Short-Term Missions: Blessing or Burden?

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Welcome to Basecamp, where we equip Christians to go to the

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darkest places and least reached people groups with the gospel.

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My name is Mikel Collins and in this episode I sit down with

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Jeremy Jenkins to discuss the value of short term mission trips.

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There is a lot of critisism for short term mission trips nowadays.

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And part of the reason for that is becuase there are a lot of bad

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missions trips that don't actually help anyone other than the people who are

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looking for their next instagram post.

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But that doesn't mean we need to do away with short term missions entirely, and

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Jeremy has outlined a handfull of things we can do to ensure that our short term

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trips are a blessing and not a burden.

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Welcome to Base Camp, where we equip Christians to go to the darkest places and

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least reach people groups with the gospel.

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My name is Michael Collins, and in this episode, I sit down with

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Jeremy Jenkins to discuss the value of short term missions trips.

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There's a lot of criticism for short term trips nowadays, and The reason for

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that is because there are a lot of bad missions trips that don't actually help

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anyone other than the people who are looking for their next Instagram post.

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But that doesn't mean that we need to do away with short term trips entirely.

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And Jeremy has outlined a handful of things we can do to ensure

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that our short term trips are a blessing and not a burden.

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Welcome to base camp.

Jeremy: 00:01:37

So, Mike, the question of the day is, are short term missions good?

Jeremy: 00:01:43

Short term missions trips.

Jeremy: 00:01:45

So, I think the first thing would be, have you ever been

Jeremy: 00:01:47

on a short term missions trip?

Mike: 00:01:49

Yeah, I have, I've been on at least two.

Mike: 00:01:53

Coming to mind, one was just pretty much a day that we had planned with this missions

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organization in Shelby, North Carolina.

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we put on this little event and then went door to door.

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knocking on doors in this neighborhood near the event to just invite people

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and talk to them about Christ and tell them we had some games for their kids

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if they wanted to come down and we did gospel presentation and things like that.

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and then when I was younger, I drove down to Louisiana after some

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flooding down there maybe 2018.

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I don't remember exactly when it was, but I was with Samaritan's Purse.

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There'd been some flooding in this neighborhood.

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and we were going to the houses during the day and cutting out drywall.

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and I went underneath a single wide trailer and was cutting insulation

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out that had just been ruined by this flood with a team of people.

Mike: 00:02:46

And then whenever we finished on a house, we would present them with a Bible

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And talk to them and pray with them.

Mike: 00:02:52

And that was really cool.

Mike: 00:02:54

Cause I went down by myself and I was one of the only.

Mike: 00:02:58

Younger people there.

Mike: 00:02:59

I was probably 19 at the time and, it was mostly retired couples and their RVs.

Mike: 00:03:05

So this one lone 19 year old kid showing up, everybody wanted

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to talk to me, which was cool.

Mike: 00:03:11

Figure out why I was there.

Jeremy: 00:03:12

Yeah, I think my first short term trip was actually in New Orleans as well.

Jeremy: 00:03:16

it was after, Hurricane Katrina.

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about 10 years before you were down there.

Jeremy: 00:03:20

That was my first short term trip of any kind and then, years later, I would

Jeremy: 00:03:27

begin, going on what seems to be a ton of different, international trips.

Jeremy: 00:03:33

Now this summer, I believe is your first international trip of any kind.

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Planning to go down to Guatemala for a week.

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Never been out of the country before.

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So I'm in the process of getting the passport.

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I'm excited, but I really don't know what to expect.

Jeremy: 00:03:48

and I'm excited, but I really don't know what to expect.

Jeremy: 00:04:06

Are you familiar at all with any reasons why somebody would

Jeremy: 00:04:11

be against short-term missions?

Mike: 00:04:14

A question that I honestly have trouble answering myself,

Mike: 00:04:17

which I'm curious to know how you respond to this, which is, you know,

Mike: 00:04:21

it costs a chunk of money to send American teenagers or young adults

Jeremy: 00:04:27

down.

Mike: 00:04:27

to Guatemala or, yeah, anybody to another country for a week to do missions.

Mike: 00:04:33

Would it not be More efficient and more impactful just to send the

Mike: 00:04:37

money and hire somebody down there to do the work that needs to be done

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or, or just to support the career missionaries that are down there.

Jeremy: 00:04:45

I get that question all the time, especially from people online.

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You know, they see your pictures on Instagram.

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And, you know, inevitably there's always one person.

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So it's like, wouldn't it have been better to just take all this money

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and send it to the nationals there?

Jeremy: 00:04:59

Or, you know, even for the hurricane relief trips, like, you know, they

Jeremy: 00:05:03

have tradesmen in New York or Louisiana that could have done all that work, you

Jeremy: 00:05:07

know, why not just send them that money?

Jeremy: 00:05:09

And I think it sort of leads us to Really the need to even ask this question of

Jeremy: 00:05:15

like, okay, I want to respond to those questions, with as much negativity and

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antagonism as maybe sometimes those questions are asked in a lot of ways.

Jeremy: 00:05:26

I, I'm, I'm willing to venture to guess that a lot of times the people

Jeremy: 00:05:28

who ask those questions are not sending that much money themselves.

Jeremy: 00:05:32

it kinda goes back to the old, I think it's Spurgeon of like my way of doing it

Jeremy: 00:05:35

is better than your way of not doing it.

Jeremy: 00:05:38

But beyond that, It is an important question to ask, like,

Jeremy: 00:05:41

are short term missions good?

Jeremy: 00:05:43

And, the American church has spent probably billions, if not, billions

Jeremy: 00:05:48

and billions of dollars over the last 50 years, sending teams of American

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Christians all over the world for the sake of spreading the gospel.

Jeremy: 00:05:59

But we, I think we would be remiss to think that that's been as effective

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as sometimes we think it is.

Jeremy: 00:06:04

And so I wrote this brief little article on the website.

Jeremy: 00:06:10

That was just kind of, a thought in my mind of like our short term missions.

Jeremy: 00:06:14

Good.

Jeremy: 00:06:14

And basically in my experience, like I've been on a ton, you know, I've been

Jeremy: 00:06:19

to Asia quite a few times, the Middle East, Central America, and even here

Jeremy: 00:06:24

in the States, some here in the States.

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And basically the conclusion that I've come to is like, yeah,

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they are, but only the good ones.

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and there are good and bad missions trips.

Jeremy: 00:06:34

And actually I would say, for listeners, I think, and especially for, two

Jeremy: 00:06:37

pastors, I think this should be really convicting is that there probably are

Jeremy: 00:06:42

trips that I've gone on that it would have been better to just take that money.

Jeremy: 00:06:47

And send it to somebody in a different country.

Jeremy: 00:06:50

that what we were doing was not worth the time and the effort.

Jeremy: 00:06:54

And that's why I think that like this conversation and that article

Jeremy: 00:06:57

is worth writing and reading and talking about, because I do think

Jeremy: 00:07:01

there are really good trips.

Jeremy: 00:07:02

And I do think that there are actual ways to do short term

Jeremy: 00:07:05

missions where it is worth spending the money, and things like that.

Jeremy: 00:07:11

And so, yeah, so basically I just, I think it was like three, four of things

Jeremy: 00:07:15

that, like, you know, I just said, Hey, these are things that you should consider

Jeremy: 00:07:19

doing, with all that time and money.

Jeremy: 00:07:22

and I'm interested to hear your thoughts on these is the first one I said

Jeremy: 00:07:25

is avoid having the savior complex.

Jeremy: 00:07:28

you know, when you went down to Louisiana, I doubt that you probably felt this a ton,

Jeremy: 00:07:33

but was there any thought in your mind at all of like, is there too much, is there

Jeremy: 00:07:38

too much idea of like, Hey, we're really.

Jeremy: 00:07:41

We're really bringing something to these people that they don't already have.

Jeremy: 00:07:45

cause I know I've experienced that in some ways, especially on

Jeremy: 00:07:47

the international mission field.

Mike: 00:07:49

Yeah, not really.

Jeremy: 00:07:51

Stateside.

Mike: 00:07:52

When I went down to Louisiana, my mindset wasn't even on, I didn't

Mike: 00:07:56

view that even as a missions trip.

Jeremy: 00:07:58

A lot of times we don't, when we say missions trip, yeah.

Jeremy: 00:08:00

We're not talking about Louisiana or New York after hurricane or Appalachia.

Jeremy: 00:08:04

We're talking about getting on a plane and going over somewhere, somewhere

Jeremy: 00:08:07

foreign where we need a passport.

Mike: 00:08:08

Yeah.

Mike: 00:08:10

But I went, I never spoke this to anybody, but I knew why I was going to Louisiana.

Mike: 00:08:16

And It was mostly for me, honestly.

Mike: 00:08:18

Like, I was glad to be doing something meaningful and helping people

Mike: 00:08:24

every day with my time, but I went down there because I was looking

Mike: 00:08:27

for an adventure of some sort.

Mike: 00:08:29

I wanted to go and try doing something on my own.

Mike: 00:08:32

You know, I was 18, 19, just Ready to try and go out in the world and do something

Mike: 00:08:39

by myself away from my parents and in my hometown and So I was very much.

Mike: 00:08:45

I knew that I was going down there because I wanted to help People but I also wanted

Mike: 00:08:50

to do it Largely for myself to to get the experience and the adventure of

Mike: 00:08:55

traveling and and doing it all on my own.

Jeremy: 00:08:57

I think more people need to be honest that that

Jeremy: 00:09:00

is part of the motivation.

Jeremy: 00:09:01

Because when you bring that to the table and you say, Hey, I kind of recognize

Jeremy: 00:09:05

something, deficients probably not the right word, but like, I kind of recognize

Jeremy: 00:09:09

something in my life that is gonna be.

Jeremy: 00:09:12

Is gonna benefit I'm gonna benefit from this trip and it's

Jeremy: 00:09:15

gonna Progress my sanctification.

Jeremy: 00:09:18

I think right away that helps you understand Kind of something that I

Jeremy: 00:09:22

put in in this blog post, which is like hey, it's only a week Like you're not

Jeremy: 00:09:26

gonna be able to really do that much.

Jeremy: 00:09:27

Anyway, you know what I mean?

Jeremy: 00:09:29

like especially in the international trips when I got On the van to

Jeremy: 00:09:34

go down for this first trip.

Jeremy: 00:09:35

I was traveling with a college group.

Jeremy: 00:09:37

With a ministry that I was really close with and that I had worked

Jeremy: 00:09:40

a summer camp ministry actually.

Jeremy: 00:09:41

And our leader who was like a mentor in my life at the time Before we got

Jeremy: 00:09:46

in the van stopped us and he was like, I have to tell you something really

Jeremy: 00:09:48

important He was like jesus has has been in louisiana long before we're gonna get

Jeremy: 00:09:53

there He's going to preserve Louisiana in the whole midst of us being there.

Jeremy: 00:09:59

And he's going to be there long after we leave.

Jeremy: 00:10:03

We're not bringing Jesus to these people, I think because that was my first missions

Jeremy: 00:10:07

experience, it was really important for me to hear because I've kind of carried that

Jeremy: 00:10:09

into a lot of my other, trips, especially even to places where it isn't as

Jeremy: 00:10:14

evangelized is that, you know, ultimately if I'm going for a week, if I'm going

Jeremy: 00:10:19

for two weeks somewhere and I don't know the language, I don't know the culture.

Jeremy: 00:10:24

then I need to leave any sense of savior ism At home, because ultimately

Jeremy: 00:10:32

I can't have a humongous positive impact where I'm going, but I can

Jeremy: 00:10:37

have a humongous negative impact.

Jeremy: 00:10:39

And so I think especially in regards to international trips, like from a mindset

Jeremy: 00:10:44

heart issue of like, Understand your place in the world of the church, because most

Jeremy: 00:10:51

of these short term trips are not going to like unengaged, unreached people groups,

Jeremy: 00:10:56

and nor should they, because like those take a lot of strategy and, you need to

Jeremy: 00:11:00

be networked with nationals on the ground.

Jeremy: 00:11:03

And so ultimately, like for a missions pastor listening to this or a church

Jeremy: 00:11:06

leader, Prep your teams, prep your students, prep your adults to know

Jeremy: 00:11:11

their place in the global church and to understand that part of the

Jeremy: 00:11:15

reason we're going, and we'll get to some of these other reasons.

Jeremy: 00:11:18

But part of the reasons is like, Hey, it is for us.

Jeremy: 00:11:20

there is a benefit for us to go and do these things.

Jeremy: 00:11:24

and the role we're going to play is not going to be.

Jeremy: 00:11:30

Sort of like this frontier missionary figure that I think we all like to think

Jeremy: 00:11:34

of ourselves as it's actually going to be in a much more of a support based

Jeremy: 00:11:38

role to the people who are already

Mike: 00:11:41

there.

Mike: 00:11:46

Like a feeling that you have to present yourself that way or you have to think

Mike: 00:11:49

about it as that way especially if you're a youth member trying to raise support

Mike: 00:11:55

and Give people a reason to to give you their money so that you can travel to

Mike: 00:12:00

another country is like you feel like oh I have to emphasize all of the non

Mike: 00:12:06

selfish Savior complex kind of reasons to go down there and kind of diminish

Mike: 00:12:11

any reasons that I might personally have for wanting to go down there.

Jeremy: 00:12:15

Yeah, what's funny is like, At our church, like we don't do

Jeremy: 00:12:18

a ton of building buildings and, and, and doing some of the more

Jeremy: 00:12:21

typical Western mission strip things.

Jeremy: 00:12:24

and part of that is because, you know, ultimately Americans don't know how

Jeremy: 00:12:28

to build Guatemalan buildings and, American electricians don't know

Jeremy: 00:12:32

how to do electrical in Guatemala.

Jeremy: 00:12:33

And so actually historically, the church has learned some hard

Jeremy: 00:12:37

lessons about building buildings.

Jeremy: 00:12:38

Missions in general, because even full time missionaries for a long

Jeremy: 00:12:41

time, when the Western church really started sending modern missionaries,

Jeremy: 00:12:45

what they found was that like, we would go build American buildings.

Jeremy: 00:12:49

We would build American churches.

Jeremy: 00:12:51

We would play American Christian music.

Jeremy: 00:12:53

But then when the missionary would go home, the church movement would die and

Jeremy: 00:12:57

they began to figure out that it was like, Oh, it's because they don't know how

Jeremy: 00:13:00

to fix and maintain American buildings.

Jeremy: 00:13:02

they don't resonate with American, Music.

Jeremy: 00:13:05

I think on a much smaller scale, like we've seen the same thing happen

Jeremy: 00:13:09

with these Western short term teams that sometimes have that same sort

Jeremy: 00:13:13

of like, well, we need to go show them the right way to do things.

Jeremy: 00:13:17

But what's unfortunate is what you just said, which People feel

Jeremy: 00:13:21

like, well, I need to emphasize what I'm doing to raise money.

Jeremy: 00:13:25

And I think that's actually where, like from a church perspective,

Jeremy: 00:13:28

like we need to raise up healthier mission sending cultures in our

Jeremy: 00:13:31

churches to where people understand.

Jeremy: 00:13:33

No, actually sometimes it's, and we'll get to some of these other

Jeremy: 00:13:35

things about like, what really should you be doing if you're not going.

Jeremy: 00:13:39

You know, to be this pioneer missionary for a week, which is ridiculous.

Jeremy: 00:13:42

Well, those oftentimes these other things don't raise money the same

Jeremy: 00:13:45

way that building a building or being, a pioneer missionary, does.

Jeremy: 00:13:51

I'm not speaking ill of the building project mission trips at all But I do

Jeremy: 00:13:55

think that they're not as effective as sometimes people think that they are I

Jeremy: 00:13:59

think that they make great pictures on Instagram But at the end of the day, like

Jeremy: 00:14:03

I think there are more fruitful things that we can be doing With our short term

Jeremy: 00:14:07

teams, once we realized that they're starting with a handicap, they don't know

Jeremy: 00:14:11

the culture, they don't know the language.

Jeremy: 00:14:13

they're probably going to be jet lagged for the first day,

Jeremy: 00:14:15

depending on how far away they are.

Jeremy: 00:14:16

you lose a day going there and going back.

Jeremy: 00:14:19

with four and five days, how effective can we really be?

Jeremy: 00:14:22

I think these other things that.

Jeremy: 00:14:24

that I put forward, are some of the answers.

Jeremy: 00:14:26

The first one, and Mike, you'll experience this when you go to Guatemala, you'll

Jeremy: 00:14:30

be working with some dear friends of mine, who will then become dear

Jeremy: 00:14:33

friends of yours as well, is serve and care for career missionaries.

Jeremy: 00:14:37

I think not enough gets made of this.

Jeremy: 00:14:39

I think that, just hearing a lot of my friends who serve full time

Jeremy: 00:14:44

overseas, Tell me summer after summer that for two or three months that they

Jeremy: 00:14:51

pretty much just become tour guides

Jeremy: 00:14:54

They have to arrange all these community projects and then two or three days

Jeremy: 00:14:58

of each week, they spend driving teams around to random tourist destinations.

Jeremy: 00:15:03

And they do this because at the end of the week, they're probably going to stand

Jeremy: 00:15:08

some sort of financial benefit from this.

Jeremy: 00:15:10

But what ends up happening is like career missionaries spend their whole summer

Jeremy: 00:15:14

doing this, at least the ones I know.

Jeremy: 00:15:17

And then.

Jeremy: 00:15:20

They're glad to see those teams go because while it might have been a

Jeremy: 00:15:23

financial benefit to them, it was not a spiritual or an emotional benefit to them.

Jeremy: 00:15:27

Like they're even more exhausted than they would have been

Jeremy: 00:15:30

if they had just continued.

Jeremy: 00:15:32

doing the work, that they were called to do.

Jeremy: 00:15:35

And so basically I put forth in the blog post is like, what if we built

Jeremy: 00:15:38

our short term endeavors to be a breath of fresh air to career missionaries?

Jeremy: 00:15:41

You know, cause you'll see Mike and I, and I doubt this will be the last

Jeremy: 00:15:45

time you travel internationally.

Jeremy: 00:15:46

In fact, I hope it's not.

Jeremy: 00:15:47

I'd love to take you to some pretty wild places, in Asia, but, oftentimes

Jeremy: 00:15:51

these are people who like, they don't ever get to speak their language.

Jeremy: 00:15:55

you know what I mean?

Jeremy: 00:15:56

Like when you get down to Guatemala, you'll be with our friends, Richard

Jeremy: 00:15:59

and Laurie, like they've had to labor over the last handful of

Jeremy: 00:16:04

years to become fluent in Spanish.

Jeremy: 00:16:06

And so like, they don't even speak English to each other as much as they used to,

Jeremy: 00:16:09

because they sort of have to learn this.

Jeremy: 00:16:11

And so the joy of having a team sitting around in their living room to just be

Jeremy: 00:16:15

able to speak English with, you know, and to, to just like express care to

Jeremy: 00:16:19

them, you know, help take care of their kids, be community for their kids.

Jeremy: 00:16:23

And like, for a missionary kid to be able to be like, Hey,

Jeremy: 00:16:27

let's play a game, you know?

Jeremy: 00:16:29

And like, I think people like, once again, that doesn't raise funds

Jeremy: 00:16:32

necessarily as well as some things.

Jeremy: 00:16:35

but actually I think it's, it's probably.

Jeremy: 00:16:38

It's probably has a has a more long standing eternal impact because these

Jeremy: 00:16:44

are the people who are going to make Real gospel difference in these places,

Jeremy: 00:16:49

you know Because they have done the hard work of learning the language

Jeremy: 00:16:52

learning the culture and they're going to be there longer Longer than

Jeremy: 00:16:55

a you know, and so yeah, I so I think Taking care, being a breath of fresh

Jeremy: 00:17:00

air, for career missionaries and even nationals to, you know, people who, who

Jeremy: 00:17:05

are from the place that we're going.

Jeremy: 00:17:08

and so, yeah.

Jeremy: 00:17:12

I don't think people like to feel that way, but you know, sometimes

Jeremy: 00:17:17

when I'm traveling, I'll pay a tour guide to do something.

Jeremy: 00:17:20

when I pay that tour guide, like that tour guide is my employee, so when I was

Jeremy: 00:17:23

in Egypt, I paid a tour guide to take us around to show us the pyramids and the

Jeremy: 00:17:29

Sphinx and all these other cool things,

Jeremy: 00:17:31

We pay this guy to show us around and I don't view myself as his boss or

Jeremy: 00:17:33

whatever, but he's an employee, there's a transactional type relationship and

Jeremy: 00:17:37

I think sometimes we don't realize that we do the same thing to these

Jeremy: 00:17:40

career missionaries that it's just Like, Hey, we came here to help.

Jeremy: 00:17:43

So, you know what, we need to get a couple of tourism days in there and,

Jeremy: 00:17:47

drive us around and negotiate our market purchases and all that stuff.

Jeremy: 00:17:52

And not that that stuff's always bad, But yeah, so I said in the article,

Jeremy: 00:17:56

instead of insisting that our short, short term trips make us look like

Jeremy: 00:17:59

heroes, what if we make the full time, the full time missionaries feel like those

Jeremy: 00:18:03

who should be admired and encouraged?

Jeremy: 00:18:06

and so it's as simple as this, like, so our friend JR, he has a habit of every

Jeremy: 00:18:10

time he goes overseas, like he'll pack as many things of like peanut butter.

Jeremy: 00:18:16

and like snacks, he'll, he'll, he'll like call ahead to like, a missionary

Jeremy: 00:18:20

friend that we're going to, and he'll be like, what are your favorite snacks?

Jeremy: 00:18:24

Like, what are your favorite things?

Jeremy: 00:18:25

You know, and then load up on those, you know, it can be so simple, you know,

Jeremy: 00:18:29

like that, but just at the end of the day, like, it doesn't make as good of

Jeremy: 00:18:32

pictures, but leaving the savior complex at home and then just turning around

Jeremy: 00:18:35

and saying, okay, well, we're going to.

Jeremy: 00:18:36

We're really going to love these people and care for these people.

Jeremy: 00:18:39

Even if it means that not all of our time is spent, quote unquote, doing

Jeremy: 00:18:45

something that's going to make us feel like we've, man, we brought so much good

Jeremy: 00:18:50

stuff to these people who are far from God, and investing in those missionaries,

Jeremy: 00:18:57

the, another thing that I think makes a good short term.

Jeremy: 00:19:01

Trip and really this is more of like a cultural thing, which is

Jeremy: 00:19:05

developing a global view of the church.

Jeremy: 00:19:10

I'm excited for you.

Jeremy: 00:19:12

I anticipate that you'll even notice things in Guatemala and Central America

Jeremy: 00:19:17

of like differences in culture, in church, in Christian culture, even in Central

Jeremy: 00:19:23

America, that Will broaden your view of like, Oh, I didn't even realize it.

Jeremy: 00:19:28

But some of the things that I take as this is just what Christians do.

Jeremy: 00:19:33

It's actually what American Christians do.

Jeremy: 00:19:36

And it's not exclusive.

Jeremy: 00:19:38

Like it's, it's not like this is what Christianity is.

Jeremy: 00:19:41

Oh, this is American Christianity.

Jeremy: 00:19:42

And not that that's a bad thing automatically, but short term trips

Jeremy: 00:19:45

can be an amazing opportunity for American Christians to learn that

Jeremy: 00:19:48

the church is bigger than we thought.

Jeremy: 00:19:51

I remember traveling in Asia for the first time.

Jeremy: 00:19:54

And realizing that the term southern hospitality that we use a lot, you know,

Jeremy: 00:19:58

that like, what we think is hospitality is, is not really that hospitable at all.

Jeremy: 00:20:03

and you'll see the first time, like you come to Asia that like, Not just the

Jeremy: 00:20:07

Christians, but people there in general extends such wholehearted hospitality and

Jeremy: 00:20:13

warmth to, to people that they don't know.

Jeremy: 00:20:17

And it made me realize I was like, Oh, like we think we're being hospitable

Jeremy: 00:20:22

in the States, but we're actually not.

Jeremy: 00:20:25

And I don't think I would have learned that had I not traveled.

Jeremy: 00:20:29

Extensively to see those things, you You've grown up in the church,

Jeremy: 00:20:33

in the States, do you feel like we ever have sort of like a.

Jeremy: 00:20:39

Cloistered or like closed off view of what it means to be a Christian.

Jeremy: 00:20:44

You know, that can be broadened by, travel in general.

Mike: 00:20:48

absolutely.

Mike: 00:20:49

I think, we don't even think that somebody from a different denomination

Mike: 00:20:52

is a Christian sometimes, so definitely, we can have a narrow view, I think

Mike: 00:20:57

Americans in general can have a narrow view of, Humanity and what culture

Mike: 00:21:02

is really, but, yeah, Christians, especially, there's a spectrum of that,

Mike: 00:21:07

not everybody is that hardcore in their specific denomination and all those

Mike: 00:21:11

little differences, but absolutely.

Mike: 00:21:15

I think traveling, engaging, seeing something that's different than what

Mike: 00:21:18

you, Are used to or we're expecting.

Mike: 00:21:21

Is one of the, maybe the only really effective way to, to change

Mike: 00:21:26

your worldview without seeking it out, I guess if in some sense,

Jeremy: 00:21:31

Yeah.

Jeremy: 00:21:31

I think some of it happens through kind of osmosis because, you know, like

Jeremy: 00:21:36

when I started traveling, you know, it was four missions, but really quick, I

Jeremy: 00:21:40

learned it was just like, Oh, I think I'm going to learn more in some of this.

Jeremy: 00:21:44

And I'm the person who's like speaking at this event or whatever, because the

Jeremy: 00:21:47

other thing too is like, And I don't know if it's because the American church has

Jeremy: 00:21:50

presented itself as sort of the savior figure, or if it's just that people

Jeremy: 00:21:54

assume this of us, because, you know, we have been such a leader on the global

Jeremy: 00:21:58

stage for a long time, is that, like, pretty much everywhere I go, you know,

Jeremy: 00:22:03

I experienced some sense of like, Oh, man, like, they're really excited that

Jeremy: 00:22:07

I'm here, you know, and I'm oftentimes, You know, a featured speaker at some

Jeremy: 00:22:12

conference that international or whatever, and it can make you feel really good.

Jeremy: 00:22:16

But when you begin to realize like how much more you're learning, then you

Jeremy: 00:22:21

experience a kind of a humility from that, which is like, Oh, actually, I

Jeremy: 00:22:24

don't really think I need to be the person who's being celebrated here.

Jeremy: 00:22:28

Because I kind of feel like a child.

Jeremy: 00:22:29

And like I mentioned, the hospitality of Asia, but Probably one of the biggest

Jeremy: 00:22:33

impacts I had was like, you know, we think we're bold in our witness here

Jeremy: 00:22:38

in the States, but when you travel in a place like the Middle East and you

Jeremy: 00:22:42

see how bold brothers and sisters in that part of the world are, despite

Jeremy: 00:22:46

the fact of, constant threat of harm or persecution is, it makes you more bold

Jeremy: 00:22:51

in your witness back home, you know?

Jeremy: 00:22:53

that's why we've even started, the engaged network, which is really beginning to

Jeremy: 00:22:59

try and do stateside missions the way that we do international missions,

Jeremy: 00:23:04

which is very people group oriented.

Jeremy: 00:23:06

trying to reach, particular communities and, religious groups with the gospel.

Jeremy: 00:23:12

what we have found is that oftentimes people go overseas or even stateside,

Jeremy: 00:23:18

they'll go on a trip and they get really fired up to share the gospel.

Jeremy: 00:23:22

But then when they come home, it's like their church isn't ready to receive them.

Jeremy: 00:23:26

there's nothing for them to, to Sort of emulate what they did overseas.

Jeremy: 00:23:31

because yeah, when you go to a place like the Middle East or Asia, and you see

Jeremy: 00:23:34

how passionate Christians are there for sharing the gospel, despite the lack of

Jeremy: 00:23:38

freedom, when you come home, you should be motivated to share the gospel even

Mike: 00:23:43

and that seems to be another benefit of, some of the benefits of going are

Mike: 00:23:49

because hopefully you can have an impact on the people there, but then taking

Mike: 00:23:52

everything that you've learned back to your church back at home and trying to

Mike: 00:23:56

implement it the way you're talking about with local missions, but then also just

Mike: 00:24:00

sharing, I think, with your church body.

Mike: 00:24:04

Some of those eye opening moments of, of culture and what hospitality looks

Mike: 00:24:09

like and Christian, the, what you've understood to be Christianity is actually

Mike: 00:24:15

American Christianity and, you know, just everything that you're learning,

Mike: 00:24:19

bringing that back and, and teaching others at home and sharing it with people

Jeremy: 00:24:22

Yeah.

Jeremy: 00:24:23

good short term trips.

Jeremy: 00:24:25

Good short term endeavors should be about sharpening and

Jeremy: 00:24:28

training for ministry at home.

Jeremy: 00:24:30

Short term trips should have an event.

Jeremy: 00:24:32

Like they shouldn't just be about caring for these career missionaries.

Jeremy: 00:24:36

They shouldn't just be about developing a global view.

Jeremy: 00:24:39

Those should be a focus, but there should be an evangelistic aspect to them.

Jeremy: 00:24:44

understand that, like, ultimately your evangelism as an outsider

Jeremy: 00:24:47

is almost never going to be as effective as an insiders would be.

Jeremy: 00:24:51

Your evangelism is most effective at home.

Jeremy: 00:24:54

It's most effective in the culture where you're from.

Jeremy: 00:24:57

In the language that you speak in the place where you're not an outsider.

Jeremy: 00:25:01

So these evangelistic short term trips should be done in concert with

Jeremy: 00:25:05

longstanding mission partners who can ensure that we're working effectively,

Jeremy: 00:25:09

that we're not doing more harm than good.

Jeremy: 00:25:11

The American church should be doing more prioritizing of the mission

Jeremy: 00:25:16

field at home in the States.

Jeremy: 00:25:18

Not because it's more important, but because we have neglected it for a

Jeremy: 00:25:21

really long time and I say in the article that the United States is much less

Jeremy: 00:25:26

reached than we think and as far as I can see the United States is one of the

Jeremy: 00:25:30

few or possibly only Churches on the planet that spend most of our time and

Jeremy: 00:25:36

money in missions outside of our home context Most national churches, if you

Jeremy: 00:25:42

want to look at it that way, are not spending most of their time and money

Jeremy: 00:25:46

sending to other countries, but we are.

Jeremy: 00:25:50

And what that's done is it's caused us to dramatically miss the fact that the

Jeremy: 00:25:56

United States is becoming more and more post Christian, that younger generations

Jeremy: 00:26:01

are leaving the church in droves.

Jeremy: 00:26:03

We take missions trips and think that we're bringing something to these other

Jeremy: 00:26:07

cultures that they don't have when statistically, many of these places that

Jeremy: 00:26:11

we're sending to have larger percentages of devout Christians than we do.

Jeremy: 00:26:16

And so we need to actually start sending people overseas for a week so

Jeremy: 00:26:20

that they can be sharpened and trained to come home and plug into something

Jeremy: 00:26:25

like the engaged network to reach their context here in the States.

Jeremy: 00:26:30

I think if we started viewing short term trips like that.

Jeremy: 00:26:32

Of like, Hey, we go to South Asia to teach and train people on how to reach

Jeremy: 00:26:37

South Asians, and then we come home and try and reach South Asians here.

Jeremy: 00:26:42

your church can do the same thing, and instead what we usually

Jeremy: 00:26:46

see happen is, team comes home.

Jeremy: 00:26:49

They stand up on stage.

Jeremy: 00:26:50

They talk about how great the week was and they talk about how

Jeremy: 00:26:52

fired up they are for the gospel.

Jeremy: 00:26:55

But that team might not share the gospel.

Jeremy: 00:26:57

Again, until next year's trip.

Jeremy: 00:27:00

I think we'd all be embarrassed to say how often that's the experience we have.

Jeremy: 00:27:04

And part of it is the church doesn't have anything that does missions

Jeremy: 00:27:08

the same way that we do overseas.

Jeremy: 00:27:10

which once again, that's why the engaged network I think is so important, but

Jeremy: 00:27:13

then also while we're overseas in these contexts where we're, passionate about

Jeremy: 00:27:18

learning how to share the gospel, how to be a bold witness in our faith.

Jeremy: 00:27:22

we need to be honest and say, Hey, we are actually going to try and take as much

Jeremy: 00:27:27

from this trip as we can in the form of training and equipping because the real

Jeremy: 00:27:32

trip starts when we land back at home.

Jeremy: 00:27:34

And I think if we did that and we did all of those things, leave the savior

Jeremy: 00:27:38

complex at home, care for career missionaries, Look around and develop

Jeremy: 00:27:44

a global understanding of what it means to be a Christian and then really try

Jeremy: 00:27:48

and ring as much out of that trip in the form of training and equipping and

Jeremy: 00:27:52

building up of that team to come home and Really be mobilized for the sake

Jeremy: 00:27:57

of the gospel that I think then the answer is short term trips are good

Mike: 00:28:01

Yeah, so it seems to be, it seems to me that the biggest difference

Mike: 00:28:06

between a bad short term missions trip and a good one is the mindset

Mike: 00:28:09

and the goals of the people who are

Jeremy: 00:28:11

going on

Jeremy: 00:28:11

the trip.

Jeremy: 00:28:12

I think if your why, like, so missions pastor, youth pastor, listen to this,

Jeremy: 00:28:16

you know, whoever, if your why for this trip is that we do it every

Jeremy: 00:28:21

year and everybody really enjoys it.

Jeremy: 00:28:24

And we need to go and build a couple of buildings and get pictures of us building

Jeremy: 00:28:29

a building get pictures of me with, you know, somebody who looks different than

Jeremy: 00:28:34

me so I can put it on Instagram and we're going to come home and, you know, we're

Jeremy: 00:28:39

going to go up on stage and everybody's going to celebrate us like we're heroes.

Jeremy: 00:28:43

take that trip.

Jeremy: 00:28:45

Don't, don't take that trip, cancel it, and either, and either raise the

Jeremy: 00:28:48

money and send it to people who, who are already there, who are doing the work of

Jeremy: 00:28:54

the ministry there, or just don't do it.

Jeremy: 00:28:57

Stay home, you know, because honestly, sometimes those

Jeremy: 00:29:00

things do more harm than good.

Jeremy: 00:29:02

and they really lend themselves to, churches in other contexts, having a

Jeremy: 00:29:06

dependency on the church in the States.

Jeremy: 00:29:09

what I've begun to see is honestly, I think oftentimes the global church is

Jeremy: 00:29:13

looking at the church in America right now as if we're tone deaf, because we don't

Jeremy: 00:29:18

understand that there's a fire at home.

Jeremy: 00:29:23

Why are you sending your most passionate believers everywhere else?

Jeremy: 00:29:27

Why are you spending all of your money on churches outside of your context

Jeremy: 00:29:32

when the church is dying at home?

Jeremy: 00:29:34

And so, yeah, I think your mindset.

Jeremy: 00:29:36

And then the goals of the trip, the why of the trip is it needs to like

Jeremy: 00:29:40

every year, the missions pastor, the youth pastor, whoever it is, needs to

Jeremy: 00:29:44

sit down and reevaluate those things.

Jeremy: 00:29:46

and then I personally, I mean, I've said I'm biased, you know, because

Jeremy: 00:29:49

like we are a tap, but, I think every church needs to have something like

Jeremy: 00:29:52

the engaged network to come home to.

Jeremy: 00:29:54

Like when you send those people, they're going to come back passionate.

Jeremy: 00:29:57

They're going to come back ready to get after it and in sharing their faith

Jeremy: 00:30:01

back home, that should be the goal.

Jeremy: 00:30:03

And if you don't have a way for them to do that, then it's going to fizzle out.

Jeremy: 00:30:08

And then next year, the whole thing's going to happen

Mike: 00:30:10

to fizzle out.

Mike: 00:30:11

Next year the whole thing is going to happen.

Mike: 00:30:15

So the Engage Network, we

Jeremy: 00:30:18

want to.

Jeremy: 00:30:19

So the engage network, we started this year in 2024.

Jeremy: 00:30:23

And what it is, is it's, churches partnering with ATAP, to, engage, the

Jeremy: 00:30:29

darkest places and least reached people in their city and region with the gospel.

Jeremy: 00:30:33

And so the way that we do that is, churches.

Jeremy: 00:30:35

Reach out to us and we go through a process of just evaluating, making

Jeremy: 00:30:38

sure that we're like-minded, and then we enter into kind of a long-term

Jeremy: 00:30:42

partnership with that church, where Atap provides in-person and online

Jeremy: 00:30:46

training in, evangelism, discipleship, leadership, world religions and worldview.

Jeremy: 00:30:53

as well as just kind of ongoing coaching for leaders.

Jeremy: 00:30:56

And really what it is, is we wanna see.

Jeremy: 00:30:58

In the context of that church mission teams that really

Jeremy: 00:31:01

resemble international teams.

Jeremy: 00:31:03

Like, you know, if you're in, if you're in the Northeast of the United States

Jeremy: 00:31:07

in a place like Trenton, New Jersey, for instance, which is a place that I'm

Jeremy: 00:31:11

really praying about us beginning to see a network church raise up is that's a

Jeremy: 00:31:15

place where it's full of South Asians.

Jeremy: 00:31:18

So we want to raise up in churches in Trenton, New Jersey, teams of believers

Jeremy: 00:31:24

who are missionaries to the South Asian And, other communities in that area.

Jeremy: 00:31:30

and so it's a way to heavily invest in these mission team leaders that raise up.

Jeremy: 00:31:34

And then it's a strategy and, system that when you have a

Jeremy: 00:31:38

team go overseas and come back.

Jeremy: 00:31:41

When they come to you, pastor, and say, Hey, I really want to do missions here.

Jeremy: 00:31:45

The way that we were doing it over there.

Jeremy: 00:31:47

is it's a way to be able to say, well, Hey, we're doing that.

Jeremy: 00:31:50

Like get join one of these teams.

Jeremy: 00:31:52

And so in our church, you know, we have a team.

Jeremy: 00:31:55

For, we're kind of in Redneckville in here in Western North Carolina.

Jeremy: 00:31:58

So we have a team that's really just geared towards nominal Christians,

Jeremy: 00:32:02

and de churched Christians.

Jeremy: 00:32:03

And so that team is engaging people who kind of are like, yeah, I walked an

Jeremy: 00:32:07

altar when I was seven years old, but I haven't been following after Christ.

Jeremy: 00:32:10

It's like, so there's missionaries on that team who really have a heart

Jeremy: 00:32:14

for that and are kind of trained for those kinds of conversations.

Jeremy: 00:32:17

We have a team geared towards the South Asian community.

Jeremy: 00:32:20

A team geared towards spiritual agnostics and neo pagans, a team geared

Jeremy: 00:32:24

towards Latter day Saints and Jehovah's Witnesses, a team geared towards the

Jeremy: 00:32:27

Spanish speaking community, which is largely nominal and de churched.

Jeremy: 00:32:30

And then we have a team geared towards the area directly around our

Jeremy: 00:32:34

church, the shadow of the steeple.

Jeremy: 00:32:36

And so we're trying to raise that up in churches all over the country There is a

Jeremy: 00:32:39

financial partnership aspect to that That really just helps us cover the, the, the,

Jeremy: 00:32:45

cost of training and things like that.

Jeremy: 00:32:47

And, and yeah, so, but no, that's, that's the thing I'm most excited

Jeremy: 00:32:49

about in the context of ATAP this year and moving forward as well.

Jeremy: 00:32:53

and it's because of conversations like this, cause I've gone on, you know, a ton

Jeremy: 00:32:56

of mission strips and I don't know the percentage, but a number of them, probably

Jeremy: 00:33:01

I might've been better staying at home.

Jeremy: 00:33:03

Yeah, you know, and I'm not, I don't really want to be about that.

Jeremy: 00:33:06

You know, we want to be effective everywhere we go, but we have

Jeremy: 00:33:08

to be effective at home long before we go anywhere else.

Jeremy: 00:33:11

And so that's what we're, that's what we're

Jeremy: 00:33:13

Take good short term trips.

Jeremy: 00:33:15

Be willing to say that, Hey, this one's not worth our time and money and we'd

Jeremy: 00:33:19

be better off doing something else.

Jeremy: 00:33:20

That doesn't mean fold up shop.

Jeremy: 00:33:21

That doesn't mean stop going international.

Jeremy: 00:33:23

It just means do it well.

Jeremy: 00:33:24

And if you're doing that, then man, keep going, you know, but

Jeremy: 00:33:27

then also have something for people to plug into when they get home.