Long-Term Impact of Short-Term Missions

Short-term mission trips have captured the hearts of millions of Americans who want a taste of missions. But researchers admit they know little about the impact they have.

So CBN decided to take a look at the latest findings, focusing on the experience of one group in Honduras.

It's a long trip from Pennsylvania to Honduras, but Dr. Brad Moyer and his wife Sherri know it well. They've been doing it for years.

"This is where we feel God has definitely called us," Sherri said.

They work with "The Mama Project," a Christian non-profit organization that focuses on healthcare. The Moyers like the group because it employs Hondurans. The local staff monitors health needs in remote villages and direct short-term teams to them.

"We come for a week or two weeks, but our goal really is to support the on-going project," Brad explained.

On a typical day, the Moyers create a makeshift clinic in one of the villages. The teens on the trip are busy sorting pills.

Outside, other kids on the trip play soccer with the local kids. Some pour cement for nearby homes.

In between jobs, the team members try to connect with the Hondurans, despite their limited Spanish.

In one village, a long line has formed. People are seeking medical help from the team that only comes a few times a year.

But many would argue that the real value of these trips lies in the long-term relationships that can be built and the personal growth that can take place.

"Although they have very little compared to what we have, they're the same," mission team member Ron Musselman said. "A smile's a smile. You smile at someone and maybe you can't speak the language, but you can connect with them."

But those who study missions question what kind of connection occurs on many short-term trips.

"Kids can act like normal and be completely offensive to the locals," Dr. Steven Ybarrola of Asbury Seminary said. "So you think you're communicating some message, but what they're hearing is something completely different."

Those who study missions are just waking up to the phenomenon of short-term missions. At a Chicago conference this spring, the lack of cross-cultural training was a hot topic.

"It's hurting ministry in effectiveness, and just in practical ways," Dr. Brian Howell of Wheaton College said. "You can't communicate well with people that you don't understand."

Researchers admit they know little about the impact of short-term missions on the people that the foreign groups go to help.

And there are conflicting studies on just how these trips affect those who go. Researchers want to know whether short-termers tend to give more to missions -- and whether they tend to become long-term missionaries.

With Americans spending billions each year on these trips, more are questioning their value.

"What I'd like to see," Westmont College's Dr. Laura Montgomery said, "is more coordinated efforts and perhaps fewer trips."

Montgomery said that teams should consider cost-benefit and eliminate waste, like one of her colleagues recently did.

"He discovered that the amount of money that was being spent just to have t-shirts printed with their group's name on them actually could have funded a least one community first aid station for a year," Montgomery explained.

At their best, well-planned trips can build long-term relationships and grow the global church in powerful ways. To that end, experts say that groups should submit to local believers, and set their agenda accordingly.

"You are told by them, 'Here's how you can be of help' and you do whatever it is that they want you to do," Noel Bechetti from the Center for Student Missions said. "It doesn't matter if it's what you thought you ought to do. And if you do it as best you can with a really good attitude -- you can have a ministry."

In the process, lives can be transformed, just like Brad Moyer when he first went to Honduras.

"As a 17-year-old, that was the first time I was ever involved," he said. "And that was just a 10-day trip. To this day I look back to 1987 and say, 'That was a defining moment in my life.'"

It was a time when Moyer's focus shifted from his small Pennsylvania town, to the world. He caught a vision for a country -- how God was working and the way in which he could help.

It's a vision he hopes that the next generation will catch as well.