I have been involved in U.S. short-term missions all my life.
Along the way, I have experienced nearly every aspect of them.
I grew up, and still live, in a host community. I have also participated in and led short-term mission experiences as a guest.
In addition, I have served with a sending organization.
The two statements I hear most often from guests are, “They were so happy with so little,” and, “I got way more than I gave.”
The truth is that host communities often receive some of the greatest benefits from short-term missions in North America.
Each summer, thousands of short-term missionaries serve in economically challenged communities.
Local churches often benefit in four significant ways: encouragement, joy, hope and a deeper appreciation of the cross-centered gospel.
Those outcomes would not happen in quite the same way without short-term missions.
Encouragement
Teaching others: Hosts spend a great deal of time explaining their culture, history and values.
They also show visitors how they live out their faith each day.
This gives hosts a chance to share their voices in ways they may not have before.
That experience can encourage them to keep using those voices.
I know of one community where a host spent so much time teaching visiting groups that he eventually started his own short-term missions organization.
Each year, he brings students into his community. They serve alongside him, learn from him and live out the gospel with his local church.
Taking pride in their identity in Christ: Hosts find satisfaction in belonging to a community where people come to build relationships and grow in their faith.
Visitors often leave with a deeper relationship with Christ than when they arrived.
Sharing the gospel in their own Jerusalem: Every summer, host communities see hundreds of members of the “great cloud of witnesses” enter their neighborhoods.
Their presence helps hosts feel supported.
It also encourages them to keep proclaiming the Good News long after the guests have gone home.
Joy
Watching guests grow: Hosts find joy in helping guests live out the gospel instead of simply talking about it.
They rejoice when visitors gain a better understanding of what it means to follow Christ.
Those guests can then return home better prepared to live differently.
Being Christ to guests: Hosts in the “Church That Stays” love expressing Christ’s love to guests from “The Church That Pays.”
There is joy in helping visitors discover something important.
The same Jesus they worship at home is alive and transforming lives in the host community.
Hope
Believing people can change: When guests return to the same communities year after year, hosts can watch lives change.
Some groups arrive better prepared because they learned about the community before coming.
Others grow spiritually together before they ever step off the bus.
Hosts see people who once focused only on doing return with a different attitude.
They now want to learn, listen and build relationships.
Knowing hosts are part of the body too: Hosts gain hope as guests begin to understand what Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 12:12-31.
Visitors start to recognize that “those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable” (verse 22).
That hope grows when spiritually thirsty guests return to a well far from home.
There, they encounter Jesus and leave satisfied.
A Deeper Appreciation of the Cross-Centered Gospel
Hosts sometimes witness the harm, embarrassment and shame caused by a small number of self-righteous or prideful short-term missionaries.
Those experiences can become evidence against Christianity itself.
When that happens, it is easy to forget that God’s grace also extends to those who have represented him poorly.
That kind of thinking moves the cross away from the center of the gospel.
Instead, we must keep Christ’s atoning work at its heart.
Short-term mission trips can build relationships that help hosts see guests differently.
They begin to recognize them as brothers and sisters washed clean by the same blood Christ shed for all believers.
Those relationships remind hosts that guests belong to the same family Paul describes in Romans 3:22:
“This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.”
So keep serving in the mission field of North America.
We are receiving far more than many people realize.
About the contributor: Eric Iverson is a ministry veteran, teacher and consultant with more than four decades of experience in youth ministry, missions and Christian leadership. His work has included leadership roles with YouthWorks, Youth Specialties, Youth Leadership and Park Avenue Church in Minneapolis. He has also served at Boyce College and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Iverson later worked as an equity specialist with Mounds View Public Schools and continued teaching and consulting on youth ministry, race, multiethnic ministry and community engagement.