Short-term missions for long-term relationship, with Robert Katende & friends 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 long-term relationship, with Robert Katende & friends

April 04, 2023 • Robert Katende • Season 1 • Episode 9

What if short-term missions were focused on long-term objectives? What if short-term teams began to measure their success not on the scope of the work projects completed or the number of people evangelized, but instead on the establishment of authentic, collaborative, long-term relationships between communities of Christ followers in different locations around the globe? And might it be possible for Christ followers in wealthier nations to become humble enough to acknowledge their need of churches in less developed countries, and even to become the receivers short-term teams from those countries?

In this episode, Forrest talks with Robert Katende, founder of SOM Chess Academy—a ministry to impoverished youth in Uganda. Notably, Robert is the chess coach whose life and ministry were the subject of the Disney film Queen of Katwe. He is also a writer for the book Re-Imagining Short-Term Missions; in his chapter called “Reframing Short-Term Trips through Authentic Relationships”, he makes the case that the most important function of short-term mission teams is not the work they do or the resources they bring; instead, short-term missions should be understood as the platform for building long-term relationships between communities of Christ-followers in different parts of the world. In his work with Ugandan youth, Robert models the idea that churches and ministries in developing nations can and should be supporting churches in developed nations. To learn more about this sort of “reverse missions”, we’ll also be talking to Venita and Sidney Gardner, who have worked with Robert to adapt the SOM Chess Academy model of ministry from Kampala, to their own context in Baltimore.

Robert Katende
SOM Chess Academy
Queen of Katwe—Disney Movie
The Board Room Chess--Baltimore

MA International Community Development, Northwest University

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