connection over content

Recently I helped facilitate a short-term mission team leader training. There were about four different churches or organizations represented. They had never met each other and likely won’t meet again. Yet for the roughly 8 hours they were together, they had a chance to build a relationship and learn together.

After leading many of these types of events over the past 10 years, one thing I’ve noticed is that connection is often more impactful than content. Even if the relationships don’t last a long time, the experience of meeting with like-minded people and bonding over common struggles and desires is powerful. It’s cathartic, encouraging, uplifting, and sometimes challenging in a good way.

Hopefully they are able to put into practice some of the content of the training. But more than that I hope they grow closer to Jesus because of their interactions with each other.

That got me to thinking about this idea of the interaction of connection and content. Does it apply to other areas in life? Does it apply to short-term missions? i.e. is the connection or the relationship that develops in the course of the short-term mission trip (and hopefully extended partnership) more valuable than the content of the trip?

A CASE STUDY

Think from the perspective of the community who receives help. Let’s say their homes were devastated by a hurricane. A team comes to help them with building projects.

Which is more valuable?

The buildings … getting help with material goods?

Or the connections … being noticed and cared for and loved by a team of people?

Here is a sample of how those two can contrast. These examples come from a book called Helping Without Hurting in Short-term Missions.

Both Patrick and Heather are introducing a short-term trip to New Orleans for the first time to their congregation. What differences do you see?

Patrick: We will be going to the Ninth Ward in New Orleans, working with New Life Community Church to bring hope to an area that was devastated by Katrina. It’s heartbreaking to think that such poverty still exists here in America—when you see it, you will have no choice but to act. This is an opportunity to get in the trenches and really help the least of these, bring the light of the gospel to a dark area. We are blessed to live such lives of relative comfort, and sacrificing two weeks is the least we can do.

Heather: We will be visiting believers at New Life Community Church in New Orleans, a church started in the Ninth Ward after Katrina. This is an opportunity to learn about their ongoing efforts to help rebuild their community and to share the gospel following the storm. We want to get a sense of how we can best love and support them over the long haul, as well as why poverty is such a systemic issue in the area. We will have four months of pre-trip meetings, a ten-day trip, and six months of follow-up conversations as we explore the place God might have for us in supporting the work of His church in New Orleans—and in our own community. 

One difference I am thinking about today is the way Patrick focuses on the material needs and Heather focuses on the relationships.

Now, I’m very much a “both/and” kind of guy, so I would love to see both material help and relational connection happening in the same space.

However in my experience, churches tend to focus on the content, the task, or the material things when they plan short-term trips, especially to areas of relative material poverty.

How would it change if we gave more effort and ascribed a higher value (time!) to getting to know people and building impactful friendships?

Let me know your thoughts below.