Serving with Eyes Wide Open

by David A. Livermore

  Don’t do there what you aren’t doing at home. If you’re going to teach English, teach English to immigrants at home. If you’re going to work with children, don’t overlook the children who need help in your own community. It doesn’t always have to be a one-for-one connection, but be sure you haven’t neglected the needs right in your own backyard.

  Recruit leaders in light of the objective. The leaders of your trip will make the biggest difference in whether you do culturally intelligent short-term missions or not. It’s inevitable that the team participants will have a variety of motivations, but the motivation of the leaders is what matters most.

  Publicize the trip and recruit participants in light of the objective.

  Realize that smaller groups are usually more effective. The larger the group, the harder it is to engage with the local culture. Staying in locals’ homes is best when possible. That’s next to impossible with a large group. Less than seven is an ideal number.

  Remind participants of the objective.

  Require a post-trip commitment from the participants upfront (e.g., “Part of this trip requires participating in a debrief program for three to six months upon your return”).

  Give top priority to leadership orientation. Leaders are the ones who most need to understand the potential challenges and opportunities. Expose them to cultural intelligence so they can effectively guide the team members.

  Prepare. Conduct orientation sessions for your team and discuss with your partners how the receivers will be prepared. Emphasize the necessary spiritual posture and learn what questions to ask to learn about the culture and God’s work there.

  Assess your CQ. Take the Short-Term Missions CQ Assessment not as a condition for who can be involved but to get everyone reflecting more specifically on the cross-cultural aspects of the experience. (See www.culturalQ.com for information.)

  During the Trip

  Remind participants of the objective. In the midst of serving, it’s easy to lose sight of the primary objective.

  Do missions with the local believers. Don’t do missions “to” people or “for” people. Do it together.

  Worship and fellowship with the locals. Many groups report that bonding with their team from home is a highlight of their experience. I understand that. But don’t miss the rich experience of having regular times of worship and, if possible, studying the Scriptures with local Christians. Develop new friendships and bonds.

  Consider the four capabilities of CQ daily. Use the cultural intelligence model as a basic framework to guide your cultural engagement: How’s our motivation? What do we need to learn about the culture? How should we plan? How should we adapt?

  Debrief on the fly. In addition to daily team debriefings, don’t miss some of the most transformative times to debrief with another team member, such as while driving away from an afternoon at the dump.

  After the Trip

  Remind participants of the objective.

  Emphasize learning transfer. What have we learned that we don’t want to forget? How should this change my life at home?

  Emphasize the good and the bad. Look for ways to describe the locals and their culture to those back home in terms of both the needs you observed and the things that are going well.

  Assess your CQ again. Compare your CQ scores with what they were before you left. Look at how to continue to grow in cultural intelligence so you can effectively communicate Christ’s love across cultures at home too.

  Conduct an action-oriented debrief. Move beyond simply having a picture party. In light of what you’ve seen, what can you do? For some, it may mean raising money to help with a need they saw. Others may want to organize a prayer team or create an awareness initiative. Others may decide they want to begin teaching English to local immigrants. For some, it may mean a career change. Do short-term missions with a long-term view. A two-thousand-dollar trip is a lot of money if you just go paint a wall for ten days, but it’s a valuable investment if it creates a long-term role in meeting some of the needs observed—at home and abroad.

  Conclusion

  How does our lack of cultural intelligence diminish our attempts to love God and love others? That’s the heart of the matter.

  Open your eyes. Can you see what you missed before? The challenges for doing short-term missions well are huge. But they pale in light of the guarantee that God will call people from every nation, tribe, language, and people group. I wrote this book because I want to change the way we think about and do short-term missions.

  We began in chapter 1 with a sobering description of the needs of the world. Your short-term missions trip to Mexico next summer may seem like an insignificant drop in the sea of these needs. But when you see your trip in light of God’s work across several millennia, it can be a valuable part of a worldwide revolution that can never be stopped.

  Open your eyes. Can you see it? There’s a worldwide revolution going on among God’s people, and there has been ever since Adam and Eve. Despite the countless failures of God’s people, God’s reign continues to be extended all over the world. The church of Jesus Christ is growing faster than ever before. When we’re part of the people of God, we’re part of a worldwide revolution. We don’t do short-term missions because we’re shamed into it or because we’re looking for something to do over spring break. We do it to join God in his worldwide revolution. Never before has Revelation 7:9 seemed more viable.

  Can you see it? Can you see what John saw? Stranded out on the remote island of Patmos, the apostle John said, “There before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb” (Rev. 7:9). It’s going to happen. People from every nation will gather at the feet of Jesus, worshiping him. We get to be part of making that happen, along with the rest of God’s people spread across the globe.

  I pray you’ll take the challenge to embark on a lifelong journey of cultural intelligence so that you might love others better and in turn grow in your love for Christ. May the world never look the same as a result of your resolve to serve with eyes wide open.

  Appendix

  Recommended Resources

  On Poverty and Development

  Easterly, William Russell. The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good. New York: Penguin, 2007. A thorough critique by one of the foremost economists on Western efforts to get involved in international development.

  Fikkert, Brian, and Steve Corbett. When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourself. Chicago: Moody, 2012. An examination of Christian efforts to respond to poverty, including short-term missions and microenterprise development.

  On Short-Term Missions Materials

  Dearborn, Tim. Short-Term Missions Workbook: From Mission Tourists to Global Citizens. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003. A devotional to help guide participants through the life-changing possibilities of short-term missions experiences.

  Gudgel, Brent. Missio Docs: Mexico. www.brentgudgel.com/doc-on-the-effectiveness-of-short-term-missions. A video documentary on Azusa Pacific University’s Mexico Outreach that exposes some of the critiques described in this book.

  Mack, J., and Leeann Stiles. Mack and Leeann’s Guide to Short-term Mission. Downers Grove, IL: Moody, 2000. An extremely practical guide for planning the logistics of a trip, including checklists, safety guidelines, getting the right documents together, and so on.

  Powell, Kara, and Brad Griffin. Deep Justice Journeys. Short-term missions curriculum for youth ministries (includes material for before, during, and after the trip with both a leader’s guide and a student workbook).

  Round Trip Video Curriculum and Leader’s Guide. DVD documentary/curriculum based on two churches that exchange missions trips—one in North Carolina and one in Kenya.

  Standards of Excellence in Short-Term Missions. www.soe.org. Standards developed by a group of ministry leade
rs for doing short-term missions more effectively. The website includes a number of additional resources.

  On Cultural Intelligence

  The Cultural Intelligence Center. Devoted to ongoing research and development in the field of cultural intelligence. Information about research, assessments, and certification programs are available at www.culturalQ.com.

  Livermore, David. Cultural Intelligence: Improving Your CQ to Engage Our Multicultural World. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009. A deeper and broader application of cultural intelligence to various forms of Christian ministry, including short-term missions, long-term missions, and local churches reaching out to culturally diverse communities

  ———. The Cultural Intelligence Difference: Master the One Skill You Can’t Do Without in Today’s Global Economy. New York: AMACOM, 2011. Written for a broader audience, this book provides a quick overview of CQ and is packed with dozens of proven strategies for improving the four CQ capabilities. Purchase of the physical book also includes access to the CQ online assessment.

  On Long-Term Impact

  Livermore, David. What Can I Do: Making a Global Difference Right Where You Are. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011. Practical ideas for how Christians can make a world of difference from home. This book provides a way to translate a short-term missions experience into a lifetime of engagement in global missions through stories of Christians in business, retail, art, science, health care, and more. It also includes a discernment process for understanding how and where to get involved individually and as a ministry.

  ———, and Terry Linhart. What Can We Do: Practical Ways Your Youth Ministry Can Have a Global Conscience. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011. Written primarily for youth ministry leaders who are looking for ways their youth ministry can be involved globally beyond the short-term missions trip. This book includes an overview of nine global issues and practical ways to teach them to students. The book offers many practical ways to get involved immediately.

  Notes

  Introduction

  [1]. With apologies to my fellow “Americans” who share the American continents with me from Chile to Canada, I’ve chosen to use the term American as it’s often used throughout the world—to describe people who are from the United States of America. I’ve done so for ease in writing and reading. However, I am sympathetic to the idea that the United States is but one country within the Americas!

  [2]. Roger Peterson, Gordon Aeschliman, and R. Wayne Sneed, Maximum Impact, Short-Term Mission: The God-Commanded Repetitive Deployment of Swift, Temporary Nonprofessional Missionaries (Minneapolis: STEM, 2003).

  [3]. Colonialism refers to a nation exerting its power over places outside its own boundaries. For example, nearly every country in places such as Africa and Southeast Asia was colonized throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (or before). Colonialism lost most of its ground in the late twentieth century. However, neocolonialism continues—the indirect ways nations or other groups try to dominate other peoples.

  [4]. P. Christopher Earley of London Business School and Ang Soon of Nanyang Technical University in Singapore have led the charge on constructing the theory and related research regarding CQ. I’m indebted to Soon in particular, a fellow follower of Christ, who has encouraged me and helped me to adapt this work to missions (see P. Christopher Earley and Ang Soon, Cultural Intelligence: Individual Interactions across Cultures [Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003], 239).

  Chapter 1: One World

  [5]. US Census Bureau, “World POPClock Projection,” June 17, 2005, www.census.gov/ipc/www/popclockworld.html.

  [6]. Anthony Marsella, “Conflict, Negotiation, and Mediation across Cultures” (lecture, Fourth Biennial Conference on Intercultural Research, Kent, OH, May 5, 2005).

  [7]. Timothy Garton Ash, Free World: America, Europe, and the Surprising Future of the West (New York: Random House, 2002), 149.

  [8]. Tim Dearborn, “A Global Future for Local Churches,” in The Local Church in a Global Era: Reflections for a New Century, ed. M. L. Stackhouse, T. Dearborn, and S. Paeth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans), 212.

  [9]. Richard Dooling, White Man’s Grave (New York: Picador, 1994), 168.

  [10]. Many of the statistics in this section come from Bryant L. Myers, Exploring World Mission: Context and Challenges (Federal Way, WA: World Vision International, 2003).

  [11]. Bruce Huseby, “AIDS/Razor Blades,” email message to author, June 18, 2005.

  [12]. United Nations AIDS Report, “Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic” (New York: United Nations, 2004).

  [13]. United States Committee for Refugees, “World Refugee Survey: Refugee and IDP Statistics” (Washington, DC: USCRI, 2004).

  [14]. Bryant L. Myers, “Compassion with an Attitude: A Humanitarian’s View of Human Suffering,” Brandywine Review of Faith and International Affairs 2, no. 3 (Winter 2004–2005): 51–55.

  [15]. Don Golden, “Sierra Leone Refugee,” email message to author, March 20, 2002.

  [16]. Ted Fishman, China Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World (New York: Scribner, 2005), 343.

  [17]. Shawn Tully, “Teens: The Most Global Market of All,” Fortune, May 16, 1994, 90.

  [18]. Benjamin Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism Are Reshaping the World (New York: Ballantine Books, 1996), 9.

  [19]. Lamin Sanneh and Joel Carpenter, eds., The Changing Face of Christianity: Africa, the West, and the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 222.

  Chapter 2: One Church

  [20]. Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 2.

  [21]. Ibid., 37.

  [22]. I’m on a campaign to eliminate “third world” from our vocabulary altogether. I’m well aware that it’s still used broadly by the media and by many ministry leaders. While the etymology of “third world” is not originally negative (first world being the Allied nations who opposed communism, second world being communist nations, and third world being a third alternative to either capitalism or communism), many people outside the “first” world find the term offensive. “Developed” and “developing” world is better but still connotes that one is ahead of the other. Majority world, a term describing where most of the people in the world live, is the preferred term by nationals in these regions.

  [23]. Sanneh and Carpenter, Changing Face of Christianity, 3.

  [24]. David Barrett and Todd Johnson, eds., World Christian Trends: AD 30–AD 2200 (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 2001), 3–9.

  [25]. Ibid., 4.

  [26]. Sanneh and Carpenter, Changing Face of Christianity, 5.

  [27]. Nina Shea, In the Lion’s Den: A Shocking Account of Persecution and Martyrdom of Christians Today and How We Should Respond (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1997), ix.

  [28]. Jenkins, Next Christendom, 76.

  [29]. R. Pierce Beaver, “The History of Mission Strategy,” in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement: A Reader, ed. R. Winter and S. Hawthorne (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 1999), 74.

  [30]. Isaac M. T. Mwase, “Shall They Till with Their Own Hoes? Baptists in Zimbabwe and New Patterns of Interdependence, 1950–2000,” in Sanneh and Carpenter, Changing Face of Christianity, 74.

  [31]. Sanneh and Carpenter, Changing Face of Christianity, 7.

  [32]. Clinton Arnold, Powers of Darkness: Principalities and Powers in Paul’s Letters (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity), 210.

  [33]. Jenkins, Next Christendom, 125.

  [34]. Brother Yun and Paul Hattaway, The Heavenly Man: The Remarkable Story of Chinese Christian Brother Yun (Grand Rapids: Monarch, 2003), 65.

  [35]. Paul Hattaway, Back to Jerusalem: Three Chinese House Church Leaders Share Their Vision to Complete the Great Commission (Waynesboro, GA: Authentic Media, 2003).

  [36]. Sam George, “The Nation with the Most Missionaries Is India,” Friday Fax, November 5, 2004.

  [37]. World Evangelical All
iance, “Report on Global Consultation on Evangelical Missiology” (lecture, Global Consultation on Evangelical Missiology, Iguacu, Parana, Brazil, October 1999).

  [38]. Hattaway, Back to Jerusalem, xi.

  Part 2: Conflicting Images

  [39]. Christian Smith, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 69.

  [40]. Organizations use different distinctions to define short-term versus long-term missions. For the most part, long-term missions refers to someone who is going for two years or more to live in another culture and do missions. While short-term missions often includes anything less than two years, this book focuses primarily on short-term missions efforts that last ten days to two weeks.

  [41]. The findings shared in this book from my own research have come from a qualitative method using a grounded-theory approach. Data was collected and analyzed through pre-trip and post-trip interviews and journals of North American participants. In addition, the nationals who received the short-term groups were interviewed and completed surveys. Any quotations by short-term participants or nationals without a footnote are from data I’ve collected. The complete report on the study examining American pastors’ training efforts overseas is reported in David Livermore, “The Emperor’s New Clothes: Experiences of Stateside Church Leaders Who Train Cross-Culturally” (PhD diss., Michigan State University, 2001).