How Important is a Short-term Mission Team? Part 4

In an effort to continue this discussion of short-term mission teams here is discussion number four!  I have seen over the past several years such a decline in focus on short-term mission experiences, that the topic seems to come up everywhere I go.  I guess the key word there is "I" as I bring it up.  My desire in writing these posts is to stir the thoughts and ideas about why we need short-term mission experiences to help fuel passion to go and experience  cross-cultural short-term missional experiences.

For a number of years now, we have been leading short-term mission trips with a passion for Gospel focused and Gospel driven ministry alongside local church partners who are actively involved in reaching their communities.  These years of walking with the churches and with individuals through this process of missional experience has taught us some valuable lessons.  My desire is to pass on some of what we have learned in these years of ministry and mission in order to motivate the body to get involved.

The primary place we find our motivation is the Gospel itself!  One of the major issues we face in the "church world" we all live in today is the concept of false conversion.  The simplicity of a sinner's prayer in the past has led to many false converts because the response to God's offer of grace has been the primary issue discussed.  The issue really is, no understanding of the Gospel is complete without a clear picture of our sin and separation from God due to our sinful state.  No understanding of this can come to the mind and heart of anyone without a clear understanding of the Law of God given to expose our sin.

Again today, reading one of my favorite authors, Ray Comfort, I was reminded that the reason we discuss the law in our homes is to help our children gain a clear understanding of the need we all have for a savior!  Without first understanding my own need, I can never really understand how desperate I am for a Savior to redeem me from this fallen world I am doomed to follow!  I am under the wrath of Almighty God and have no hope until my heart is convicted of my sin debt that only a perfect Savior can redeem!  This reality in my own life must become the motivation to GO!

Short-term mission teams are critical to the spread of the Gospel because it is through these teams that Gospel focused and Gospel driven work is accomplished within the local communities where the church has been planted.  The drive of the short-term team is to help the local church carry the Gospel into its community with boldness and passion.  We often need the local church to stir our hearts with compassion for the lost around them in order to see the lost around us!  You see it is through the willingness I experience on the field to assist in the sharing and showing of the Gospel message that I gain an understanding of the need in my own community to share and show the Gospel.  It is often times on the field in the midst of a cross-cultural experience where the Gospel is being shared that the Lord speaks to you and to me about our willingness to speak the Gospel in our own community without any language or cultural barriers.  It is in walking alongside the local church in another context that I gain insight into the working of the Holy Spirit in this great transformational work of conviction and conversion.

The short-term mission team offers the local church an opportunity to spread more seed into more places as we walk into the fields that are white unto harvest with them.  At the same time the short-term missional experience stirs within the heart of the team a passion and desire to reach their own community back home, where they have been planted and need to grow.  See...this whole thing is designed to work together in unison as the Spirit moves in our lives as the body and knits us together as one Bride fit for her groom!

So, the bottom line here is the time we spend preparing our hearts and minds with the understanding of the whole truth of God's Word (Law and Grace), is time invested in Kingdom work that develops within us a compassionate heart for the lost and a passionate drive to see redemption come to those who are without a Savior!  This two-fold purpose of short-term teams will strengthen the body in both the cross-cultural context we serve short-term and the local home community in which we live.  Our goals must be to BE the church not to simply talk about it or even act like it...BE the church and reflect His glory to everyone we cross paths with along this journey of faith.

In His Grip,
JT