In a recent set of CT articles, two missiologists raised several questions about the effectiveness of Short Term Missions. In my last post I began some reflections about responding to these questions. Today, I want to take up that discussion in earnest, by starting with a gathering I attended last evening.
My son Brooks and I went to a home in a brand new community, to meet with a small group of people who are part of a brand new church. The community (Ladera Ranch) is so new that the address for the house I was visiting was not even listed on the map software for my nifty new hybrid car with cool GPS navigation system. The church is so new that they still meet in a school and according to the Presbyterian Church way of doing things aren’t even “officially” an established church yet. But here we were sitting in a living room together talking about how Village Presbyterian Church could be part of the Y-Malawi Partnership. Brooks and I shared our experiences of traveling to Malawi and showed some pictures and then answered some questions. 
This brand new church that is itself a “mission project” of our presbytery and 7 local congregations was meeting to discuss how to get their still small, but growing band of people involved in a mission partnership in Africa.
For me this was one of those key moments in ministry. My church, San Clemente Presbyterian, was one of the 7 churches that helped found Village Presbyterian. I served on the search committee that called Steve Wright to become their organizing pastor. 
Steve and I are in a covenant group together and Ladera Ranch is a neighboring community. Indeed, two families who were part of SCPC are now part of the core at VPC. (Steve is also a fine blogger, also.)
But even more than the personal connections, I couldn’t help but feel that I was in the middle of a discussion that was so healthy, so right, so well…Christian.
Here was a church of people who are so concerned about being part of the mission of Christ in the world that they are weaving into their earliest experiences as a church a commitment to mission throughout the world. They were not focusing just on how to make themselves, stronger, how to grow larger, or how to raise money for their budget, but how to be involved from the very beginning in the work of Christ in the world.
Indeed, this morning, Village Presbyterian Church is conducting their very first Vacation Bible School outside in a park with 43 children. That alone is worth celebrating! But their theme for the week is teaching that God loves children all over the world, and wants to use children like them to care for children in places like Africa.
I tell this story today, because frankly, I am awed and privileged to be associated with Steve Wright and the people of VPC in Ladera Ranch. They are themselves a “mission project” (a new church development) who are seeking to draw people into the grace and mercy of Christ through the establishment of this church.
In new churches, the core of committed people is very small, the resources are tight, every event is a new challenge, just holding worship every Sunday when you have to set up, conduct the services and tear down the equipment every week is a tiring commitment. We all would “excuse” them for thinking that becoming involved in Africa might be for a later season of their life together. If there was ever a group of people who have a “right” to pass on caring for the world while they “take care of their own,” it has to be a “new church development.” But not this church.
While they still have plenty of discussion about whether the Y-Malawi Partnership is the right partnership for them, right from the beginning, every person who comes to VPC will know that they are a community of people who want to not only care for the people of Ladera Ranch, but they want to “be Jesus for the whole world.”
I also share this story because I believe that what VPC (and the Y-Malawi Project Partners) are attempting to do is change the grid of assumptions about short-term missions and create far more effective partnerships for both the renewal of the North American churches and the good of our friends in Malawi. Missions aren’t just something that “old” and “established” churches do to “give something back”, but are part of the ongoing life of a church that needs to be established right from the very beginning.
What Pastor Steve Wright is doing at VPC is insuring that mission and relationship go together as part of the DNA of the church. That STMs will not be just “peak experiences” where people respond to a need or a tragedy, but instead involvement in mission and partnership with friends in it for the long term will be part of the ongoing discipleship of the church. Which is exactly the recipe for making missions more effective.
But more on that tomorrow.
Today, please pray for the VBS at VPC. And if you happen to be reading this and live in Ladera Ranch, California, I encourage you to check out VPC, God is doing something great there.
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