Mission to Nowhere: Putting Short-Term Missions into Context

Abstract

International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 33, No. 4 S missions have experienced explosive growth in the past two decades.1 In addition to the many parachurch organizations promoting such trips, for many congregations this sort of “mission” has become a key component of youth group activities. In the United States short-term mission trips are widely promoted as a key means through which average church members can become involved in mission outreach and by which they can make a direct, even sacrificial contribution in the foreign missions work of the church. Today more than 1,600,000 adults and young people from the United States travel abroad yearly on short-term mission trips, most for two weeks or less duration.2 A phenomenon of this scope certainly merits social-scientific observation, as well as missiological reflection. My expertise is as an anthropologist. Over a two-year period I observed a high school mission team in their preparation and visit to the Dominican Republic. My research uncovered multiple ways in which the group’s preparation, travel, and return narrative served to minimize the contextual specificity of the trip’s destination in favor of a more generic “short-term mission” Mission to Nowhere: Putting Short-Term Missions into Context