KINGDOM BUILDING: SHORT-TERM MINISTRIES

Paul Mayhugh,
Missionary, WorldVenture

GREAD WALL MINISTRY BACKGROUND

In 1979, Paul and Diana Mayhugh, along with fellow WorldVenture missionaries Dennis and Denise Ahern, formed the Great Wall Ministries (GWM) team. Tony and Ming Perrello joined them in 1991. Since then five more members have joined the team. The purpose of Great Wall Ministries is to help Chinese believers reach other Chinese for Christ. Since 1986 the Mayhughs have been involved in church planting and leadership training in Macau. By God’s grace, hundreds of Chinese have heard the gospel, thousands of pieces of gospel literature have been distributed and three churches have been started. Paul also teaches Greek at Macau Bible Institute and serves as chaplain of Pui Ching School.

In September 1987, GWM began a street preaching ministry in a densely populated Chinese immigrant section of Macau. The Lord has used these weekly open-air meetings to evangelize the lost. The meetings also serve as a training point for other Christians from around the world. The ministry in Macau provides Asian Christians with a practical opportunity to participate in a cross-cultural ministry. Three Chinese Christian couples are on staff with GWM and the Hong Kong CB Church Association sent one of these couples to pastor the first church plant.

BASIS FOR SHORT-TERM PHILOSOPHY

During Paul Mayhugh’s study in Taiwan, he had the privilege of meeting a number of missionaries who had first come to Taiwan as MAC (old term for Short-Term) workers. The quality of these young people was very impressive, and they later became long-term missionaries with WorldVenture.

Shortly after beginning ministry in Macau, the Great Wall Ministries Team (GWM) had the privilege of hosting a Short-Term team of students from Western Conservative Baptist Seminary for six weeks. Of the 8 students who attended, 3 became WorldVenture missionaries and 2 became the pastor and wife of a CB church that has supported the Mayhugh family for many years.

Hosting Short-Term teams has now become one of the main secondary ministries of GWM. For the past 10 years the Lord has led between 25-30 teams a year comprising 275-325 persons total each year. The unique thing about this is that GWM has aggressively invited only a handful.

PHILOSOPHY

Normally Short-Term team ministry is a “high maintenance,” “labor intensive,” “low production” type of ministry for the host. So you ask “why do it then?” Briefly stated, hosting Short-Term teams is a Kingdom building ministry. God is allowing GWM to provide a platform for 200 plus people and 30 plus churches a year the opportunity to experience Jesus in a mission context.

Short-Term ministry is all about “experience:” experiencing the culture, the food, the weather, the air quality, the density of population, the life of a missionary, etc. and the list goes on. People and churches are coming to Macau to experience Jesus on the front lines as they preach on the street, pass out tracts on a street corner, and give a testimony to missionaries.

Short-Term ministry, from Paul’s experience, requires the entire team (not just the leader) to have the mindset that they are building for the Kingdom. Short-Term ministry does some if not all of the following:

  1. The short term ministry experience affects his life in a positive way.
  2. The sending church receives back a changed, excited and more committed believer who is now more in love with Jesus.
  3. The participant becomes a fervent and loyal prayer warrior of the missionary and the ministry;
  4. The participant becomes a passionate advocate of the host’s ministry;
  5. The host ministry many times receives gracious financial support for the ministry;
  6. The participant many times personally returns for more similar ministry experiences and sometimes becomes the co-workers of the host ministry or a ministry in some other part of the world.
  7. Doing Short-Term ministries is worth it just because it builds the Kingdom, but it has also proven to provide GWM with many, many positive long-term benefits. By God’s grace we continue to develop this ministry of investing today for tomorrow’s dividends.

DETERMINING WHOM TO ACCEPT OR PARTNER WITH

§         Present Partnership — Essential Acceptance

Present partnership with individual, churches, institutions, etc. of field missionaries is a must for accepting and promoting short-term ministry teams. These relationships are established and need to be nurtured even at the expense (of time and effort) of the hosting missionary/field.

§                     Potential Partnership — Considered Acceptance

Potential partnerships with strategic and/or God-sent individuals, time, money and personnel should be prayerfully considered. (If in doubt go the extra mile, cast the extra seed upon the waters, invite the interested party. Try to let the declination of any opportunity come from the party requesting it, not you, the host. You as the hosting party will have a clear conscience before God and others that you were willing to do above and beyond the call of duty, allowing God to work out His will in both your life and the requesting party’s life.)

§                     Kingdom Partnership — Minimal Acceptance

These opportunities are largely without personal relationship to the field in any form and will likely not result in any ongoing relationship with the field. Accept these opportunities as resources of time, money and personnel afford. Do it for Jesus and let it remain there with no expectations of future response or reward.

GENERAL PRINCIPLES

  • The longer the stay, the more effective the ministry.
  • The more language the participants know, the more effective the ministry.
  • The more well organized the team is, the more effective the ministry is for the participants.
  • Team spirit is essential to effective Short-Term ministry.
  • Know the basic doctrinal position and ministry style of the short-term team prior to arrival.

TIPS TO FOLLOW

  • Ask God for one (1) significant personal contact with a local person during the ministry time.
  • Unless the team has been on site before numerous times, the host should write up the daily ministry schedule for the team and then have the final say in the various drafts up to the final schedule.
  • The semi-final schedule should be settled upon four to six months prior to touchdown in the host culture.
  • The host should brief the short-term team immediately upon arriving in the host culture. (The longer you wait, the more “fuzziness” will develop between the paper schedule and the real-life current context.)
  • The short-term team needs to appoint a team leader early on and have that person do the majority, if not all, the communication with the person responsible in the host culture.
  • Most of the effective teams begin preparations no later than 4 months prior to touch down.
  • Advise each team member to seek prayer support from individual prayer partners as well as general church or sending group.
  • The Short-Term team’s earliest goals are to cast vision and build team spirit.
  • Ask the Short-Term team to divide into small groups of 4 with each small group dividing into another two mini-groups (i.e. 1a + 1b; 2a + 2b). Such division while in the mother culture will increase mutual dependence and accountability as well as speedily facilitate.
  • Have a debriefing session with the Short-Term team just prior to their departure for home.
  • Request the Short-Term team write up a short report of their experiences while in the host culture and send it back to the host missionary.


GWM’S KINGDOM MENTALITY RELATING TO
SHORT-TERM MISSIONS

First and foremost Great Wall Ministry is a team ministry. Each member has joined GWM because 1) we are focused upon doing ministry among Chinese; and 2) because each person feels that he or she will ultimately be more effective using and sharing their unique talents and gifts with the team as a whole unit or body. We each feel that individually we don’t have the resources and many times the faith needed to build the church in China. But together as a body we are more balanced and equipped for this Holy endeavor. Fundamentally we believe that many are better than one.

Second, GWM’s core values highly influence our day-to-day ministry as well as ministries related to short-term personnel.

1) GWM believes that God’s workers/believers must personally experience ministry in three key areas to bring about life change.

a) God’s faithfulness. Believers must leave their comfort zones and radically step out in faith to do something for God. As each individual believer takes this “wild” step of faith, he or she will experience the faithfulness of God in a new and refreshing way that will bring about lasting spiritual growth in that person.

b) Aggressive evangelism. Believers must regularly, aggressively share his or her faith with unbelievers boldly and unprotected. Constant, aggressive, “cold turkey” evangelism thrusts the believer onto the front lines of spiritual warfare. In the heat of the battle the believer will “experience” the thrill of God’s power and the joy of peoples’ positive response.

c) Team spirit. Believers, especially young believers, need to experience functional team doing spiritual ministry in a real missionary context. Team ministry for the average believer needs to be “caught” as much or more than being “taught.”

Short-term workers need to experience God at least in these three fundamental areas of spiritual life. Doing short-term ministry is all about “experience.” The more people we can help “experience” God the greater the Kingdom building will be.

2) GWM believes that cooperation is essential to all ministry.

Since every born again believer is a part of God’s Kingdom, it seems only natural that we as individuals and teams should do our best to build the Kingdom. GWM’s in house slogan or “modus operandi” is “Help make the other person successful in knowing and doing God’s will for his or her life.” By God’s grace all GWM members daily apply this mentality in our relationship with our teammates and others God brings our way.

Short-term personnel are God’s children seeking to know and do God’s will in their lives. We as a team have the opportunity to help them be “successful” on the next step of their spiritual pilgrimage.