Short-Term Missions teams often get the benefit of preparation, Long-Term people have to go through a process, but our Mid-Term Missionaries (individuals who participate in international work for 2 months to 2 years) often fall through the gaps in the process.

I recently developed a new process to bring them to the field in the best possible way, as well as developed the new teaching material for the process.

The PAOC (Canada’s largest evangelical denomination) has recently picked it up as the way that they are sending all of their future mid-termers. My colleague Matt Janes and I are presently working with a number of people who have begun the process (close to 30 people at one stage or another – from initial interest to complete training).

If you are interested in Mid-Term Missions (Individuals, not teams, that plan to engage in international work for 2-24 months) … Check out the MTM link at the top of the page!

Mark Crocker

Yes, it is possible, if they meet some policy requirements … (IE.  no bling) and if you check out this link you can see the document for yourself.

Mark Crocker

Spending time in another culture forces us out of our comfortable shorthand, bias and uninformed opinion. As we travel we often find ourselves both learning from the most resourceful people on the planet, as well as finding levels of frustration we had no idea could exist.  Our too simple solutions are proved false.

Cross-cultural partnership often means that failure suddenly exists not simply as a concept but as an actual reality.  Frequently, the beautiful idealization of partnership has been intractably dismantled.  Both parties are angry at the other for diminished expectations and it is normal for people in this circumstance to grieve a little.  Now comes the tough part … are both willing to continue the difficult path of reconciliation?

What began in the initial excitement phase of cross-cultural engagement, has now been stomped by the cruel forces of the rejection phase. It is important to realize that this is the right moment when an true and honest engagement might actually become possible.

If participants are willing to push through into growth, to commit to the hard work reality of cross-cultural relationship and effective partnership – in more than word alone – a truly engaging partnership may emerge.

New people are invited to trust the story of the kingdom.  Others, who have already walked this way, hold their hands out to new-comers as they choose to take their first faltering steps.  The practice of the kingdom becomes natural when the hand-holding and support goes both ways, developing mature partners.  Cultures around the world share the beautiful stories of how the Kingdom of God is relevant anew, as it wrestles in the Kingdom of Caesar, or in the Kingdom of Sudan, or in the Kingdom of Capitalism, or even in the Kingdom of Canada.

Then why is it considered optional to train for international short-term missions work?

There are some who say that this is an obvious overreaction, after all we do not need to train for a party, or for a walk, we do not train for a vacation – there are many things in life we do not have to prepare for. Additionally, many people go every month on a short–term trip, they meet at the airport, and they seem all right.

These, of course, are often the same people who return angry at the world, there two weeks has convinced them that they have seen the light and now know how international ministry is supposed to work. I have met countless short-term missions participants who return, depressed and upset.

Too many others return with the impression that they have ‘done their duty’, they have accomplished the missions thing. I would beg to differ, a focus or mission should not be activity, it should not simply be a once-in-a-lifetime goal – like sky-diving, or a return to my college weight.

I once trained a team that was working in Southern Africa, they got together 12 times before they departed, one of the team members lived in another province – a one-way six hour drive – guess who was on time every week? As far as I remember, she only missed one training event – due to a blizzard

Compare her to the more awkward occasions when people, who promise the world in order to get on the team and then do not bother to show up for 1/2 or more of the training (always for very, very good reasons). If I remove them from the team at this point, I am accused of being a controller. But in EVERY occasion when they have come on the team, they have been a problem, never fully part of the group, the loudest complainers, and involved in the most destructive forms of participation.

In my view, team preparation is non-optional. To expect a very high degree of participation in the process is neither unreasonable nor unwarranted. We are, after all, not tour guides, nor activity directors. We are calling teams to real commitment, and significant participation. STM is no longer simply jr. high teams arriving with their skits and puppet shows .

Once a team leader explains the requirements, some potential team members will immediately counter with the reasons why it is impossible to meet those requirements: work, busy-ness, family obligation, conflicting schedule with another ministry, they are all great reasons but the list is endless. It is important that a team leader does not reduce their expectation. Team leaders need to commit to the tough work of team preparation, even to be ready to disappoint others as they say ‘no’ to people for a team, who cannot commit to prepare with the team. The kind of participants who find the time to prepare, are the people who work in effective short-term mission. Experience is a tough teacher, no one is doing a team leader a favour by coming along.

For those who feel my high expectations too unrealistic, all I can say is that the teams that engage in a full training process, prior to going, do better. They complain less, work harder, accomplish more, harm the situation less, and missionary hosts want them back.

Missionaries know the difference, they might not say it to you because they might not want to offend a possible support stream, but they want you to do a better job. You can, if you are willing to work at it.

Mark Crocker

With that in mind, here are my thoughts on five important questions:

1. What needs to be on the application form to give me the most meaningful information?

Much depends on your purpose for the application process. I often think of an initial application as the first step for someone to express interest, there are no guarantees at this point that they will be part of the team. Many people will talk of their interest in ‘Going’, but someone who takes that first step and fills in the form … they might mean it!

Years ago I met a team applicant who looked great on the surface (some details are changed to protect his identity), he worked in a church, had his finances in order, and seemed like a real asset to the team. In the past, he had even volunteered to help out with some of the previous teams preparation.
It was only when we began to look a little deeper that some disturbing details began to arise. This candidate had recently suffered a moderate emotional break-down and was being treated for depression. Co-workers recognized the instability that he would have brought to a team, but because they liked him, at first they did not want to give the actual details of the situation to the team leader.
In the end, the candidate was not allowed to participate, and that was when his true colours came out in an ugly tirade and threats to go to a pastor to force a position on the team.

The questions cannot give you a full sense of a person, but they can give you a theme to follow up on during an interview. The questions should be persistent enough to let potential team members recognize the openness that they may be required to participate in.

The questions should take more time than a quick credit card application in a mall. Someone who is not willing to take 30 minutes to reflect on why they want to go, may not be the best candidate to take on your team!

The questions should reveal a seriousness to your task, enough for a participant to carefully consider whether or not they are able or willing to work within a team.

Ask Questions about:

• Physical and mental health
• A criminal record
• Willingness to submit to a police check
• A faith background
• References

The question about a faith perspective, (IE ‘Are you a Christian’, or ‘Share your testimony’ are by no means a requirement for all mission-sending organizations. Many churches and agencies are willing to accept participants who do not self-identify as a Christian, so long as they are willing to work within the priorities and requirements of the agency. In fact, some churches feel it is important to bring ‘non-believers’ onto the field with the express opinion that if people are brought to where God is at work, then they may meet Him there.

References are limited by the fact that the person supplying them will often only select people that will give a glowing report. It is important that the team leader uses all resources available to get a clear picture of the possible candidate. Phone the pastor to find out how they know the person, or if they know them. Check to see how they work in community (or not). Many a team leader has only found out after the fact, that a possible team member would have received a number of red flags to watch out for it only the leader had contacted the most obvious sources.

In my mind, a primary purpose of an application is to let participants know that this process will involve commitment, and authentic openness. Ask personal questions, and expect direct and complete answers.

Over the next while, I want to answer Five questions about the application process. If you are wondering how to do this better, come back and check out my further thoughts, or subscribe to my RSS feed (on the right) in order to have them automatically sent to your reader when they are posted.

Getting ready to GO!

Mark Crocker

To me, the answer is simple. This is the relationship of a boss and an employee. A one-way street of authority and direction.

Strangely, in some circles, this exchange of resources for receipts is often known as ‘partnership’. Perhaps you also receive the same emails and direct mail campaigns that cross my desk every week or so; all seem intent in offering a strange version of ‘partnership’ with all kinds of people from Sudan to Sarnia.

Yesterday, as one of three guest panelists for a World Vision event, I was in sunny Vancouver. The organizers of the event offered a breakfast meeting in order to present some expertise on what effective partnership may actually look like.

My fellow panelists were the author Dr. Harold Percy and pastor in an Anglican parish in Streetsville, Ontario; as well as Ernest Fraser from South Africa who presently works as World Vision’s Partnership Coordinator out of Swaziland.

I loved the topic – International Partnerships,and we spent a great couple of hours telling the inspiring, frustrating and often funny stories of Short Term Mission teams attempting international partnerships.

From emotional promises to dashed expectations. Short-termers who saw through the sepia-toned glasses of epic and enourmous personal achievement, to the hilarious cultural gaffes that are ever-present in any exchange around the globe, this word partnership definitely revealed a wide range of response, both good and bad!

I really enjoyed the give and take, as well as the informed and important questions. Important realities were discussed and some awkward versions of the world were refocused into newer and healthier perceptions.

One issue I shared during the course of the morning was my thoughts on the questions we ask before we engage with others, here are some of my notes …

For a long time, our process was to simply bring in our resources to help with the percieved needs of others – this was our goodwill attempt to answer the question, “What do they need?” Although this is the right question to ask in terms of relief work – aid for people who will otherwise die today – in terms of development, this tends to strip the person of dignity as they stand as recipients only. Additionally, they must take what we give, which positions us as benefactors and eventually corrupts us. This relationship quickly ceases as entitlement and power corrupt both sides – recipients may be ungrateful as they receive cast-offs and grow dependant, all while benefactors feel misused and an ungrateful attitude.

Eventually this process changed, the new question was “What do you need?” Agencies simply began to ask what the community required. This was a much better process, people began to take ownership for their projects, volunteers began to come forward. Still, the position of benefactor and patron allows for inequality. People are subtly told that they cannot meet their own needs, others must solve their problems for them. Benefactors take on a hero role. The process may take longer, but this question also leads to a subtle dependency.

Recently, the question has again adapted, now some agencies are asking, “What are your dreams?” As the answer to this question promotes the individual, other questions may also help get us to the heart of the question. “What kind of community do you want your children to grow up in?” This question positions the community as primary drivers and care-givers. The community takes on sole responsibility, and we are honored to assist in their responsibility.

As my friend Julio from Honduras explains, “If I have to have a heavy table in my house, I may need to ask for help. It is my responsibility, because I own the table, but I may need a friend to give me a hand. The key to remember is that when you let go of your end, you do not own the table, it is still my table. In the same way, I own the problems of my community, I may ask for a hand, but I know that the responsibility for the ownership is my own”

I love Julio’s thoughts, and I love how I learned from him. How else have you received from others through international engagement?

If we are truly willing to engage in mutual partnership, I believe that what is of real importance, is that we allow our international partners to also ask us that third question. Are we prepared to begin to position ourselves as receivers as readily as we position ourselves as providers?

Mark Crocker

The very nature of a short-term trip often spells out an unspoken version of the world. A version that suggests that resources and/or information is the basic commodity missing from the situation, discover the problem and fix it and all should be well. We operate like a large appliance repairman, “ we enter with a certain expertise and set of tools, find the problem and fix it – ˜good as new”! That version may best be illustrated by the common phrase spoken by most short and mid-term missions participants: “Why don’t they just…

The attitude is this: the problem is significant, but through resources, hard work and modern insight, we should be able to promote long-term solutions. In short, It is simply the prerogative of the short-termer to aid in the discovery of the root of the issue, develop some solutions, articulate and clearly teach those solutions to local peoples, and finally follow up to see how they are following through on the process. Much of this version of the world may only be true simply because the short-term worker has a clearly defined (short) time frame in which they can work.

Missionaries of every type have had to face these issues. In essence the question comes down to more than the resources we hold in our hands, the better question may be, “As we prepare to go, what do we need to bring, and what should we leave behind?”

What do you refuse to take on short-term missions?

Mark Crocker

• We advise you to exercise caution and monitor developments that might affect your safety in Canada because of the risk of terrorist attack.
• The wind-chill factor can also create dangerously cold outdoor conditions beyond the thermometer reading.
• The province of British Columbia in western Canada is in an active earthquake zone.
• Forest fires can occur in Canada.

Terrorism, cold weather, earthquakes and forest fires! These dangers place us on their watch list in terms of tourist security. At first the warnings seem laughable – as Canadians we know ourselves to be living in the safest place on earth … right!? It is too easy to poke fun at this seeming over-careful concern for personal security, and the readers comments after the article seem unanimous in their withering reply.

It would be easy to retaliate with the fact that seven out of the ten most venemous snakes in the world live in Australia, the vastness of the outback … or that Dingo’s Eat Babies! But now we are just getting silly. Fighting the argument at the same level at which it is made, validates it as an accurate argument.

As I smiled over the article, I suddenly remembered the many hundreds of people I have talked to over the years who have shared concerns very much along these lines when it comes to releasing their loved ones to participate in short term missions in other global ‘hotspots’. I think of it as the one Immutable and Infallible law of Short Term Mission; whenever someone decides to participate in mission, the news will quickly report of some significant danger around going to that specific place.

It happens everytime. Perhaps it is because we are simply paying attention and now listening for news on that region of the world, or because we have done a great job in sharing our mission with many others (who are all collectively paying attention to listening for news on that region of the world). Whatever the case, these new-found dangers sometimes have participants drop out due to their own fear, or the fear of friends and family.

Two thoughts jump out at me:

1. How much do we miss of what is actually happening in our world, simply because we are not listening (anyone remember this happening in the past? Rwandan genocide perhaps … or Sudan right now)
2. At a loss to first ourselves, how often does our fear keeps us from the adventure in front of us?

Of course everyone needs to make their own minds up whether or not they will go. I do not think that we are playing games here, and it is in no ones best interest to promote a naive bravado, or gung-ho cowboy attitude. A good friend took a team on his first trip overseas, and one of the team-members died after drowning in the sea during a day off. The fact that ‘it could have happened here’ is not too comforting to a grieving family, because it did not happen here, it happened in that vague space known as ‘over there’ – somewhere foreign. It is good to think through the ramifications of safety and security surrounding international travel. But … I do not believe that safety and security are the identifying reason why we do what we do.

If you would like my opinion on how to make a good decision on entering into insecure areas, check out this link to another article I had put together in April.

By the way, I promise I will blog details when the earthquake seperates us in BC from the rest of Canada, if you will let me know how the wind-chill and dangerously cold temperatures are working out for you.

Mark Crocker

Yet this story has also not been all peaches and roses. The appeal of a the STM trip has had many thousands of others jump onto the bandwagon. Some ineffective teams work great damage to the character of God as they arrive internationally with their own single-minded agenda. Naive teams may deny the unique and strange ways of Christ with his diverse family around the globe.

The jury is still out in terms of the final effect of this STM worldview, in any case this methodology has deeply impacted the way that churches now participate in missions. Where in the recent past the responsibility lay primarily with arms-length agencies, churches are now proactively working to personally engage in personal Missions initiatives ‘on the ground’. Our response and our methods in this new reality matters.

If you hate Short term mission for the all to common stories of inappropriate engagement and damaging witness you are not an anomaly. It is easy to recognize failure, send me into a church service or celebration on any Sunday morning (or Saturday night), and I am sure that I along with anyone else could find something to find fault in.

I remember hearing the fervent story of one young man who expressed his spiritual gift was to step into a church, ‘stir up the sh!t’ and then leave to let them deal with it. As is always the case when I hear this type of critique, an arrogance of personal perfection in matters theological or practice is always just below the surface. Evaluation, Judging and Fault-finding has never been our problem; the tough part always is stepping beyond the chaos of our individual disapproval and stepping into the much tougher place of participation into the dynamic lives of others

As people of a living and active faith it is as wrong to think we can somehow compartmentalize our engagement to merely as providing funds to missions agencies. This life of Christ is not a life of mental approval to written theological statements, neither is it a ‘life’ of sin management, rather it might only be able to be proven once it is lived – this way is participation, engagement, emotion, and a willful choice to fierce living.

It is too easy to judge a movement by its failures.

Yes, short-term mission has failed. Much like long-term mission, church communities, denominations, leaders, theologians – the list of examples grow daily. They all fail, because they are filled with people who run them – people with strange ideas and pointless passions, much like you and I. Judge them and we avoid looking at the sheer courage of those who refuse to step aside from opportunities to participate far beyond their ability.

Still I believe that STM is perhaps the premier method by which many thousands can feel the strong pull and passion of what Christ meant when he called us to service. In this age of information, we know less and less – as information is mistaken for our participation.
It is only when we actually feel the mud between our toes, spend time carrying water with a double orphan, or accept hospitality from a stranger with less in their cupboard than we carry in our suitcase, that we can begin to grasp just who our global neighbors are. No compelling story or high production video can tell a 1/100th of the reality, it is experience and experience alone which allows us to actually engage.

And this is the wonder of STM work. It is possible for you to engage. Wtihin 24 hours you can be there, you can spend an afternoon walking and talking with a stranger, and change your view for a lifetime.

Plan to participate, Recognize the failures, Realize there are better ways to do this, Discover the guides along the way. There are effective ways to engage.

Mark Crocker

This was an article I was interviewed for in response to Short Term Missions preparation