Lausanne World Pulse – Urban Articles – Ten Suggestions for Short-term Mission Workers
By Justin Long
March 2006
The 2001 edition of Operation World noted 200,000 long-term missionaries in 2,900 agencies (among Protestants, Anglicans and Independents; Operation World doesn’t survey Catholic or Orthodox missionaries). About 97,000 were deployed as foreign missionaries, and 104,000 were deployed within their country in cross-cultural situations.
This labor force has been globalized: the top missionary-sending nation is still the United States, but South Korea is now second. The sending forces by region are:
– Africa, 12,400 home and 3,100 abroad;
– Asia, 69,000 home and 13,600 abroad;
– Europe, 22,800 home and 16,000 abroad;
– Latin America, 10,100 home and 3,800 abroad;
– North America, 71,000 home and 50,000 abroad;
– Pacific, 9,400 home and 3,500 abroad.
(There are also additional workers in sensitive areas that are not categorized into the numbers above.)
There are numerous partnerships around the world dedicated to recruiting and deploying workers: COMIBAM , MANI, CAPRO, IMA, PMA, STAMP and PJRN, among others. When we talk about “long-term, cross-cultural workers” we might mean Korean, Chinese, Indian, Nigerian or Brazilian workers. Indeed, if we were to look at workers in cross-cultural settings within their own country (not just those sent to other countries), India might very well be the top mission-sending country even though most of its workers remain within its borders.
The reality, however, is that although 200,000 missionaries sounds like a lot, this number is really not that large. With 3.6 million Protestant/Independent churches worldwide, the ratio is about one missionary per eighteen churches worldwide. (There are of course regional differences: Africa sends one missionary per forty-eight churches; North America sends one missionary per seven churches). Moreover, about ninety percent of these 200,000 workers are deployed in open, unrestricted areas. This means that less than ten percent work in the closed areas of the world.
There are more short-term workers being sent out each year—even to the unreached world. (Read an article exploring short-term missions and unreached people groups.) Although short-term work can be very helpful, there are also many pitfalls. Short-term workers often cannot function effectively without the support of long-term workers. They may take a long time to both recover from culture shock and be able to contribute effectively while they are on the field. They often do not know the language and cannot relate deeply to most locals. Because short-term workers often do not understand the relationships between the locals and the long-term workers, there is the risk of damaging those hard-fought, well-earned relationships. It may also take longer for short-term workers to appreciate a culture’s strengths, which from their view may be perceived as weaknesses. They can often fail to understand that ministry in Islamic, Hindu or Buddhist areas is very different from ministry among the nonreligious, atheists or Christians of a different tradition.
Ten Commandments for Short-term Workers
Because there are so many short-term mission teams going into places with great cultural diversity, it is important to equip these teams for their travels and ministry. Here are my “Ten Commandments” for short-term workers.1
1. Do not put anything before God. Do not push your organization, denomination or church as the greatest in the world. Do not make comparisons. In restricted-access nations, the scarcity of workers often leads to partnerships you would not often think possible. Do not automatically assume these partnerships are bad. Go as a servant to the local workers.
2. Do not introduce new concepts, ideas or doctrines that take away from the work of locals. You are only going to be there for a short time. Lift up the local work wherever possible. Realize you are not likely to achieve in a few days what locals have not achieved in years. You are part of a process; you are sowing seed. Ask how you can best serve those who are coming after you.