Mission Trips vs. Strategic Visits: Nathan Nelson on Transformational International Partnerships for Your Church

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Nathan Nelson, Pastor of Mission and Outreach at Bethany Community Church in the Seattle, Washington region.

Do you ever feel like short-term missions trips actually push against creating deep, lasting change in the communities you serve? Tune in as Nathan shares how to move beyond the trip itself to building lasting relationships with partnerships to make a meaningful, long-term impact.

* Long-term partnerships. // Rather than engaging in short-term missions trips, Bethany Community Church has chosen to invest in three global strategic partnerships: Agros International in Nicaragua, Roblealto Child Care Association in Costa Rica, and World Relief in Rwanda. These partnerships are rooted in the principals of long term relationships, indigenous leadership, and mutual transformation.

* Ineffective short-term missions trips. // When considering short-term missions, we have to recognize that they are for a limited amount of time. Often the focus is on the experience rather than the relationships built with a partner organization, so the trip alone doesn’t make much difference. But with the right approach, these trips can be transformative for both the volunteers and the communities they serve.

* More harm than good. // Nathan shares his experience working with an orphanage at the US-Mexico border where despite well-intentioned support from various church teams over the years, the orphanage’s conditions were decrepit, and there were multiple attempts by children to escape. These children felt trapped and were not prepared for life outside the orphanage. 20% of churches around the United States support some amount of work happening in an orphanage or residential care facility. However, these systems are often broken and short-term missions trips do more harm than good toward these vulnerable children.

* Family-based care. // God’s design was for children to grow up in the context of the family. Seeking to develop long-term partnerships with organizations that focus on a family-based care model with a goal to reconnect vulnerable children with biological family members have led to beautiful transformations. This requires churches to shift away from the mindset of supporting orphanages and towards empowering families to care for their children. Churches need to be part of God’s work in providing support to families, whether it’s in Rwanda, Seattle, or any other community.

* Tool kit from Faith to Action. // If your church is ready to find a long-term partnership helping vulnerable children, the Faith to Action Initiative has great resources to help you find organizations that are embodying these best practices. They also offer a tool kit called Short-Term Missions: Guidance to Support Orphans and Vulnerable Children that instructs how to shape a short-term mission trip so that it is effectively doing good.

* Strategic visits. // Bethany offers strategic visits which are intended to build a long-term relationship with a partner. During these visits, the partner is the one doing the work on the ground and the volunteers offer encouragement and support the ongoing work of the partner organization. Trips range from 7 to 12 days with teams of 5-12 people annually. Teams spend 3-6 months training before they leave to help set their hearts and minds around the core objectives, the most important being to encourage the staff of the partner organization. After they return, the team has a follow-up meeting once a month for six months. The end goal is to summarize what they experienced into a core discipleship theme and communicate the work that God is doing in the partner organization to the rest of the church.