June 12, 2015

A Biblical Basis for Short-Term Missions

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[intro]When most of us think of missions, we think of long-term missionaries, like Jim Elliot or Amy Carmichael or Hudson Taylor. We think of men and women who travel to persecuted lands and get martyred.[/intro]

Scary thought, isn’t it? That may be why there is a reported shortage of Western (aka. American and European) long-term missionaries. Suburbia is comfortable. Traveling to Africa or China or Iran…not so much.

But our comfort is no excuse not to go.

And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. – Acts 1:8b

God’s pattern for missions is for us to spread His word locally, then regionally, then world-wide. Granted, most of us will stay in the “local” category for most of our lives. Very few of us will ever be called to dedicate our entire lives to the gospel in a foreign country (or even a distant state, like the team from Iowa who founded Riv 35 years ago or so). But we live in an unprecedented age where we can go thousands of miles away in the journey of just a few hours, and that means that most of us have the unprecedented opportunity to “go” overseas at least once or twice in our lives on a short-term mission trip.

Even better? There’s a Biblical precedent for short-term missions.

God’s call in the Bible

Short-term missions are  so important, it even begins in the Old Testament. Jonah is one of the few prophets called to speak not to Israel and Judea, but to an enemy nation, the brutal, mutilating, corpse-defiling Ninevites. God’s call? Repent or die. Jonah was famously reluctant; he even fled in the opposite direction, but after a few days to mull over his rebellion against God in the belly of a giant fish, he went to Nineveh and shouted his message in the streets…and the people—the baby-murdering Assyrians—repented, and were spared God’s wrath. In fact, Jesus even held them up as an example of repentance in Matthew 12:41…and all because of a short-term missionary.

The pattern of short-term missions is picked up by Jesus. Before he was even crucified, Jesus sent out two separate waves of short-term missionaries: the twelve (Luke 9:1-6), then the 72 (Luke 10:1-20). His instructions to both groups? Preach the Gospel and heal people. If a person welcomed them into their house, stay there for a while. If a town was utterly unreceptive, move on. The goal was to spread the Gospel to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible.

One more extremely short-term trip is specifically worth mentioning: After the Holy Spirit came, God supernaturally sent Philip on a very incredibly short-term missions trip to evangelize an Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26-40). Literally, God told Philip to go to the road heading from Jerusalem to Gaza, southwest of Jerusalem, where he encountered the wagon of an Ethiopian court official who just happened to be reading the book of Isaiah at the time. They talked for maybe an hour or two, Philip baptized the Ethiopian, and then God supernaturally picked Philip up and dropped him off in Azotus (modern Ashdod)—66 km west of Jerusalem, and about 30 km north of Gaza. And all that work just for one guy.

God’s call to us

Of course, it’s easy to write off these and other examples of straight-up evangelism as exceptions, not the rule. After all, there was a literal divine command in all of these examples. But then, we have one too:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. – Matthew 28:19-20

That’s a command and a promise to all of us. God still has work for us to do…and we have the technology that means he doesn’t even need to supernaturally air-lift us for us to go and make disciples of all nations.

So what’s holding you back?

At Riv, we partner with Back2Back ministries in Mazatlan, Mexico. For years now, we’ve been building relationships with both the workers and the orphans, letting Jesus’ love shine through us. It’s our dream that everyone at Riv has the opportunity to go on a trip with us, at least once. And even if you physically can’t go yourself, you can still go into the community with Compassion, and help send others overseas. Learn more and sign up for a Mazatlan trip online at rivchurch.com/mexico.

Image Credit: Mike Lilly, from a 2012 trip to Mazatlan

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