The debate about the value of short-term workers in mission agencies is hotting up, especially as the preference of Gen Y to favour hands-on support rather than financial giving becoming clearer.

I have written an article about this here

How do you think agencies such as CMS should respond?

Perhaps you are interested in a short-term mission placement yourself?

Andrew Robinson, who is the middle of a fairly unusual two year missionary training stint in Jo’burg, is our special guest this week to answer any questions about his experience as a short-term missionary.

Perhaps I can start by asking Andrew why he undertook ministry training in South Africa when the MTS program runs in Sydney?

Great article and topic Jeremy. It seems to me that the willingness of Gen Y to travel and live overseas is an opportunity that our mission agencies need to make use of. From that perspective, the new conference CMS are sponsoring is encouraging.

It’s worth remembering that the long term missionary model was developed in an era where it took many months to get to mission destinations, whereas today it takes a few hours to reach just about anywhere in the world. Your article mentioned that CMS still see long termers as “the main game”, but I wonder if that thinking needs to be re-examined? Perhaps in future short and long term will be seen as equally valuable…

Over this week Andrew Robinson will be writing a daily Summer School blog.

I have looked and looked all over the place (both here and the CMS website) but I haven’t been able to find a link to the blog.

I wonder if Summer School is so packed full that Andrew hasn’t had the time to start it. Is there a link Jeremy?

Heather.

It’s morning tea and I’ve got Andrew right with me now…

We are having some technical difficulties with Andrew’s log in…

I hope he will be online by this arvo and will post his first blog then.

Thanks for your patience.

Looking forward to this discussion. It is an important topic and relates to the tension between how to mobilise today’s generation (is it still Y?) and the needs of ministry in cross cultural situations.

I can’t see short-term ever replacing long-term as the “main game” simply because ministry effectiveness increases exponentially with time. Even if travel is easy, learning language, building trust, discipling believers, etc. are not things that can be fast-tracked.

Having said that, there is a definite role for short-term roles too. Andrew’s position may be unusual in CMS but number of agencies have been using 1-2 year trainee options for a while. In OMF we been running an MTS type program for a few years and it has been a great “success” for both the individuals involved and for our ministries. I would love to see more people doing MTS or similar in cross cultural settings. There are lots of advantages in getting people out on the mission field in this way while they are young, passionate and eager to learn.

Hi everyone.

It’s a treat to be able to talk about this stuff - but it’s almost funny to find myself in the middle of a discussion about long-term and short-term mission.

Because of the nature of what I’ve been doing I’d never thought of myself really as a missionary - at least, not in a different sense to the way that any Christian in any context is called to a be a missionary, a participant in God’s mission.

I really saw doing MTS (or MAP, the Ministry Apprenticeship Program) in South Africa as a training experience more than anything - a chance to experience full-time ministry in a different context, but so that I’d be able to learn from leaders and Christians in South Africa rather than me teaching South Africans a thing or two…

I agree about the strategic centrality of long-term mission - my decision to stay on a second year is, in some ways, testament to the fact that someone with limited training like me can only achieve so much in such a short time.

But I do think that we’re mad not to think deeply about what kind of short-term mission actually serves the worldwide church, and I think that in doing what I’ve been doing I’ve been stretched and taught heaps, as well as making a decent contribution.

Andrew,

I have in mind that some fresh uni grads may be looking at your experience this year and wondering if they should have a chat to CMS about the opportunities.

So a couple of questions on that front.

1. You said to me earlier that people need to be careful they won’t be a burden on the long-term missionaries and that people should think strategically about their placement. Language is going to be a major strategic issue to consider.. what else?

2. If you are doing it for ministry training.. Why consider doing MAP in South Africa rather than MTS in Sydney.. after all there are plethora of cross-cultural opportunities here that may equip you better for ongoing ministry in Sydney?

3. What was the biggest lesson you were taught by the South Africans?

Hmm, good questions Jeremy.

1. In term of a strategic placement, that’s going to depend on a number of things.  Language is fairly obvious, and the cultural gulf is also worth considering.  Living in suburban Jo’burg isn’t so different in many ways to living in Sydney - detached houses, shopping malls, a lot of outdoor living, a heavily Western-influenced culture. So it makes the whole place less ‘foreign’ and simpler to adapt to quickly.  There may be other places where you’re speaking English but in a completely alien cultural context (and that could be the case even in other parts of South Africa).

The other question would be what your destination community is set up for: some ministries are set up to use and train people on a month-long basis.  Any longer may become trickier.  Others may only be able to use you if you stay a year or more...you’ve got to find that out.

The other thing is the work out your own gifts, what ministries you’re best at, and whether you’ll be able to fan those gifts into flame where you’d go.

2. Why do MAP in South Africa?  It’s a good question - in many ways I could have done MTS here, and there are plenty of cross-cultural options.  Even working in a suburb with a different socio-economic situation than middle-class Springwood would be a pretty different experience.

I want to work with Melville Union in South Africa most of all because of the combination of student ministry and homeless work that I was able to be involved in there, and I was impressed with my pastor Dave West and was keen to learn particularly from him.

And I was also interested in experiencing ministry in a different church context - the situation in South Africa means different relationships with Christians from different theological and denominational perspectives than you’ll find in Sydney, which was challenging and refreshing.

I think in many ways, training in South Africa has equipped me well for ministry in Australia, but no doubt there’s things I will have missed.  Training anywhere there’s going to be helpful and less helpful things that that context gives you, but a potential combination of a South African MAP/MTS and theological education in Australia could help to strike the balance.

3.  And the biggest thing I learned from South Africans?  That their questions are different to my questions, that is, the questions they ask about life and the Scriptures are different to the ones that always plagued me, and I realised how important they are - questions about the place of families, the place of traditions and culture, what it means to contextualise the gospel, and questions about the spiritual underworld.

I realised that the Scriptures have much more to say about every aspect of the human experience than I’d ever thought before. So, that was good.

Thanks Andrew. Very thought provoking… especially regarding how much bigger the Bible’s concerns are than our own.

In a similar vein, Andrew’s second blog ‘don’t be a goat’ - about a seminar looking at the biblical imperative to care for the poor- has been posted.

It’s certainly not normal to leave everything you know for potential frustration and deprivation somewhere else. But it all makes senses when you’re following a king who did all that and more.

I don’t know if this is a question you can yet answer Andrew. Maybe you can. But just from hearing from the speakers at Summer School you will have gained some insights.

I am wondering what kinds of frustrations missionaries face (as per quote above)?

Heather
:)

Hopefully Andrew will be back this arvo to answer your question.

Andrew has posted his last Summer School blog.