IMB reports record results;
IMB reports 50 percent drop in high school age volunteers for short term assignments. Officials tie the drop to Sep 11.
I think it has more to do with an outdated colonial mission model and that if we created a model of pilgrimage that is spirit-guided, people-mentored, and acknowledges the need to receive from the culture as well as to give (like the Celtic monks), then those numbers would increase. Lets see if those young people stay home this summer in USA or if they go on a quest for God overseas, with our without an institutional mission structure. I think many of them will go as church youth groups. And as for the college age kids, I think that they will again go all over the world on their Frodo adventures, staying in the youth hostels, Lonely planet guidebooks in their backpacks, and that many of them will end up on our doorstep in Prague on their way to the next assigment. But thats just me. What do you think?
RESPONSE:
"When Steve Papineau [of Apartment 222 fame] was asking about how he should consider his time here in France I told him that he should look at his time as one of pilgrimage. It seems for years we always evaluated short-term missions on the basis of goals accomplished while all along we acknowledged the impact on the lives of those who went. Maybe its time to reverse the order. . . maybe we should encourage folks to venture out as pilgrims looking to recieve something both from God and those they encounter." Matthew Glock, France
I think it has more to do with an outdated colonial mission model and that if we created a model of pilgrimage that is spirit-guided, people-mentored, and acknowledges the need to receive from the culture as well as to give (like the Celtic monks), then those numbers would increase. Lets see if those young people stay home this summer in USA or if they go on a quest for God overseas, with our without an institutional mission structure. I think many of them will go as church youth groups. And as for the college age kids, I think that they will again go all over the world on their Frodo adventures, staying in the youth hostels, Lonely planet guidebooks in their backpacks, and that many of them will end up on our doorstep in Prague on their way to the next assigment. But thats just me. What do you think?
RESPONSE:
"When Steve Papineau [of Apartment 222 fame] was asking about how he should consider his time here in France I told him that he should look at his time as one of pilgrimage. It seems for years we always evaluated short-term missions on the basis of goals accomplished while all along we acknowledged the impact on the lives of those who went. Maybe its time to reverse the order. . . maybe we should encourage folks to venture out as pilgrims looking to recieve something both from God and those they encounter." Matthew Glock, France
