Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Photo

Elaine Childs conducts Bible clubs for children in Roma villages.

March 31, 2009 | American congregations may be based locally, but for the past generation they have been acting globally.

Evangelical zeal, the increased ease of international travel and the relative wealth (at least until recently) of middle-class Americans has helped create a new approach to mission work: first-person outreach by individual churches sending congregants on short-term excursions. Over the past generation, enthusiastic volunteers from local congregations began to eclipse the old model of long-term mission work coordinated by denominations or mission societies.

“The greatest change in our field in the last 20 years is the desire by congregations to have their own hands-on experience of overseas mission,” said Peter Kemmerle, who coordinates mission work for the Presbyterian Church (USA).

But Kemmerle and others in the field say this popular model now is undergoing a transformation. Although no one expects -- or wants -- the locally based approach to disappear, a maturing process is underway as congregations realize the need to take a coordinated, strategic approach to mission work. This is especially true as the economic crisis begins to hit home. (See related features.)

New strategies – some of which represent a turning back to old models -- include partnering with other churches or organizations; coordinating with denominational agencies; and putting a greater emphasis on long-term commitments and professional missionaries.

Casely B. Essamuah, a native of Ghana who studied missiology in the United States and now runs missions programs for the Bay Area Community Church in Annapolis, Md., said it’s a matter of striking the right balance. Bay Area Community Church, a megachurch affiliated with the Willow Creek Association, supports 15 long-term missionaries around the world, mainly medical professionals, as well as sending 70 to 100 congregants each year on short-term trips.

But even large congregations like his “tend to reinvent the wheel every time we go on a mission,” he said. “On the other hand, with denominational structures, they can sometimes become impersonal.”

Harnessing enthusiasm and expertise

The phenomenon of short-term missions continues to flourish, and even relatively small churches can sponsor trips to nearby regions, such as Central America and the Caribbean. Overall, up to 1.6 million American Christians take part in overseas mission trips each year, with trips averaging about one week in length, according to research by Robert Wuthnow, a sociologist of religion at Princeton University. He estimates churches spend $2.4 billion on these trips each year, and other researchers put the numbers even higher.

But in recent years, congregations and mission experts have begun to recognize the limits of short-term mission work and to look for ways to couple the energy and enthusiasm of local congregations with the expertise that’s needed overseas.

Individual congregations that embark on mission work can repeat mistakes that easily could be avoided with better preparation and greater cooperation. A Washington Post story last year recounted some blunders, such as the church in Mexico that was painted six times in the course of one summer by six mission groups. The story also noted that holiday locales are preferred and that the Bahamas, for example, receive one short-term missionary for every 15 residents. Such American evangelizers sometimes are dismissed as “vacationaries.”

Yet millions of U.S. believers have had their eyes opened to the reality of life in other parts of the world, as well as the faith that flourishes in Africa, Asia, Latin America and elsewhere.