready to accept the possibility of doing a totally different type of project.
How can this be? Why can’t “someone” see to it that the team does what it was originally informed about? Again, the reason is because “someone” cannot see the future. The missionary on the field tries to project the construction and ministry opportunities that will be available. He communicates this to “someone” and a tentative weekly schedule is put together. However, many unforeseen things can disrupt this schedule:
1) Construction materials don’t arrive on time.
2) Some of the previous teams did not get as much done as was expected. So this team is doing their work.
3) Some of the previous teams did much more than expected. So this team’s assigned work is already completed.
4) A new need has arisen that is more important to address.
5) It rains all week.
6) For whatever reason, the indigenous pastor doesn’t want to work with another
team this week.
And the list goes on…
Therefore, realize that “someone” can only give you details about a team’s work on the field to the best of his knowledge. Some agencies avoid giving very many specifics about what will take place on the field because of the inability to guarantee what is said will take place. They speak in generalities and possibilities, rather than specifics. This can be mistakenly viewed as not being very organized. The church team leader can get frustrated over not knowing exactly what to expect. “How can I prepare my team?” But we must remember that Jesus did not tell the disciples ahead of time what the next day’s ministry was. They didn’t have months to prepare for the feeding of the five thousand. The only thing He prepared them for was to follow His example. Be God’s servant and God’s spokesman of the Good News.
The middle-man role of the mission agency is to get you to that field, not to know what God has planned for each team when they get there. If the team is prepared to be God’s servants and spokesmen, they will be ready for the work on the mission field, even if it is nothing like what “someone” told you it would be, to the best of his knowledge.
A Word to Mission Agencies
The local church needs you. Without you, the local church would be crippled in its effort to raise up Acts 1:8 Christians. You are a para-church ministry, a ministry that works along side of the local church. Yet, most Christians do not see you working along side the local church any more than a Bible college works along side the local church. We send you our people and you put them in your program. In return, we get a slide presentation every four years from the missionary and an occasional missionary speaker/recruiter to come to our missions conferences. These things are good. But there is more the mission agencies could do in demonstrating they are truly an extension of the local church’s ministry.
The local church’s ministry is to raise up Acts 1:8 Christians to fulfill the Great Commission. A church that takes seriously this call needs the help of mission agencies
to expose young disciples to missions ministry. A church that takes seriously this call needs a mission agency that takes seriously the idea of being a part of the process.
What if a local church’s “in house” discipleship program consisted of having the people work maintenance around the church, let them observe some ministries, then take them around to the local tourist attractions and shopping spots? It just wouldn’t be hitting the nail on the head, would it? Yet, too many summer missions offerings are just that. It’s better than nothing, but couldn’t there be more? Shouldn’t there be more?
Christ has not called us to provide people a missions or cross-cultural experience.
He has called us to make disciples. If the cross-cultural experience is incorporated in the discipleship process, then it is a worthwhile endeavor. To provide the experience for experience’s sake, or for excitement and enrichment, are worldly means of enticing people onto a missions trip. The carrot being dangled appeals much stronger to what the individual will get out of going, rather than our obligation to obey the Great Commission.
Agencies need to take a close look at how they advertise their summer missions trips. When Jesus sent out the twelve in Matthew 10, He made no mention of the beautiful sites they would see or the wonderful market places they would come upon, even though such places abounded in Israel. The only description He gave of their mission field was, “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves…” (vs. 16). Jesus said they were not to acquire gold or silver (vs. 9), but many summer missions advertisements mention acquiring souvenirs. The focus of Jesus sending out the twelve was to share the gospel, “…saying, ‘The kingdom of God is at hand,’” (vs. 7). The mention of evangelism in a summer missions advertisement, if mentioned at all, is often drowned out by all the “vacation attraction” descriptions. When ministry is not the focus of the advertisement, then no wonder many who sign up are not focused or prepared to minister.*
An agency’s summer missions program should be a discipleship program. Just
as the work on the mission field to the indigenous people is one of making disciples, the work with those on the summer mission trips should also be one of making disciples. Yes, the summer missionaries will hopefully be doing some ministry too. Yet, it must be remembered that they have come to also learn about being a missionary, about going to the remotest parts of the earth. Let not the agency fail to teach them as much as possible.
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*This does not mean shopping and site seeing should be totally eliminated from trips. But there is no need to advertise beforehand about these possibilities. Sites and shopping should be optional extras if time permits. I have seen teams immersed in ministry choose to give up site seeing and shopping in order to continue to minister. People back home sometimes are disappointed that the team was so close to “such-and-such” and didn’t get to see it. But what a joy it is to hear the team say, “God didn’t send us here to see the sites. Let’s continue to minister.”How to Come Along Side and Help the Local Church
Some agencies are already doing some of these suggestions and even more. Generally speaking, though, most agencies could improve their summer missions program by implementing one or more of the following suggestions.
1) Consider your summer missions program as a part of the local church’s Acts 1:8 discipleship program. (Whether the local church views it that way or not.) If your summer missions program is not discipleship, why have it?
2) Have a full time staff person whose primary responsibility is your summer missions discipleship program. This person ensures your summer missions program is indeed discipleship and not just a source of free manual labor.
3) Accurately advertise your summer missions project. If the project is pure service, then say so. Do not call it “construction and evangelism” if there is no planned evangelistic outreach on the trip schedule. Ministering with testimony and music in local churches is not evangelism. If it would not be called evangelism in front of the individual’s home church, don’t call it evangelism just because it takes place in a church on the mission field. Such non-evangelistic ministry is still worthwhile. For, ministry to believers is still Acts 1:8 ministry. Do not think the lack of “evangelism” in the description will make the trip less attractive to those looking to serve. There are many who, for whatever reason, are not ready to do evangelism. Trips that minister in other ways are also needed. Often, it is on those very trips that people who had not planned to share the gospel, find themselves in opportunities where they were used by God to share with someone after all.
4) Consider ranking your trip offerings according to the amount of ministry skill needed. Level One trips are strictly service/construction with a taste of life on the field. Level Two adds VBS and local church ministry. Level Three is heavy in personal evangelism. Doing this will help accomplish #3 above.
5) Send to the summer missionary and his church an explanation of the ministry history and strategy of their field and how their contribution fits into the strategy. This will accomplish two things. One, it will point out, to both the individual and local church, the important role the summer missionary plays in missions. Two, it will ensure the agency doesn’t slip into having a summer missions project that basically keeps the summer missionaries doing “busy work” because no one thought through how to best use the team before they got there.
6) Raise your expectations for those coming from the local church. Do not be afraid to call for high standards of conduct and dress in order to come and serve in your program. If you never call for a higher standard of commitment, you’ll rarely get a higher standard of commitment.
7) Insist upon a certain amount of service/ministry involvement on the field. This particularly applies to ministries located on U.S. soil. Summer missionaries that only want to work three hours a day or have three or four days off out of the week should not be catered to. This is summer missions, not summer camp. Make the work/ministry schedule clear before they sign up to come,
8) Insist upon a minimal amount of preparation be done by all participants prior to coming to the field. (See preparation examples in Chapter Six .) If your program takes church groups, then they may have a satisfactory preparation process that needs no further additions. However, be aware that many churches will need all the direction they can get to put together a preparation program. If your program takes individuals from many different churches to make up one team on the field, then have them all do the same preparation work. Then the team leader will have a reference point from which to draw from while discipleship continues with the team on the field. (Please note: Fund raising, while necessary, is NOT preparing oneself before the Lord to minister.)
9) Insist each individual have a mentor, who is preferably a leader at some level in the local church, to hold them accountable for their preparation. The mentor verifies the work has been done. The team leader will be the mentor for church groups. Those who are going on trips as individuals will have to recruit a mentor, who should not be one of their parents. The agency should have a written “Mentor Guide Sheet” explaining the role he is being asked to perform. This will reinforce the idea of the agency and local church working together in discipleship.
10) Hold team leaders accountable for the behavior of their teams on the field. Refusing to address rebel teams by saying they are the leader’s responsibility to control sends a clear message to the rebels that the hosting agency has no backbone and obeying the guidelines is purely optional. Sometimes the team leader is the one leading the rebellion, blatantly ignoring the rules himself. Nearly all missions trips have more stringent rules than what most team members live by at home. Leaders of other teams who are submitting to the rules have worked hard to get their team prepared to live and serve according to such standards. To arrive on the field and discover that other teams are allowed to ignore the rules with no comment from the hosting agency’s project leadership sows seeds of resentment in an otherwise submissive and cooperative group.
11) Do not be afraid to send rebels home. Individuals or whole teams. A house divided against itself cannot stand (Mt. 12:25). A ministry that requires humble, submissive servanthood cannot be effective with people who refuse to be and make a mockery of being humble, submissive servants. It is the allowing of such poor testimonies to remain on the field that causes the mission agency to lose credibility not only with the other summer missionaries, but also with the locals to whom the ministry is directed. Thus the agency’s testimony loses ground at home and on the field.
Few of these suggestions require little more than an attitude adjustment and commitment to make the adjustments. Should an agency do any or all of these? Evaluate by asking, will this improve our summer missions program and/or aid in our coming along side the local church in discipleship? Implementing these suggestions helps (or insists) the local church step up a notch in their own Acts 1:8 discipleship.
Then both church and para-church agency benefit from having Acts 1:8 Christians in their midst.
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