Is a Uganda Pilgrimage a mission trip?

Of course, the answer to this question depends on how you define mission trip and what you consider to be essential components of a mission trip. Our pilgrimages are intentional, short-term trips where we seek to open ourselves to the work God may do in our lives and the work God is doing in the lives of those we visit.

If you consider service to be an essential aspect of a mission trip, then you probably will not consider our Pilgrimages  a mission trip. We do not engage in service during our Pilgrimages for a number of reasons, including:

• Serviced-based trips are relatively common and so those interested in such engagement can find those opportunities.
• The culture of short-term trips from US churches often creates the unspoken requirement that the time and money is only justified if some service is provided. We want to challenge that assumption in two ways. First, we believe that a short-term trip with the sole goal of discipleship and openness to God’s work in our lives is legitimate (and many Christians legitimately take trips to the Holy Lands or following the ministry of Paul for these reasons). Second, we know that many (if not most) short-term trips return claiming to have gained more than they gave. If this is often the result, then we believe there is value in making this approach explicit from the beginning.
• Christians rightly anchor their service in the context of Jesus’ service. This is appropriate and admirable. At the same time, the servant relationship is not the ideal or end goal. In John 15:15, Jesus says, “I no longer call you servants . . . Instead, I have called you friends,” In the Kingdom of God, our relationship to our Ugandan brothers and sisters is not primarily one of service, but one of equal and mutual encouragement, teaching, and exhortation. Our goal is to live into this aspect of our relationship as much as possible.
• While service can be a beneficial part of cross-cultural church connections, it is difficult for individuals and groups to offer appropriate service in a context that they do not know well or are visiting for the first time.
• American visitors often have specific parameters that limit the type of service they can offer on a short-term trip. Limitations regarding when they come, how long they can stay, and what skills a particular group has can all limit the benefit of the service offered. Host Christians often spend inordinate time and resources facilitating service that fits these narrow parameters, rather than having the freedom to outline their most significant needs.

We will spend some time on our pilgrimage discussing the core tenants of When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourself (Corbett & Fikkert) to better understand the challenges of service, especially in cross-cultural settings, and ways that we may be able to engage in mutual service over the long-term.