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Reviewed by Reviewed by Rev. Patricia Farris, Senior Minister, Santa Monica First United Methodist Church Mission Trips That Matter: Embodied Faith for the Sake of the World By Don C. Richter Don Richter, a Presbyterian minister and associate director of the Valparaiso Project on the Education and Formation of People of Faith, was founding director of the Youth Theology Institute at Candler School of Theology. He has taught Christian education, co-edited Way to Live: Christian Practices for Teens, and led many mission trips. His rich collection of experience comes together in this book exploring mission trips as a crucible for Christian formation. People of faith have been on the road, Dorothy Bass notes in the Foreword, beginning with Abraham and Sarah setting out in response to God’s call. They travel as pilgrims, as refugees, as conquerors, and as tourists. In this light, the countless mission trips being undertaken by youth groups, adult teams, and campus ministries can be seen and nurtured as fruitful settings for formation, as well as for personal and social transformation. Richter frames such mission trips in the larger story of participants’ lives, recipients’ lives and in God’s story as well. He looks sacramentally at baptism, eucharist and sabbath as lenses through which to view mission trip experiences. He reframes common mission trip misadventures such as illness or loss of a passport into teachable moments from which connections to God’s larger story can be drawn. Various chapters explore ways in which our bodies travel, and how viewing the experience through the perspective of our eyes, ears, noses, backs, lips, hands can connect participants to God’s incarnated presence and purpose. This evocative and provocative book is a wonderful resource for youth group leaders, mission team leaders, Missions committees, UMW units—anyone wanting to go deeper with all the possibilities for growth and Christian formation present in mission and mission trips. Richter provides prayer and liturgy resources throughout as well as questions for reflection. This book is a bit disjointed and unpolished, something like the mission trip experience itself. It is not intended to be a how-to guide for organizing a team, setting ground-rules, providing insurance, packing, and all the other nuts-and-bolts aspects of mission trip planning, although notes for additional resources are provided. Its purpose, instead, is to open the door to new levels of depth and meaning in mission trip experiences. The practices Richter describes can make experiences of personal and social transformation more the norm than the exception in mission work. One prayer asks God to “break our hearts, by those very things that break your heart every day.” For a denomination intentionally working to make disciples of Christ for the transformation of the world, this book provides invaluable insights, practices and resources. It’s about receiving gifts, as well as giving, of losing oneself to find oneself. It’s about hospitality and generosity and radical stewardship. The directions it suggests will make our quest to become a truly global church more honest, more faithful, and more profound. |
