For ten years, I was a Pastor of Christian Education. One of my main jobs was to recruit and train teachers. I always knew that most of the people that came to those classes were never going to commit to long-term teaching positions in the church. Most would become substitute teachers and a few would occasionally commit to teaching for a month or quarter. Even fewer would become committed to teaching year-in and year-out. However, it was from the pool that began as substitute and short-term teachers, from which the bulk of future long-term teachers were drawn.
In every church, there is a place for every type of teacher. The local church needs the substitutes. It needs the short-termers that fill the gaps while long-termers take breaks. Yet, if the local church only has short-termers and substitutes, the educational program of the church would be in disarray. We would have to admit, something is wrong in the discipleship process (if not the whole church!) if we never see anyone make a long-term commitment to teaching. Somehow, somewhere, the church would be dropping the ball.
The same is true for the Acts 1:8 discipleship process.
As wonderful as it is to see disciples used by God in the multi-level summer mission program, even having disciples serving at “beyond Level 3”, it still falls short if it never produces disciples that will make long-term commitments to serve in “all Judea and Samaria and the remotest part of the earth.” Having a multi-level summer mission program is a great start. But let us not fool ourselves into thinking that sending out teams for seven to seventeen days means we have arrived.
If we think back to Chapter 1, our foundational premise is for the local church to not sidestep any part of the Great Commission. The local church should not be a Partial Commission Discipleship church, but have a Complete Great Commission Discipleship effort that produces a steady stream of ministers for its home ministries as well as for ministry around the world. In short, every church is to be producing Acts 1:8 disciples, disciples that serve locally, across the country, and around the world. That means every church should be producing full-time pastors and missionaries to serve across our country and around the world.
Yes, pastors and missionaries.
Since this book describes an approach to discipleship through the use of summer missions, it is easy to think the ultimate goal is to produce vocational missionaries. In reality, in conjunction with the other discipleship programs in the local church, the ultimate goal of the summer missions program is to produce Acts 1:8 disciples. Among the mass of Acts 1:8 disciples, some will be laymen and some will be vocational. Some will be missionaries. Some will be pastors. As was stated in Chapter 2:
Discipleship that targets our Jerusalem coupled with discipleship that targets the rest of the world will make disciples for our Judea and Samaria as well. If you make disciples willing to go anywhere in the world to serve the Savior, some will serve as pastors here in the U.S.
If an Acts 1:8 disciple becomes a pastor, chances are he, too, will be a maker of
Acts 1:8 disciples.
However, as we continue to discuss what is needed to further develop the Acts 1:8 disciple, most of the focus will be in how to guide one on the journey toward full-time missionary service. For, that’s where the local church needs the most help. Because they have made the journey themselves, most pastors can guide those interested in pastoral ministry. Yet, when one expresses an interest in missionary service, pastors and other church leaders tend to have no idea what to do other than send the disciple off to Bible college and hope he somehow makes it.
Therefore, most of what follows will be with the potential future missionary in mind. How does the church continue to help the disciple to develop as a potential full-time missionary beyond what the local church can do? That’s going beyond “Beyond Level 3”.
Going Beyond with Extended Trips for High School Students
The one and two week mission trips are often mountain-top spiritual highs for the team members. I doubt that only at my church have excited young people returned from a mission trip and started telling others they are now considering missions as a career. Or, better (or worse!), they announce to the congregation at the trip presentation that God has called them to missions. Does this ring a bell with anyone out there?
And how did the congregation respond? The first time it happened, there may have been some “Amens” and spontaneous praising of God. In the years to follow, there were probably only smiles and polite nods.
A fifteen-year-old has just announced her call to missions. So, local church, what do you do? Most likely, the local church will do nothing in response to this declaration. So she will be left on her own to chart her own course to the mission field. After all, she still has to finish high school. If she still thinks she’s called after graduation, she will have to go to Bible college. Then if she doesn’t marry a youth pastor or discover a “new call” on her life, she’ll have to join a mission agency after Bible college graduation. Once she has done all of that then she can just let the church know where she’s going.
The churches, who are supposed to be intentionally making such disciples, basically abandon them to find their own way. No one should wonder why so few of such young people actually make it to the mission field. Most church leaders will agree that it is a spiritual battle to get a disciple equipped and onto the mission field. Yet, they will still leave these future missionaries on their own in the turbulent sea to sink or swim.
At this point in the discussion, someone will point out, “Most of these kids aren’t really called to missions, and that is why they don’t become missionaries.” Rather than debate how to discern whether a young person’s call is real or not, let us stay on the course of the church’s role in helping the young disciple grow and serve Christ. Even if this objection is true, that still leaves the remaining few who ARE really called. So, what is your church doing to help THESE disciples get further training and ministry experience to equip them for the mission field?
It is true that not every youth who announces a desire for career missionary service will become a missionary. For, the teenager is excited about what he has seen God do in his life through a short mission trip. He truly wants to serve God more and have an impact for Christ. The mission trips are the only place he has seen this happen.
So, he thinks he is called to missions. Maybe he is. Maybe he isn’t.
Typically, the local church doesn’t provide many places an “on fire” youth can serve. After doing evangelistic outreaches and seeing people come to Christ, being told he can help in the nursery or be a Sunday school teacher’s aid for second graders, doesn’t excite him. He basically sees no place in the local church to devote his energies. So, he sees the mission field as the only place for him to find fulfillment in serving Christ.
Usually, a person headed into full-time missionary service is at least 21 years of age. If a teenager announces a desire to serve full-time on the mission field, the church has several years of further guiding and discipling to do. This way the church can help guide the young disciple in further training and experience that can help confirm whether he should be heading to the mission field or not.
One and two week mission trips are usually a whirlwind of activity. The teams tackle their ministries with an adrenaline-laced energy that cannot be maintained for an extended period of time. Much can be accomplished in a short amount of time by such bursts of energy. However, the supercharged day-to-day routine of the short trip does not give the disciple any idea of what regular day-to-day life on the mission field is really like.
On the short church trip, the disciple knows he is only there for a short amount of time and commits to giving it all he’s got. Homesickness isn’t a very big issue for the short amount of time away. Besides, the team members are there with friends from church. He probably knows the team leaders pretty well, too.
While culture shock is very real on the short trips, the short trip summer missionary adapts to the inconveniences very much like one puts up with inconveniences on a camping trip. Most luxury-laden Americans can put up with the hardships of the great outdoors for a few days. But if they had to live that way for a month or two, it would be a much greater trial and time of adjustment.
In the same way, a one or two month summer mission trip forces the missionary to adapt to life on the field and face issues that are not on the one and two week trips. The longer trips tend to dispel the romantic notion of missionary service being all excitement and adventure. While there is plenty of excitement and adventure in the longer tours of duty on the mission field, there is also a discovery of the reality of day-to-day living in another culture. As is life here in the good old USA, some days are full of boring, mundane tasks that have to be done. Those considering a career in missions need to discover this and see what affect it has on their interest in full-time service.
As I talk with many who have served anywhere from one month to six months on the field, regardless of the type of trip it was, the common benefit repeatedly reported is: increased time with and dependence upon God. As one young man said, “You’re in foreign country with a lot of people you don’t know. It’s like just ‘You and me, God.’ You either cling to God and grow or just ride it out counting the days till you come home.”
Both traditional mission agencies and summer mission agencies offer summer mission trips anywhere from two weeks to three months length. While the summer mission agencies mostly target junior and senior high school students, or even pre-teens (ten to twelve years old), most traditional agencies start with those who are at least eighteen years old.
For those targeting the under-18 crowd, the majority of the trips are the Service/Site-Seeing Trip or the Ministry/Site-Seeing Tour. That means the ministry of those trips will be most like the Level 1 trips described in earlier chapters. While there are always exceptions to every rule, it is unlikely such extended trips will have ministry like the Level 3 trips.
Therefore, if a Level 3 trip veteran is looking to take one of these trips, he needs to be aware of exactly what the trip will entail. Just because a trip advertises there will be evangelism as a part of the ministry, that doesn’t mean he will truly get to do much personal evangelism. Therefore, he needs to talk with the agency home office and find out what is meant by evangelism and how much time is typically devoted to it. It is always good to ask how many translators will be available to the team for personal evangelism.
The key terminology to use in this interview with the agency personnel is translators….for personal evangelism. For, translators on such trips are usually few and far between. If translators are lacking for personal evangelism, then it is obvious that the trip is not designed for personal evangelism. Most such trips do evangelistic programs, not personal evangelism. If a team of fifteen to thirty teens is only going to have one or two translators when they do the evangelism ministry, not much personal evangelism is going to take place.
This is not to discourage the consideration of such trips. It is just to point out that it is always best for the individual to know as much as possible about the trip he is considering. A Level 2 or 3 veteran can become very frustrated with an advertised “evangelism trip” that lacks personal evangelism opportunities. Such a frustrated veteran can become an absolute pest to the team leader of a trip that only puts on evangelistic puppet, drama, or music programs. The team leader is doing his best to keep a mixed bag of spiritual maturity levels focused on the outreach programs. He doesn’t need a disappointed street evangelist constantly asking when the team members are going to do some “real” evangelism.
On the other hand, if the veteran is aware of the program approach and prepares to be an example and an encourager to the leaders and other team mates, the trip can present him with new ways to minister within the team. Then, on the field, he can look for those open doors of opportunities to minister, as done on Level 3, that God will bring his way during the course of the trip that are above and beyond the normal call of duty as a team member. In that way, even if it is a Service/Site-Seeing Trip, he may well experience God’s hand on his life in even greater ways than in the past.
If a high school student, with or without summer mission experience, wants to take one of these extended trips, I am always supportive. I am for anything that helps increase one’s interest and involvement in missions. However, I do not push students toward them while they are under the age of eighteen. But if the student is still talking about a career in missions as they approach high school graduation, I do start suggesting the longer trips to them.
The Dilemma after High School
While the church might smile politely when a fifteen-year-old says he wants to be a missionary, the church had better do more than that when the high school senior is intent upon pursuing missions or pastoral ministry after graduation. Sending the student off to Bible college with a prayer is not enough. It is not only not enough, it is being down right negligent to the local church’s call to make disciples.
Most churches feel they are passing the discipleship baton to the Bible college. Once the student goes to school, it is up to the school to complete the discipleship process.
Wrong! A Bible college (or seminary) is not a church. It is an academic institution created to come along side the local church to further prepare disciples for service. However, in most cases, there is no local church working along side the Bible college or seminary. Most students spend their years in school not accountable to any church.
If the student does only what the school requires of him, he will graduate with (hopefully) more biblical knowledge and ministry philosophy, yet will still have little practical experience. The school mandated “ministry practicum” or internships usually don’t add up to much after four years. Those going into pastoral ministries don’t worry about experience too much. They just figure they will start at a small church and work their way up to larger churches as they gain experience. (Which, by the way is just using the small church for personal gain. But that’s another subject.)
But for the potential missionary, there is no place for him to start small and work his way up. The schools have a placement service for the pastoral ministry students. For the missions student, it is up to him to chart his own course to the field. He must talk to agencies, go to candidate school, and start raising his support… all on his own. And that assumes he has some idea about what kind of missionary he wants to be and in what part of the world.
It is very common for the missions major to graduate from Bible college and be no closer to going to the field than he was when he began there. Most students pursuing missions have no idea where or how they want to serve. They just want to be a missionary. Because of that lack of a “clear calling”, they often never get around to talking to mission agencies because they don’t know what they want to do.
If we looked at how many missions majors from Bible college actually made it to a mission field of any kind for any length of time, I’m afraid most of us would be shocked. The schools have all sorts of excuses. The favorite one is, “Not all were truly called to the mission field.” A portion of the potential future missionaries are culled when the young ladies end up marrying students not headed to the mission field. A more recent justification has been, “The whole world is really a mission field. Just because they didn’t go to a foreign country doesn’t mean they are not being missionaries.”
Even though there is some legitimacy to these excuses, it doesn’t look good for the school. If a church has sent several to a school and none ever made it to the mission field, then the church becomes critical of the school. What good is it for students to go there if they don’t head for missions upon graduation? Ah, but the church has forgotten, schools don’t send out missionaries, churches do. The school only educates them. It’s up to the student and his sending church to get him to the field.
There are many pitfalls on the road to the mission field. Many books and articles have discussed the problems related to raising up the next generation of missionaries. There are far more problems than have been mentioned thus far. They can’t all be addressed now. It all winds down to developing an Acts 1:8 disciple. This whole book is one proposed solution to the problem. So let’s move on to solutions.
Going Beyond with Extended Trips for Those Eighteen and Over
It is true that not everyone who wants to go into missions belongs on the foreign mission field as a vocational missionary. Mission agencies are plagued with a revolving door of missionary personnel that only make it through one term on the field. The reasons for leaving the field vary. But aside from health issues and lack of financial support, most of the reasons can be lumped under, “It wasn’t like what I thought it would be.” For some reason, the reality of life on the mission field was not what they expected.
The only way to better equip the future missionary for that reality on the field is to give him more time on the field. If your disciple is still interested in serving on the mission field after high school graduation, it is time to introduce him to the longer trip opportunities. It is much better for the disciple to get these doses of reality on the longer summer trip than to experience it first time on his first term on the field.
There are two kinds of these “older” disciples that still want to do summer mission trips. One is seriously considering full-time missionary service and the other is not.* Since either or both could flip-flop to the other’s position over the next few years, the approach is the same with both. These disciples need to be shown the variety of extended trips are out there and challenged to consider going on one in the next couple of years.
______
*Please note: I also consider those pursuing pastoral ministry as those not pursuing missions. However, I totally expect pastoral ministry students to continue doing mission trips. If they do a pastoral internship with me, they will be leading a mission team somewhere.
Realize, however, most will have only experienced the multi-level trips and have loved them. Most will want to continue serving on those types of trips. Always leave those open to them. It is always valuable to have such an experienced summer missionary on a team. Begin giving them more responsibility as a peer leader. If they are able to do so, make them a leader-trainee or fellow leader on the team.
Sometimes it is hard to decide what role to assign this older youth. Along with his own spiritual maturity, much will also depend on his age and what level of trip he is on. Not all are ready for a leadership role. So, they may just go as a fellow team member on a Level 3 trip, or just have a little more responsibility given to them as a peer leader on a lower trip. If he’s only eighteen, then he can’t be leading a Level 3 full of others his age or a year younger. However, he could be a leader-trainee or leader on a Level 1 trip full of fourteen and fifteen-year-olds.
If you are going to give an older youth more responsibility as a peer leader and have higher expectations of him, you need to talk to him about it. He will have no titled position on the team. Being a “peer leader” is his role as a servant. It is not a title to rank him above other team members. But you want him to know that you will be looking to him to set the pace and be ready to be called upon for assigned tasks that are beyond the norm.
If you are going to make an older youth a leader-trainee, you must meet with him and explain what that means. Usually I do not announce to the team who my leader-trainee is. He is not to announce it either. He is to lead by example. What separates him from the peer leader is that I will begin teaching him the philosophy and training structure of the program. I will also include him in some of the team leader discussions.
For the disciple considering full-time missionary service, I will let him know that he must also plan on some longer terms of missionary service during his college and/or seminary years. If the disciple has a heart for the mission field, convincing them of the need for such trips is hardly necessary. My role is to point them to the agencies that offer the various kinds of trips. In order for me to confidently recommend an agency’s summer program, I must call them and question them about the program. So, I must do my homework seeking out good programs to send my disciples to.
Let me make a distinction between the extended summer trips and the short-term support-role trips. Almost all mission agencies have needs for short-term support workers. These can be for a few weeks up to two years in length. Most of the positions require some kind of particular skill: computer engineering, nursing, teaching, accounting, bookkeeping, etc. These are not the type of trips I am referring to as extended summer mission trips.
The extended summer mission trip is one that immerses the summer missionary in a culture and/or outreach ministries in order to give him a taste of the reality of that type of ministry on that particular field. Most of the participants of these programs are in the 18 to 25 year-old range and are evaluating if missions is something they should pursue as a career. Some are just toying with the idea and others are already convinced God is calling them into missions. Not all mission agencies have these extended trips. It takes a little bit of research to find one that is right for your disciple.
Doing research on the internet can be done fairly easy. A very helpful mission data base is missionfinder.org. Which agency has extended summer programs and which does not, can be found out very quickly. The websites alone are not enough to make a decision. I call the agencies that interest me and let them know I am a pastor checking out their summer program for my missions-minded disciples. I have found agencies to be very helpful in explaining the details of their programs. I then get their literature about the summer programs, or print information off websites, and show the disciple what’s out there. The disciple must then make his own phone calls to the agencies to narrow down his options and make a choice.
When contacting agencies about their extended summer trips, you will find almost every kind of trip that is on the Summer Missions Smorgasbord except the Youth Trip and Encouragement Trip. A bit of the Agency Promotion Trip may be combined into any of the other types of trips, particularly if it is the Missions Observation Trip. The disciple, at this stage, should not be going just to observe. A Missions Observation Trip should not be under consideration. While a couple of months on the field on any kind of trip will stretch the disciple in new ways, you want the trip to work toward helping the disciple experience the reality of the missionary life he is considering as a career. Part of that experience must include involvement in ministry, not just observation.
Both the disciple and his sending church need to find out if the realities of missionary life discovered on a short-term trip further motivate or discourage him toward pursuing full-time missionary service. Therefore, some types of extended summer trips need to be avoided for this missions-minded disciple. The Service Project Trip, Service/Site-Seeing Trip, and Ministry/Site-Seeing Tour should be avoided. Those types of trips are not reflective of the typical missionary’s day-to-day life.
Most Bible colleges offer choir or orchestra summer mission trips, which combine the Ministry/Site-Seeing Tour and Special Skills Trip on the smorgasbord. These types of trips have their place. Yet, they are not satisfactory for discovering the realities of missionary life.
The problem with picking some off the smorgasbord as unsuitable for “Going Beyond Beyond Level 3” is that there may be an exception that will fit the discipleship goal of experiencing the realities of the mission field. I know of an agency that offers a two-month long trip that takes the summer missionary on a tour of locations where their missionaries serve in order to demonstrate the variety of ministries that are being done and are available for prospective missionaries to consider. A few days are spent with a missionary seeing what his ministry is, then move on to the next town or village and see what the next missionary is doing. It is predominately an Observation Trip with a little bit of Walk In The Missionary’s Shoes Trip thrown in. This kind of Observation Trip is one example of a very good exception to my own guidelines.
There are three main types of trips, or combination thereof, from the smorgasbord that I steer my missions-minded “eighteen and over” disciple toward: the Ministry Trip, Training Trip, and Walk In The Missionary’s Shoes Trip. Oftentimes, a two-month long trip of any one of these three will end up having components of the other two. If the discipleship goal is to give the missions minded disciple a taste of a missionary’s life on the field, these types of extended trips will certainly do that.
Whatever type of trip the disciple goes on, it is very important to have a meeting with the disciple shortly after his return to hear about the trip and how it has impacted his pursuit of full-time missionary service. When the disciple comes back with nothing but glowing reports and a stronger commitment to pursuing missions, it is an easy interview and a time of praising God together. Always include in the discussion what the disciple’s plan is to continue on the path.
Usually the disciple is going to a college of some sort. So what will the disciple be doing as a ministry during the school year? Being a witness for Christ is a year-round lifestyle. The disciple must continue to grow and serve during the school year. Then he must start thinking about what kind of trip he will take next.
Next trip?
That’s right. A disciple looking to be a career missionary needs to keep returning to mission field and gaining more missions experience. It’s not uncommon for some of my disciples to be doing two or three mission trips a year: one at spring break and two in the summer. In the summer, he may take an extended summer trip with an agency as well as go as a leader on one of the church team trips. Or, one summer, he may be a leader on two team trips. We must keep calling the disciple to higher commitment and to greater variety of ministry experiences and challenges.
On the other hand…not all trips go as expected. Not all trips conclude with a disciple chomping at the bit to charge up the next hill. Sometimes gross misconceptions about life on the mission field are uncovered. Sometimes over-confidence to the point of sinful pride was uncovered on the trip to reveal an unteachable spirit has the disciple mired in spiritual immaturity. Sometimes the disciples discover full-time missionary service isn’t their calling after all.
There are many reasons for a disciple coming home with his tail between his legs, feeling like a failure, or even feeling like the trip was a waste of his time. He knows everyone back home is waiting to hear how great the trip was, but he doesn’t have many positive things to say about his time away. All he can think of is, “I should have never gone on the trip.”
Reader! Whether you are a pastor, youth leader, a discipleship leader, or just a good friend, when this happens, you have a teachable moment with this disciple that you may never have again. Your disciple may well be at a crossroads in his spiritual life. Your response can help derail his spiritual development or keep it on the track.
You can sympathize with trite Christianese: “Well, you know, God works all things for good…” You can feed his foul attitude by agreeing how he was wronged, let down, or misled by the agency and others. Or, worse yet, agree with him he should have never gone. Or…
You can walk him out of his den of despondency back to the feet of Christ, the One who walked the road with him.
Ask your defeated disciple, “Since God knew this trip was going to go so poorly for you, why do you think He let you go on it?” The disciple may not have an answer. Continue with, “Why does God send anyone on mission trips?” If he still draws a blank, have him reflect on past trips. Did God teach him anything on those trips? Did he learn anything on those trips?
Give the disciple an assignment. Tell him to get alone somewhere for thirty minutes. As quickly as God brings things to mind, write down all the things that went right on the trip, all the things that went wrong, and what he learned on this trip, both the good and the bad. Have him bring that list to you. Then go over all the things he has learned. Most likely you will be able to derive from his answers additional things he has learned or should have learned. You may need to walk through some of his issues to see if there needs to be some adjustments made in how he interprets them. He needs to see the sovereign hand of God at work even in his disappointing trip.
However the talk ends, ask what his plan is to continue serving and growing in Christ. The discipleship continues and he is to do the same as the one who had a good trip. A bad trip doesn’t let him off the hook. His hand is still to the plow. Perhaps he doesn’t want to be a missionary any more. That’s okay. There’s no shame in that. Does that mean he never wants to do any kind of mission trip again? Time will tell. Invite him to consider coming on a team trip the next year. You can always use someone with his experience to build into youth on the summer teams.
In the meantime, he needs to have an answer, for those that ask, that is truthful but not a negative, highly critical response. There is nothing wrong in admitting God opened his eyes to many things he never realized about life on the mission field. It was not a waste of time. Tough lessons are never a waste of time.
If, in the final analysis, your disciple later determines a career in missions is just not for him, then praise the Lord. It was better for him to discover this on a summer trip than in the first year of his first term on the field. The disciple will probably feel a little embarrassed or ashamed to admit his change of heart toward missions. Don’t let him wallow in self-imposed guilt. Immediately start planning with him how he can still serve the Lord.
So you’re not going to be a full-time missionary! With all the ministry experience you have, where would you like to be serving?
Most likely the disciple hasn’t got a clear idea yet where to devote his energies. More times than not, he’ll fumble around with no answer, then, sheepishly ask, “Do you need any help in the summer missions program?”
Spiritual derailment avoided.
No comments:
Post a Comment