S2 Ep7: Viewing Short Term Missions Through the Lens of "Greater Together"

My view is that I think partnership is a good word if we were to use it well. I think we use it too much to describe things that aren't essentially partnership. And so in some ways we've undermined the power of the word because of the way that we use it. Partnership at the very least implies some sort of co-equality and mutual interdependence. That is just not the dynamic that churches who send short-term teams has in most cases. I don't think that anyone likes to be patronized. Partnership can go horribly wrong and it can go fabulously well. Partnership with our relationship I have no enough time for that. And it feels very good. It feels really cool to have that power hand. What would it be like if we truly considered every believer as co-equal? But maybe met together you was just like love it for sight. God for our hearts, but then I'd like Jonathan and David. I'm Kareeta Chen and this is "Disnition Shift." A podcast where we explore the changing face of global missions. Join me and my co-host Josh Irby as we explore this new era of global missions and what part each of us might play. Well Kareeta, we have saved this topic towards the end of the season because it's a big one. We're talking about short-term missions. It's a great topic and yet it is also another complex topic to talk about. Because I don't know about you, but I've heard and seen firsthand. I mean, there's a lot of good as come from short-term missions. Many missions organizations and churches will have stories upon stories to share about that. But at the same time, there's also been pushback about what maybe people have done or should have done, could have done. And so we're here to talk about all that. Yeah, flashback to my senior year of college. And I'd been exposed to missions through people. Missionaries coming into our church and hearing about it. But my first mission trip was actually a one-year experience moving to another country overseas to Croatia. And some people might consider that short midterm. It's definitely not long-term in that sense. But that one year gave me a vision for missions that now has lasted more than two decades. And I'm still working in the same region of the world, still involved in relationships there and end up living there for more than a decade later on. So there is something powerful about the experience one gets crossing cultures in a short-term experience. Yeah, absolutely. And our own organization that is, in fact, how many of our ministries overseas came into existence. The part of the world that I was in, that's how I began. And we actually heard from those leaders. If you remember CCH and Greg Ann Sharman, the Listerian in our other episode, that's where I began. And it was because they sent people on short-term missions, myself included. We got a taste of what was happening there, what could happen there. And people wanted to go back. And they went back after a short summer trip for a year. And then they decided to go for three years. And then some have been there for decades. So that's a great example right there. Yeah, and on the flip side, as you mentioned earlier, there has been a lot of chatter about the negative effect of short-term missions. For sure. The distraction it is from long-term missions, even using the word "missions" for it. Should you use that word? People have called it, you know, "fund-raised vacations." People have talked about how the people who receive short-term trips spend all their energy hosting foreigners instead of doing the work on the ground or having the capacity to do that. We've touched on that in other episodes and in last season, even, about how the short-term mechanism of the US has created a sense of expert and receiver. So there's many issues that need to be addressed about short-term trips, especially if we're going to take seriously the topics we've been discussing. Yeah. And I will be the first to say that I am not an expert. I've participated in this, but I am in no way an expert on this topic, especially with all the chatter that has been happening around this topic. And so I'm really glad that we get to hear from Forest Inslee today. As we dive more into this wonderful but yet complex topic of short-term missions. Forest is a professor of community development at Northwestern University in the Seattle area and the editor of the book, "Reimagining Short-term Missions." I think we have to get rid of an old paradigm really that divides the world in descending churches and then mission fields. On the deep level Christian culture operates with the assumption that if any culture or organization or church happens to be in a place that we have labeled mission field, then by definition they all must be on the receiving end of that social equation. So on some level we might even assume that believers who have been in living countries that we've called mission field are incapable of bringing the gospel even to their own people, which is silly. Regardless of where they lived. You know, it's certainly the way that Jesus sees us. It's this conviction of co-equality that motivated forests to gather contributors from around the world to voice their thoughts on short-term missions from the West. And that's why many of the contributors to reimagining short-term missions that challenge the church to set aside old ways of thinking about missions. And to understand that the goal of missions belongs to every part of global church. Not just the some who have historically come to think of themselves as "senders." And if we learn to think in global church terms, then we would have to rethink really what missions is, what we're about, what we're committing to. Especially short-term missions, if we can somehow help each other to get free of this top-down dynamic of the powerful reaching down to save the powerless, then we can start talking about real partnership, which is more authentic, which is more vulnerable, which is more interdependent. Forest emphasizes that a reimagining of short-term missions will be founded on a global church approach. I think global church mentality, global church thinking means that together, in collaboration with other members of the global church, we decide how to support one another and depend on one another in our common goal of bringing truth and mercy and healing to those who need it. And of course, those people live in every country, including every country in the West. So a global church approach really redefines what the mission field is. And when it comes to what has to be changed, I think that's the first step as we've got to look carefully at how we think and how we look at the world and how we reify and reiterate these power differentials that often guide our short-term mission efforts in particular. I really like the question that Forest and Slee pose, which is like, what would it be like if we truly considered every believer as co-equal? How do that question sit with you, Josh? I mean, it would change a lot, especially in how we engage in short-term missions. I think, you know, with long-term missions, there's this humbling period of language learning, of cross-cultural transition, of showing up at the grocery store and not knowing what to about, to make your dinner that night. There's a built-in humbling process. But with short-term, you show up with something that maybe most of the time in your mind you have and they don't. Already, there's not a co-equality to that. And you're going to bring it there for a week. There's no time for the humbling, someone's translating for you so you can speak fast in your own language. In some ways, oftentimes short-term trips are built in a way that emphasizes the lack of equality. Yeah, just the nature of the word short-term. It creates a little sense of an urgency, right? Like, and it's not an urgency. It's always a good part of the urgency. I mean, yes, we got to do something fast because our time is limited. And sometimes as something, as we want to share the gospel, that's a great thing. But when you're doing it in this way of like, I'm just going to come in and I got to do this thing, right? Then that's what takes away that co-equality idea. I'm not necessarily thinking about what they can do together with us, but it's what we can do. And we only have this much time. And so we got to do our best of that. And while this is not new for Jesus, as he mentioned, Jesus always treated people as co-equal. The new growth of the churches we've looked at in earlier episodes all over the world and the rise of the global church, truly being global, is an answer to that. That there are churches, believers, reaching their own countries in every place we could possibly go on a short-term trip. Right. Yeah. And that is completely different. Just as you were saying that, I can think back to one of my first trips and back in '94. And in that part of the world that I went to, we could have said at that time that there was very little believers, little to no churches established there. But if we were to go back there today, it'd be very different. I mean, there's still a space in place for short-term missions there. But we would have to go in looking at it very differently. Because there are believers there that are doing incredible things. And it's no longer a, we got something we want to bring in for you. It's maybe what we've been talking about. I was like, what do you have going on? And what can we bring in that can make this better together if we work together, even if it's just for a short-term period? [Music] As I mentioned earlier, Forrest edited a book with contributors from around the world. And here he retells a story of a partnership that is striving to be co-equal. One of the chapters written by Nathan Nelson who is a admissions pastor he talks about how their partnership with groups in Rwanda have really made the ministries in Rwanda stronger because of some of the expertise and resources that the Americans bring. But at the same time they invite folks from Rwanda to come and help the church in the U.S. change. Right? And so they present a particular narrowly problem about reaching people in poverty in the neighborhood around them. And they present that problem to their partners from Rwanda expecting ideas that may in fact change their approach. Right? And that's kind of a stretch. We so don't think about that in the short term mission dynamic that we might actually be changed ourselves. But that I think is the kind of open attitude we need to have. Is that we are all broken. We also all have strengths and weaknesses and we need to bring those together rely on each other. See each other as truly brothers and sisters, not dominant partner in junior partner. So I just think there's lots of expertise. One of my friends in manual, he's also an author of the book. He is in Rwanda and he talks about the fact that in Rwanda of course they have a history, a recent history of dealing with conflict between people who fundamentally disagree with one another. And he says, you know, what would happen if we were allowed to speak into the dynamic that divides America right now? So profoundly along political lines. He said, we really think that we might be able to help but no one asks us. Right? No one would even have the thought that we'd have something important to say that we can actually help them in that way. I love these examples. Far Springs up from Rwanda and it's also a good time to point out that farce is living what he's preaching because when he edited his book together, he got people on both sides of the mission involvement to speak into that and to write essays on that. So definitely recommend his book. But this idea that through short term missions, we can be changed. That's pretty important. That's a huge paradigm shift right there. And the fact that Immanuel from Rwanda is mentioning that, you know, I think we might actually have something we can offer to help with the problem of division in America. But nobody asked. That's pretty sad. Yeah, it really is. And you know, not everybody's going to speak up like that. So the fact that he did, I mean, that's just so powerful. And that he says, nobody asks. Wow, and completely, convecting. Well, there's this idea that we are supposed to be in the dominant position in the West. It's again, that same, same mentality and paradigm that's been solidified and built up over the years and multiple trips where we're the one bringing and coming. And yet we so often do what Nathan Nelson talks about of like, well, why don't you come to our church? I want you to give us some advice on how we can do better in our communities. Yeah. And that makes me think back to when we're talking about the power hat, you know, it's like when we've gone as the dominant ones, whether it be that we intentionally thought that we did or if it's subconsciously, like it was still on. We had that power hat. And so we did it back to the idea of like nobody asking when you're in that position of power. That's what happens. We don't ask. And we don't see. We just make our way. Sometimes force our way in there and just do what we want to do. When we're coming with all of our power, we are not able to then be changed because of the position we put ourselves in. Yeah. Richard Tuss, who is a Native American scholar and writer, you know, he once said to me that because the Native church is relegated to this category of mission fields, it means that the church in the West, the broader dominant church, doesn't have the capacity to receive this corrective voice from the margin to listen to the wisdom that comes from there. I think this is one of those places where we do need to start listening. It takes courage, it takes humility. And I think that's just hard unless you are convinced that that you've got issues to work through, you're probably not going to do that that hard work. So it's really striking to me that one of the major problems with short term missions is that it's one directional. It's unidirectional. What do you think about that? Yeah, there's nothing wrong with spending a short amount of time with someone or in someone's context. The problems start when that's only going one way and one bucket is full and one bucket is empty, but there's so much we can learn from those that are on the margin. I'm putting it in quotes. Yeah. As Richard Twist brings up, if we have the courage to listen and the humility to grow from it, there's so much that can happen if that arrow goes both directions. Yeah, so the picture that I have in my mind right now, it's like arrows going all different directions and it really should always be that way. In order for us to remember the type of posture we should be in. And so like you said, we have to be much better and we have to learn from them and them from us. And that should be the way we continue to go, right? In fact, that reminds me of something for us talked about where some of his students have actually come up with a term that reflects this type of partnership. Some of my students and I really were frustrated with this word empowerment. So here's an example of one of the aha moments for me learning from them. You know, we hear that word empowerment as an objective of most programs or projects when it comes to cultural ministry. And we speak of empowering the poor with knowledge and resources to start small businesses for example, or empowering people with other leadership skills for church leadership or empowering women's groups to start education co-ops for their kids. But the problem is that that word itself is one that can promote a fundamental inequality. And when you break it down, you think about that word empowered implies that one party has the power and gives power to another party that doesn't have power or resources or what have you. So really the word oftentimes depends on and produces an imbalance in terms of relationship. My students and I out of our frustration with that word and power came to realize that it's still an accurate word to use in a lot of situations. But when we use it to describe everything that a missionary does or a community developer does that we're also reinforcing the assumption that there's always one person or agency that's strong and one that's weak. And whichever side of that equation we're on, empowerment can keep reminding us that we are either or. I mean in some ways it's a word that puts us in our places so to speak. And for better or for worse, keeps us in them. So, you know, we try to get out of this binary way of being then that saw people as either or, you know, send it our receiver, send it our host. And of course, we realize that that dynamic is what prevents people from really seeing what's strong and beautiful in the people that we ostensibly seek to serve. And it works against any possibility of authentic, vulnerable, dependent, co-equal partnership. We end up inventing a word actually. And it's a word that shows up in the book quite a bit. The word is co-powerment. And we can be defined as a really dynamic of mutual exchange through which both sides of a social equation are made stronger and more effective by the other. Again, it's a core value in the book. And, you know, especially for missionaries, it's important to acknowledge that, you know, we simply can't know all we need to know to serve effectively in a culture that's not our own, for example. At the same time, we can choose to believe that all people have inherent value and that all of them have much to offer if we choose to receive. And if we can learn to see what's beautiful and good and worthy in our partners, and maybe really to see the value of the resources that they bring to the table, maybe I think we might also find humility to depend on their strengths as we want them to depend on ours. You know, I'm going to say, honestly, if we could practice that kind of trusting mutuality with our mission's partners, but that example alone would stand as a testimony to God's love to those who see it wherever we are. It's so interesting how the word empowerment kind of took hold and took off as this positive thing leading towards sustainability and local ownership when you empower people. It's about giving power away, right? Absolutely. And then when I was listening to Forrest, speak about this, I remember I had this kind of excitement building up inside of me because recently, I've been having all these conversations with a lot of my girlfriends about this term empowerment. And we didn't really know how to put it into words, but there was something about that word that We were trying to wrestle with like it didn't feel all negative but it also wasn't all positive and I love how they've come up with this word that kind of took away that feeling of tense like something not quite right and it's because there was a sense of power that is inherent in that word empowerment that puts people on on sides rather than being together. Well, even this whole discussion that we're having this season of power and partnership now we recognized earlier on that if all the effort is like, oh, I'm so powerful. It's the burden to be so powerful. How can I give my power away to the less powerful people? I need to share it. Let me share it out of the generosity of my heart that you miss out on how powerful everyone else is in the image of God. Yeah. Understand their context. Having gone through the things they've gone through in their story, you just miss that whole thing and empowerment is still unidirectional. Right. And as we push ourselves to be multi-directional and how we think about missions, co-powerment is just such a great, a great term for that. It is. I mean, the term itself already puts you in that posture of always remembering that there's not one side that is greater than the other. And I think that's so key when we enter into this new way of thinking of approaching short term missions. So we were having a conversation recently with one of one of our colleagues, Doug who works in Latin America and we're talking about Philippians together as a team. And he was talking about how in the book of Philippians Paul never actually thanks to Philippians for their gift. The whole reason why he's writing this letter. He comes really close. He thinks God for their gift. He rejoices in God because of their gift. He loves them and cares about them. They bring him joy. But he doesn't think them for the gift because then in that time frame, he would give them the power. That's very interesting. Yeah. Because they are the empowers through their gift. And said he talks about really I give my gifts to God. You give your gifts to God. God provides for both of us. And it really has a think about it. It's kind of a co-powering way of talking about resources, money, teaching. And here's Paul. He started the church there. So he has his own sort of power. But yet right. They are co-powering together. I love that. What a beautiful way to move forward. I think it's also interesting to add. I don't think we mentioned this yet. The students that forest is referencing our students from all over the world. So God, you brought that up. Yes. Who were the people who were struggling with the word empowerment? A reflection of the global church. And the global church has this ability to think and create new paradigms, fitting for the global church that a bunch of people from one country never would have come up with. Right. And so as he said just a second ago, co-powerment makes authentic vulnerability possible. It makes equal partnership possible. It means that we come together in mutuality and make each other stronger. And unless our short term trips can contribute to that and not be an impediment to that co-powerment, then yes, we shouldn't do them. But if we can figure out a new paradigm of how to do that, new principles to apply, then they could be a great engine for relational connection that brings about this co-powerment. Well said, Josh. Much of the history of missions, where foreigners are sent into a context to speak the gospel, to share the gospel, I think there's a lot of validity to those efforts. But we live in a different world. We live in a globalized world for better or for worse. We live in a world where many, many people have at least the potential of exposure to the gospel message. And I just think because of those changes, we need to also change. We can't assume that we all live in the book of Acts, right? You know, a lot of the authors in this book, they are critical of what missions is, especially of Western conceptions of mission. But they're also hopeful. They see a different sort of dynamic emerging, something that can be built that is more co-equal and collaborative between all churches. Some people would say let's not call it missions because we've already gotten really far from what that word really means, a bit with the speaking. But they're not saying we should cease all interaction, all ministry and service to one another on a global scale. They have hope for what missions could become. I love that Faris brings up the book of Acts here. I don't know, Chris, when you read the book of Acts, who do you feel like you are in the story? Or who do you feel challenged to be in the story? This is a trick question, Josh. I'm just trying to ask you a trick question. I mean, I'm going to be the ones that it's bringing. Right. I'm like, this be Paul, you know, let's be the guy, you know, I know that missions is being Paul. That's right. And I was thinking about this lately. You know who is behind a lot of what happened in Acts, besides Holy Spirit, obviously, it's not everything. Right. Barnabas. Barnabas shows up in the story, having sold his land and giving his resources to the apostles to use for the church. Then he shows up when he sent Antioch to encourage a new church and to help teach them. Then he's actually the one who sponsors Paul to get him a meeting with the apostles and then bring him from Tarsus to Antioch to teach because he believed to Paul. It's something to give. And so there's this guy behind the scene. He's not the front guy. He's not the one who's, you know, the speaker coming into town. He's just behind the scenes. He's encouraging people. He's saying, "Hey, you're good over here. Why don't you get involved and why don't we connect these people there and these resources and he's making things happen behind the scenes?" I think there's something there to what first is saying about Acts. One is that the time is not the same as it was in Acts because people have access to the gospel in ways they've never had before. And there's believers in every country around the world. But also just looking at the book of Acts, it's not a call for everybody to be just like Paul. Yeah. We need Barnabasus. We need Barnabasus. Yeah. And Priscilla and Aquila. Yes. And John Marx and all the different characters in there. We need all the global church to be a part of the mission. That's right. Forrest shares a story of what it could look like to step away from empowerment into co-powerment. There are a lot of NGOs and short-term mission trips that are involved with Haiti. In this particular chapter, a group of Haitians and an American missionary, really, made the case that their lesson learned had to do with learning to speak truth to the people who are coming into their country to help. And they summarized that truth as learning to stand in the back. You know, really typically they would receive short-term teams. And the teams would just kind of take over. Whatever the ministry was, even if it was a ministry going for years, they would come in assuming that not a lot was happening, that somehow it was ineffective, and that somehow they needed to be primary as foreign experts in the work that was happening. And I think there was a lot of cultural pressure on the part of the Haitian folks to act away as to that. I mean, it's not just a one-sided dynamic when it comes to short-term missions that are more dominating, more insensitive. I think a history of colonialism. I think inequality of power and resources that characterizes the world today. Those things have really embedded in cultures like the culture of Haiti. This idea that, yeah, you know, because they're Westerners and because they represent greater resources, they probably know better. And they may not say that overtly, but it's built into the psyche of nations that have experienced for so many years that dynamic of oppression really. And so I think what was really interesting is that for whatever reason, one time when a visiting team came into a situation where they were doing some performances in a community the Haitians were. And the American missionaries, short-term missionaries got up and kind of took center stage. Again, assuming that they needed to, like somehow what was happening was, was deficient or incomplete. And they actually asked them, you know, "Please, would you stand at the back of the room instead of at the front here on the stage?" And it caused some offense, right? Those people, I think, who were visiting didn't expect that sort of pushback, but it was an important moment for this Haitian team of developers and ministers because, you know, it was a moment when they understood that, yes, if they spoke truth about what was really happening in terms of the dynamic that the most part dishonoring to them, that they might actually lose people. They might actually lose foreign visitors and might actually lose their relationship with the churches that sent them. But at the same time, it might also lead to a really great. kind of partnership that is much more whole and healthy and mutually empowering. And that's been their experience. Some people have walked away from them. Some American churches, but others have committed to them. And I think as a result that the relationships that now characterize that partnership are much deeper, more honest, and I think more effective. Because now both players are playing to their strengths. Americans can bring resources, for example. But Haitians can bring expertise, local wisdom, that the Americans could never bring. And so they work together, acknowledging each other's strengths, acknowledging each other's capacities and resources in a much more co-equal relationship. And that, for me, is partnership. You can use the word partnership when that's happening. When I hear about the Haitians speaking up, man, that really hit me because I was so encouraged as someone who doesn't like to speak up because I'm afraid of broken relationships. That this really showed that in order to have healthy, stronger relationships, sometimes it requires us to speak up. Sometimes we think humility is thinking nothing of ourselves, but humility is thinking of ourselves rightly. And there was so right thinking of the Haitian leaders to say, why don't you not stand on stage, but stand in the back. You're going to come and you're going to leave. We're going to be here longer. We need to break some of these historical trends and these dynamics that have been going on. And you can help us do that. Right. And I'm also not surprised that some people are like, all right, last trip to Haiti. Yeah. Yeah. Speak as later, but what did they get instead? I mean, I think I see that. And I think the Haitians understood that there was a risk that they were taking. Right. They understood that if I speaking up, this might mean people won't come back, that they would actually prefer that in hopes of then later having stronger relationships as they've spoken up about what is going to help them. And they've been honest that they were willing to do that. And you end up finding partners who actually listen through that and through listening the relationships become stronger and deeper, more effective, more bidirectional. Yeah. So yeah. Learn to stand in the back. That's right. Write it down. I know, right? I mean, it sounds so simple. But when people are looking for a bottom line, that is it. One of the stories that is told from a person in Mexico who runs a ministry for disabled kids, he recounts a story that's not actually in the book. But it was really a symbol for him of how things can go really wrong. He had a team from the States come down to visit and the workers there had a presentation that they had prepared about what the ministry was, how to work with disabled kids, how not traumatize the kids. But the folks walked right into the buildings and walked right past him and began to pick up the kids and hold them and to take photographs, you know, selfies to post on their social media. And I just think we might roll our eyes at that and think, oh, how awful. But I don't think they knew what they were doing, right? I don't think they had any sense the Americans that what they were doing was wrong because what's wrong with hugging kids, right? But I think humility is assuming that we don't know. We even if what we're doing is working, we have to assume that we don't have all the knowledge that we need in order to actually make a difference. And if we don't humble ourselves, acknowledge our deficiencies in that way and change our behaviors, then ultimately short term missions can become destructive, can be damaging. It's certainly dishonoring to the people who are already there in the context. But, you know, there's a lot of research these days about orphan care and how when foreign folks come into a context and start interacting with orphans, it can actually do damage in so many ways, right? The kids get attached only to learn that they can only be attached for two weeks at the most, right? And then people will walk away. There's a group of authors from Kenya who wrote for the book and they talked about how the influence of foreigners has actually led to almost an industry of orphan care. So orphans will be collected into a particular site and then people will use that site to lure foreign investments and foreign visitors. But, you know, when those visitors come, they are also teaching kids that it's all right for strangers to come and hug you, right? And so it can even make kids vulnerable to future trafficking. But who thinks about that, right? Why short term missionary? Ever goes beyond the thought that, you know, they need my love and so they need my hug. So humility just assumes, you know what? We are not going to get it. We don't know it. Let's go in as learners. I think that's the short term answer for certain teams. So these stories really get me in Crete as I'm sure they do you. I mean, we both have adopted children and I've been into orphanages in Eastern Europe. And understand trauma and the fact that visiting teams can have one children. Also believe in adoption. And to me, this says that good intentions are not enough and that in trying to do good, we can actually do harm. And therefore we really have to listen. So true. And I think even if you haven't come from a background of being engaged in orphan care or adoption, that this can easily represent other areas where we are going in somewhere with good intentions. But the outcome and what we're actually doing leaves a negative impact. And we don't need to leave it on the people who are receiving us to say, hey, hey guys, I have something you need to listen to. We need to be showing up saying, tell me everything I need to know. Yes. I mean, all the list of knows, all the list of yeses. Help me to understand because I don't know. Yeah. Because if we assume we know when we don't know, then we put herself in this horrible situation. Yeah, I mean over and over what we've heard is how important it is for us to listen and to be learners. For us, it really was like, what we need is we need to go in as learners. That's the short term answer for short term teams. Be a learner. I think if we do that, then it actually makes short term teams viable. I mean, the example of orphanages and people visiting them and the effect of visitors and foreigners can have on orphan system around the world. That's one of those ideas that gets tossed around with books like when helping hurts that you can try to help and hurt. For sure. You can lead to it's being prepared to be trafficked as he mentioned, which is horrible. Yeah. I'm sure they all went in thinking we're actually trying to help prevent trauma. Right. But in fact, it's actually creating greater trauma. Yeah. But if we do listen, then we can have tremendous impact together for children. Absolutely. For communities, for the gospel around the world. The reason I love that we were choosing this example to kind of spend a little bit time on is because none of us are saying, let's not care for orphans. Of course, we want to care for orphans, but let's learn and listen how best do we do that? So I guess it's the same thing. We're not saying, let's not do short term missions, but let's listen and learn and think through how best do we do short term missions? Right. And if we're saying, well, I'm not doing short term missions. I can do it the way that I want to in the way I've always done. Well, then maybe, maybe you shouldn't because this is, you know, just to be real, this is what far is this saying what the author of the book for saying we've heard over and over again is. Yes, we thank you for your involvement. We want you to stay involved, but let's think about how to do it differently. I was with a group of Ugandan community developers and pastors in Lira Uganda. And we actually were talking about empowerment and how a more co-equal dynamic could lead to more respectful work, more effective work. But their pushback was, well, that's a great idea. We love it, but we don't feel like we have any power or authority or openness on the part of our foreign partners to actually think in any different terms than what the terms are now. Top down, dictated from the outside. That's maybe a reflection of that elephant and mouse dynamic. We, I think, in some ways put it in. Others end danger when we assume that we know everything that should happen and how it should happen It's a very least we demean and disrespect people who probably know better than we do or at least can speak into Whatever intervention or program or what have you that we want to start ostensibly to help well Yeah, and so you know humility is saying yes I do have things to bring here, but what I have is not complete and in fact if I don't Raise up my brother and sister, you know in this cross-cultural context in their own context If I don't learn to respect them and listen to them that in the long run we're You know warring against their own confidence to be the solutions to their own problems and We we demean people without thinking at me because of who we are in fact is you know oftentimes Americans do represent Greater resources, but greater resources is not the ticket then to greater power and authority in a given situation So it seems like what far is to saying here is that not stepping on your friends is only the starting place Not disrespecting or demeaning them through what we're doing even if it's on accident maybe is next But then also think about how we can be a part of that raising up our brother and sister as they raise us up That that is really where the co-powerment happens for sure And I love that he's pointing out it's not like we're saying we don't have anything to give or that they don't have anything to give We all have something to bring and something to give as image bears of God With the Holy Spirit called to his mission. We all have something to give exactly And we might represent more resources of a kind That doesn't give us power and authority, right? And if we recognize that then something new could happen that's exciting It really is when I think about that I think about all the possibilities all the hope that can be brought into that mission that place And when we're talking about is the partnership that being greater together And we can see that happening if we do this So maybe you're still in a place where all of this potential harm is really scary and you're thinking why even be involved in short-term mission? Much less missions at all, but we did ask for us what he'd say to someone who may be thinking of backing up mission involvement due to fear and this is what he has to say I mean honestly, I just think we're missing out on not just effectiveness, but fun I mean if we really partnered in how we cool ways with churches around the world It would just be a blast. I mean it would just be so inspiring Right to see what we could do when we're thinking together and dreaming together We also share this vision to bring the gospel to the world But I think if we can get rid of that top-down one-way dynamic that unfortunately characterizes American thinking About missions culture if we can do that. I think then this guy is the limit in terms of the new things that we can design and dream of in terms of relationships As it closed this episode on short-term missions a new concept emerges Co-powerment it's a paradigm shift a fresh perspective that redefines what we've traditionally known as empowerment This notion challenges us to acknowledge our limitations Recognizing that we cannot possibly grasp all that's necessary to serve effectively in cultures or into our own Yet within this realization lies a powerful choice a choice to believe in the inherent value and in measurable potential of all individuals irrespective of cultural backgrounds It beckons us to see the beauty goodness and worthiness in our partners and Recognizing the rich resources they bring to the table It calls us to depend on their strengths just as we ask them to rely on ours Indeed if we can embody this trusting mutuality within our mission It becomes a profound testament to God's love witnessed by all who encounter it wherever we may be It's a journey of humility a willingness to step back allowing true beauty to blossom as we embrace the truth that we are greater together We've heard from global voices who still welcome short-term missions all be it with a caveat the conventional way We'll suffice simply ceasing such missions isn't the answer either the best path forward is transformation a shift toward a two way relational non-transactional approach We must transition from power through empowerment to co-powerment The crucial question we must confront are these do we take the global charge seriously? What does it mean to be a global community? It implores us to stand in the background to listen to assume we lack understanding And in doing so we unlock the potential of collective thought shared dreams and collaborative action Our unified vision remains clear to make disciples of all nations Yet by dismantling the top down one-way dynamic we in earth endless possibilities Let's imagine together the innovative relationships we could forge and the remarkable ventures we can embark upon We stand poised and excited to code dream co-design and co-create with you all Let's journey together embrace and co-powerment and charting your horizons Thanks for listening mission shift is brought to you by crew city global Posted by Karita Chen and Josh Irby produced and edited by Jeff Johnson music and mixing by Scott Brawl Stay connected with us at crew CRU.org forward slash mission shift if you enjoyed today's episode Please like and review this podcast wherever you listen we would appreciate it if you were to share it with others who may be interested in coming on this journey with us