Wrong Reasons to go into Missions

(Originally a conversation, Alyssa’s thoughts are in black and Jonna’s thoughts are in purple.)

We’ve been talking a lot lately in our private circles about wrong reasons to go into missions. The real back story to this is that Jonna took some art history classes and learned about the horrors of colonization and how missions literally stripped away massive amounts of indigenous people’s culture and left them off way worse.

On our most recent missions trip to Romania we met some Americans from a different missions team and the question was asked “why are you here?” The most common answer to this seemed to be something along the lines of “I felt called to come because I know God has something for me here.” Or “ I felt called to come so I could be closer to God.” Let’s take a second and unpack these phrases, “God has something for me” and “I want to be closer to God.” Both of these feelings of being called, revolve around a personal desire. It’s not, ‘I saw the plight of the people and wanted to help’. It’s ‘what’s in this for me?’ I don’t blame these people for thinking that either, because it’s not necessarily a personal issue so much as it is a cultural one. Ame

rica values the individual over the group, so it’s only natural that when you ask people why they do something they look for a personal reason.

I know when I started missioning in Romania I 100% said something along these same lines. It was 3/4years after th

at and this phrase started hitting me wrong. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t a part of this team, therefore I was in the audience, listening like the other Romanians around me. But hearing that there was no room in their statements for the Romanian next to me, sat wrong with me.

That said, I think this is a completely wrong attitude and our cultural outlook towards missions needs changing.

Some other reasons for going on missions’ trips that I’ve heard include:

Mission Trips Bring Youth Groups Together, Mission Trips Challenge Comfort Zones, and Mission Trips Empower Students.

These are all self-aggrandizing and ‘social club’ type reasons. You can feel empowered and bring youth groups together at home, you don’t need to spend a few thousand dollars to go on a vacation where you pretend to help people.

Honestly, half of the posts that we saw put into question peoples salvation over not wanting to go into missions.... We found this devastating. Under no circumstances should your salvation go into questio

n on whether or not you want to go overseas. I guess their point is wanting to evangelize? Surely it’s including ‘missioning in your backyard’??? But… that is exactly saying that if you’re not called to be a pastor you’re not a Christian. But God created us as a body, the hand can’t do the same thing as the foot. That really doesn’t make any sense. So please, don’t listen to these people that question your salvation over not wanting to mission overseas.

A lot of the reasonings for going on a missions trip that I see defined online are mostly getting the ideas of travel versus the idea of missions confused. When you travel it does change you into being a better person, it gives you a broader outlook of life when in various cultures, it has so many incredible benefits. And while I feel like missioning has this kind of effect as well, since you are traveling, it can’t be the reasoning. Traveling can be about self. That’s what it is. Missioning doesn’t have room for that--missioning is about the other--the one in front of you.

Short term mission trips can really do more harm than good when done incorrectly. In fact, about $2billion per year is spent on missions.

“The number of United States Christians taking part in trips lasting a year or less has grown from 540 in 1965 to an estimated more than 1.5 million annually, with an estimated $2 billion per year spent on the effort, according to Missiology journal.”

For more research check here.

A plane ticket from Springfield airport to the Dominican Republic cost me $2,000 in 2017. I follow some of the people I met on that trip on Facebook, but I have no meaningful relationships with any of the locals. I did meet Jonna and we formed a lasting friendship over our experiences together. That’s just it though, ‘our experiences together’ the reason Jonna and I stayed friends after the mission trip was proximity. It’s really hard to love from afar. Was that trip worth it though? In

the sense that I actually made anyone’s lives better than my own? I honestly don’t know.

I couldn’t say for sure if we did. I know that in the moment there were so many signs, wonders, miracles, prophetic words that were evidently true as the person confirmed it. There was so much happening there. I always referred to them to go to the church because I knew it was short-lived for us. I hope they did. I pray they did. But I don’t know. We were invited to stay in peoples homes and if God led me that way I’d love to, instead of staying at a hotel separated from cultures, but I don’t even have a way to contact them to make sure they were ok, let alone ask to stay with them.

One of the biggest pro’s to going on a mission trip is being able to put a face to the need. I’m way more likely to donate to people in the Dominican Republic because I’ve been there, and I saw the hurt. It’s on my mind and when I pray for the people who live there, I remember the wheelchair bound boy and his over worked mother, or the elderly lady with one eye who offered me snacks when we visited, or the man whose daughter was fighting Zika virus far away and couldn’t visit. I think of the gorgeous woman with scars that I prophesied over, my tra

nslator was so scared to tell her that “God loves her more than her father ever could” but when she cried, it was all the confirmation I needed to know that her dad wasn’t around.

Some questions to ask yourself:

“What are the first 5 words when you think of ‘poverty?”

“Describe this up coming trip in one sentence?”

“What are your personal goals for this trip?’

Closing thoughts:

If you want to go on a short term missions trip, consider a few things:

• Am I in good health? A lot of places people mission to commonly have harsh weather and lots of hiking, if you are physically incapable of walking AT LEAST a mile in 100-degree heat than maybe you should reconsider. At least look into buying a water-cooling towel. Be well prepared for the area you’re going. Pack conservative. Assume you have to wear a dress to church. There’s definitely a specific person I met on the missions field that I don’t know what she packed but it wasn’t what I know was on the packing list sent to

her from the missioning organization she went with.

• Am I willing to conform to the culture so I can be respectful? In Romania there are times when it’s necessary to wear skirts and even headscarves. If you are offended by that then you should probably check your motives. Can you put your pride aside and listen to someone else? While I think we should be led at all times, I know our culture puts tinted lenses on what we think we’re hearing sometimes. If a leader tells you not to call someone a fox when ministering to them, it’s a good idea not to do that. There was another guy who prophesied over a Dominican Republican lady by calling her fox, he forgot that it was a word often used to call someone a prostitute. It ended up being ok, but some people aren’t as always understanding.

• Do I want to go because it will be a good experience for me? It’s about what you want, stay home until your priorities can be straightened.

This isn’t meant to discourage anyone from missions. We love missions. Why else are we doing it? We love being there for the broken. Serving where we can and being a blessing for others. Being selfless is the goal here. And if this discourages you for a time, maybe it’s time to dig deeper into the word.

Ask God to open your eyes and see what He sees, to experience empathy for those around you. Ask Him to show you where He can use you. And if you’re still interested in missions and don’t know where to start, write us! We’d love to assist you in either finding the perfect trip or joining us when we have teams up again.

If you would like to study more into this, we highly recommend reading the book: Helping without Hurting in Short-Term Missions. This book has put into texts things that we have been thinking and struggling with lately. We're not done talking about it but incase you wanted to get a head start on it!

Also, the authors assume that you have read Helping Without Hurting first. Which is also beyond helpful.

There's another super helpful Helping Without Hurting in Church Benevolence, which is also great for those involved in church and church leadership.

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Here's the Podcast version. It's the same theme but it's not transcribed so there are various conversations we have on the blog vs on the podcast.