Short mission trips make me wary. Mission trips are powerful experiences which I believe God calls us to participate in, but I don’t understand the popular idea that a mission trip can be accomplished within a week or two. It reminds me all too much of the “White Savior” who spends a week rescuing people from their plight and then leaving just as fast as they came.

Short mission trips feel as though they have more to do with the people who go on them rather than the people they are supposed to be working with. That isn’t to imply that doing something for personal betterment is terrible, but in terms of a mission trip, it seems misguided.

Sure, a group could spend a week building a wall or playing with some children, but how is that helping? When a group of generally unskilled Americans goes overseas for the express purpose of rebuilding, wouldn’t that be more of a hindrance than a help? Especially when the money that is inevitably raised for travel and food and possible sightseeing could go toward other means of assistance that do not involve flying 20-plus people across the Atlantic Ocean.

Individuals who participate in mission trips that span years are able to plug into a society, connect with those who are now their immediate neighbors, and become an active part of God’s will in a community. It’s not something that is one and done, but a lifestyle change and a deep commitment — a commitment to God, oneself, and the community in which they are serving.

Short mission trips can give someone a much needed reality check, a simple nudge toward the fact that the way the majority of the United States lives is not how the rest of the world lives. This is something that most know cognitively, but many have yet to experience firsthand. A short mission trip is just the thing to change the course of someone’s thinking for the better. But at that point, I don’t think it can be called a mission trip anymore. Mission trips are God’s command to go out into the world. What can we do for the world, but also how can we learn from the people we meet and live in a way God has commanded us?

Those of us who are called to go on mission trips are doing God’s work, and that cannot be denied. But for short-term mission trips, we need to be wary of falling into the mindset that we have come to fix everything.