Short-term missions for mutual transformation, with Jay Matenga Artwork

Re-Imagining Short-Term Missions

In this podcast we take an honest look at short-term mission practices, and talk frankly about unhelpful models even as we dream of healthy alternatives. In this podcast we look critically at the top-down, one-way, unbalanced relationship dynamics between sending organizations and the communities that receive their teams. Instead, understanding that all churches in every culture are broken in some way, we try to re-imagine how churches in cross-cultural partnership can serve one another in mutuality service. The essential aim of this podcast is to consider new ways for Christ-followers in every part of the world to collaborate, working together to meet the world's deep needs.

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Re-Imagining Short-Term Missions

Short-term missions for mutual transformation, with Jay Matenga

April 11, 2023 • Jay Matenga • Season 1 • Episode 10

What would happen if short-term mission trips were built around values of mutual transformation—instead of the usual top-down, one-way dynamic of “service”? What if Christians in the global north really believed that their brothers and sisters in the global south could help them understand God and the world in new, liberating ways? Or that short-term trips could be opportunities for visitors and hosts alike to be changed and challenged by one another through mutually respectful, coequal exchange?

In this episode, we'll be talking to Dr. Jay Matenga of the indigenous Māori people in New Zealand. Jay is a theologian of missions practice who serves as the Director of the World Evangelical Alliance Global Witness Department and Executive Director of its Mission Commission. He is also one of the authors of the book Re-Imagining Short-Term Missions, and in his essay—called “The Mutuality Motivation”—he makes the case that the future of short-term missions will be built on the courage, humility, and vulnerability that allows people from different cultures to have a challenging, changing impact one another so that all might become more like Jesus.

Jay Matenga, World Evangelical Alliance
Jay's webpage
Re-Imagining Short-Term Missions

Most of the folks you’ll hear on this podcast are also contributors to a new book called Re-Imagining Short-Term Missions. So if you like what you hear, and want to learn more about what these folks have to say, the book will be a great resource for you.

Website: https://reimaginingstm.com

Publisher's book page: https://wipfandstock.com/9781666712919/re-imagining-short-term-missions
Email: reimaginingstm@gmail.com
Instagram: @reimaginingstm
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100078703976617