Where Short-Term Mission Trips Go Wrong

Reported By: Benny Schorie

Illustrated By: Addie Patterson

For millennia, Christianity has led thousands to leave their homes for remote places to minister to the community through evangelism, scripture translation, and church planting. In recent decades, however, the face of mission work has changed to American young people with a savior complex going to economically underdeveloped countries to build schools, hospitals, and homes with a determination to display their hearts for Jesus. This work often does more harm than good to those communities and undermines the purpose of mission work.

From the first century until the 19th century, missionaries expanded Christianity’s reach  from regional to global. To be a missionary was considered a lifelong calling and most assumed they would die in the country where they ministered. Alongside their ministry, most were also cross-cultural experts, educators, philosophers, and laborers.

Mission work changed in the mid 20th century with the dawn of commercialized airplanes and other modern forms of travel. Organizations like Youth With A Mission (YWAM) and Operation Mobilization (OM) emerged in the 1960s to send American young people to  different countries for spiritual enlightenment and to help the less fortunate. In the 1970s and 80s, these trips became accessible to high school students for their summer vacations. 

Short-term missions have been a source of tension for long-term missionaries and the organizations they belong to. Missionaries hoped that these short-term mission trips would help  recruit people to their work, but local churches and organizations prioritized the spiritual growth of the short-term volunteers in their service to the poor; the latter narrative has been enjoyed and propagated by the broader American evangelical community.

In reality, short-term mission trips tend to create a negative economic impact on the community being served. Most trips have been boiled down to groups of teenagers and young adults traveling across the globe and providing construction labor. 

According to an article by Evan Sparks for the Wall Street Journal, churches and organizations spend thousands to provide labor that could be provided by the existing community within those countries for a fraction of the cost. Instead, locals are deprived of an opportunity for wages that could allow them to send their children to those schools built for them by these short-term missionaries. 

In a “George Fox Talks” video about short-term missions, Dr. David Martínez and Pastor Nick Forrest discuss the real focus of many short-term missionaries: the desire to experience personal spiritual change. These volunteers end up being served by long-term missionaries and community members who cook for, clean up after, and shuttle them around. 

Short-term mission trips seem to be an American evangelical obsession. Instead of fulfilling their purpose of uplifting impoverished communities and sharing the light of God, they encourage unabashed white saviorism with their Instagramable moments of playing with orphaned children and interactions with the poor. As Martinez puts it, “Are you coming to share the gospel and the love of Jesus, or are you coming to export American middle class-ness?” 

These trips don’t even deserve the title “missions” because they don’t live up to the selfless, dedicated work of long-term missionaries. Short-term missions are devoid of authentic, charitable, and loving attitudes; they have been reduced to self-serving, faith-driven vacations.