Short-term Missions
Short-term missions are an effective tool for assisting the local church in discipling of believers with a passion for reaching our world for Christ. We believe that the investment into short-term missions should be harnessed into a long-term commitment to world evangelism. We rejoice over the many souls that come to Christ during our outreaches, but another area of blessing is the impact on the lives of individuals who participated in these missions outreaches.
Two-fold purpose of short-term mission teams
Primary Purpose
- The purpose of a short-term mission team is to assist the indigenous Christian leadership as they evangelize and disciple their own people.
- To help train indigenous Christians to be witnesses, teachers, and preachers.
- To assist Christian leaders in the planting of churches within unreached people groups.
Secondary Purpose
- To bring about an awareness of a lost and hurting world. that leads to redemptive action.
- To create, develop and guide personal involvement in missions.
- To return home a more dedicated Christian witness in your community and encouraging your church to greater involvement in the overall work of missions.
- To awaken those who God is calling into missionary service to pursue training for effective ministry.
Values that guide short-term mission projects
Where and what kind of short-term trip a person takes is important in the mobilization process. Anything cross-cultural is good, but those who’ve been exposed to saturation evangelism movements gain a better understanding of our vision.
The Great Commission must not be reduced to one project, a specific end date, or one sector of the world.
Short-term mission projects must be coordinated with long-term goals.
Focus must be on the people and not just on a task.
Short-termers who learn some language skills get further with people and make a lasting impact.
Inter-church mission projects help to build alliances.
Pre-mission, cross-cultural, and bilingual team building greatly increases effectiveness on the field.