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he phenomenon of short-term mission trips in America is nothing
less than seismic in its scope and impact. Consider the following…
• Christianity Today reports that upwards of 4 million Americans will take a short- term missions trip this year.
• 29 percent of all 13 to 17 year-olds in the United States have “gone on a religious missions team or religious service project,” with 10 percent having gone on such trips three or more times.
• Billions of dollars are spent supporting short-term mission trips each year.
• Last year, churches in America spent more money supporting short-term missions trips than supporting long-term missionaries.
To say that short-term missions are
changing the perspective of Christians in the United States about missionary work would be an understatement. Honestly, not all the results of short-term missions are having their intended consequences. If short-term missions giving becomes a sub- stitute for the sup- port of lifetime committed
missionaries, we are in danger of hurting our ef- forts to make disciples. At the same time, for BMA Missions to ignore the potential and good that can come from short-term missions would be a huge mistake. Instead, our challenge must be to harness this change of thinking in a way that will bring about the most good for the Kingdom. How is your BMA Department of Missions responding to this explosion in missionary activity? First of all, we’re asking each BMA
church to examine their percentage of sup- port for short-term versus long-term mis- sions. Executive Director, Dr. John David Smith offers this suggestion, “I would urge each church to set as a goal to support long- term missions with at least 70 percent of your missions giving. Anything above 30 percent given to short-term projects could be consid- ered out of balance in your strategic support of missions. We have to keep in mind that while short-term missionaries are important, the missionary on the field is the person who must have priority in our support. ” Second, we would ask each church send-
ing a short-term missions team to begin to develop a short-term, long-term strategy. That simply means that your church contin- ues to go, give, and pray for the mission field you visit for a period of time beyond your actual visit. In other words, invest in
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