Jenny Pope - 13 jun 2008 15:37 - Gewijzigd: 13 jun 2008 15:37

Short-term missionaries make long-term impact

COLUMBIA (ABP) -- Kevin and Naomi Scantlan of Columbia feel called to international missions. But as integrated technology services analysts at University of Missouri Health Care and church lay leaders, committing to years abroad really isn’t feasible.

That’s why they’re planning their second mission trip to Kenya, along with eight fellow members of Memorial Baptist Church, to provide medical services and teach vacation Bible school to orphans and at-risk children supported by Buckner International. The Texas Baptist agency operates several benevolent ministries.

The Scantlans are among the 2-3 million Christians from the United States engaging in short-term missions work around the globe annually today, according to Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s Global Missions Coordinator Rob Nash. In 1984, that number was 18,000. „This is a profound and revolutionary shift,” Kevin Scantlan said. „For much of the 20th century, the only U.S. Christians engaged beyond the United States were missionaries, diplomats and military types. With jet planes and globalization, this reality [has] shifted dramatically.”

Buckner International President Ken Hall remembers growing up in a Baptist family and struggling with the ”call to missions.”„For too long, we were led to believe that being called to missions meant 30 or 40 years in Africa,” he said. ”That led to a lot of guilty feelings, but it also provided a good excuse for not becoming a missionary.” Hall believes all Christians are called to be missionaries. „First-century missionaries were not so much vocational missionaries as professionals with a vocation that went on missions,” he said.

Wendy Norvelle, associate vice president in the office of mobilization at the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board, sees volunteers as involved not only in hands-on ministry, but also in strategic planning. „We are seeing a new generation of volunteer missions, where churches are becoming strategically involved with particular teams or people groups overseas and in longer-term relationships. Churches and those who go on short-term mission trips are at the table in developing mission strategies. It’s a brand new strategic environment,” Norvelle said.

„In a sense, we’re moving away from the word ’volunteers’ and instead are using ’short-term mission teams.’ We really do see that the [local] church has a strategic role in fulfilling the Great Commission and in being a significant partner in reaching people groups.”

Many critics question the effectiveness of short-term missions, but Hall sees their impact on children and families every day. Buckner sends about 4,000 volunteers on short-term mission trips each year to minister to orphans, at-risk children and families in the United States and nine countries around the world. These volunteer missionaries travel to support indigenous Christian staff employed by Buckner to provide follow-up evangelistic work in orphanages, distribute humanitarian aid, train and support foster families and network with Christian churches to provide sustainable ministries to aid children and families in need.

„Short-term missions workers can have an impact,” Hall said. „But that impact is far greater when we work with people inside the country, who prepare for our trips and help us work in a culturally sensitive and effective way.” Norvelle agreed. „If [short-term and long-term mission workers] are together in developing strategy, it’s an asset. The key is that the strategy is one that everyone buys into,” she said. „The longer-term missionary perhaps has an insight into the culture and the beliefs and worldviews [of a region] which a church at the beginning would not have, though a church can learn it. But the energy and creativity of short-term mission teams can enhance” the work of long-term missionaries.

The Scantlans may be organizing their first church trip to Kenya, but they’ve already seen a huge response among members through fundraising and prayer support. Although future plans have not been made, Kevin Scantlan expects his church will continue to support the work they’ve started. „One church cannot support a whole area,” he said. „But if you get a number of churches who do that and partner together … maybe not so much with each other, but through an organization like Buckner, you can make a bigger impact.”

Building relationships and making the missions experience personal „can be a life-changing thing for someone,” Naomi Scantlan said. „And not just for us, but for the whole church. If we don’t get involved ourselves, then it doesn’t change us.”

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