What is the vision for short-term missions at your church?
I said in a previous question that everybody should want to do short-term missions. One of the reasons for that is that we're a global church, and seeing the way the church functions outside of your own culture is enriching, broadening, strengthening, and deepening, and it gives you a bigger picture of God. So one of the functions of short-term missions is all of those things: more of God, learning to trust him more, learning how he works in another culture, learning what missionary life is like, taking some risks yourself. All those things are good for us.
Secondly we want it to be good for missions. So part of the strategy is to make sure that missionaries want you to come before you go. That would be a part of it.
And, thirdly, many long-term missionaries were birthed through their experience in short-term missions. So for recruiting or inspiring more long-term missionaries, I think a program of short-term missions is important.
The world has become very small. It's a global village, and globalization is an increasingly obvious reality. And for us to be ethnocentric or culture-centric would show that we don't have an appreciation for the breadth of God's kingdom and the complexity of his church. By John Piper. © 2009 Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org
