Anyone involved in the organization or planning of a short-term mission at a church should be aware of an organization that has done much to set and define the highest standards for such mission trips. The acronym is SOE, which stands for Standards of Excellence in Short-Term Missions.
They publish and describe seven standards of Excellence for any short-term mission project. If you just want to see the standards, please go to their website, but what I would like to do is to describe each standard, explain the rationale behind it, and then show you what it looks like in practice.
Standard 1 — God-Centeredness
Every person planning a mission trip, whether as organizer, host, or participant should be crystal clear about the purpose of the trip. Is it totally for the glory of God? Is each activity planned in such a way to express godliness? Are the methods used biblical as well as appropriate for Christians in the hosting culture, and will the expectations/desired results advance the kingdom of God?
These questions appear at first to have such obvious answers, that you may even want to stop reading, but let me ask some questions that might suggest where some short-term mission groups get off track.
- What do the workers see as the highlight of the trip, closing night of your mission or the two days on the beach before you come home? Which of these is emphasized in the promotion and recruiting?
- You might be surprised at how many mission trips have very little time planned for team devotionals, prayer time, or spiritual conversations.
- Is the mission group being sent off and received on site with prayer by those sending and receiving?
- Has the biblical basis for your activities been thoroughly taught, rehearsed, and explained to your team? Have they bought into the spiritual nature of the mission trip?
- What are the real goals of your mission trip? Are they spiritual or material? Are they ethereal or measurable?
All Let’s Start Talking (LST) mission projects are described as “Sharing Jesus, sharing ourselves!” In this phrase we have tried to capture our purpose and method. We know people want to travel, they want to experience new things, they even want to grow themselves spiritually, but we believe that all of these other desires are subjugated to the one objective of sharing Jesus.
To encourage this spiritual dimension, we, in our planning of mission trips, plan prayer time every day and make it the first activity of every day so it doesn’t get lost in the busy and unexpected of the rest of the day. We do, of course, plan in free time for the teams, but we ask them to use the time in a way so they are refreshed, not exhausted, when they return to their mission activities.
In addition, LST teams find God-centeredness in their primary method of sharing, which is reading the gospel’s own words and using their own experiences with God to illustrate the truth of the Word. Our biblical basis for this approach is John 20:30,31: “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples . . . . But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
Wherever else your planning might be shortchanged, God-centeredness must not be neglected or your whole mission is in danger—not in danger of taking place, but in danger of being misplaced!
Next Standard: Empowering Partnerships
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