Stop Taking Missions Trips: Rethinking How We Go — and Why

Over recent decades, millions of American evangelicals have gone on a short-term mission trip. Those numbers reflect something quite positive—a genuine desire to prioritize global missions. It reflects the conviction that supporting missions is not just about sending money but about sending people. It reflects a biblical intuition that one of the best ways to develop a heart for the nations is to see gospel work up close.

But not all mission trips are created equal.

Some trips—though well-intentioned—might just do more harm than good. If we’re serious about the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18–20), serious about planting and strengthening churches (Acts 14:21–23), and serious about raising up faithful leaders (2 Tim. 2:1–2), then there are certain kinds of short-term mission trips that we need to stop taking.

Provocative title aside, I'm very supportive of missions trips, so long as they are guided by biblical priorities. 

Here are nine kinds of short-term trips that are more damaging than helpful.

1. Mission Trips That Are Actually Vacations

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the sights of a new place. But missions is mainly about making disciples—not making memories. It’s about spending time with people, not seeing the sights. It’s about serving others, not serving yourself.

If your trip is mostly a spiritualized excuse to hang out in Cancun, call it what it is: a vacation. And that’s fine! Take vacations. Be a witness while you’re there. But don’t baptize your beach trip in religious language and call it missions.

If everything is missions, then nothing is. 

Biblically, missions involves intentionally crossing boundaries—geographic, cultural, and linguistic—to proclaim the gospel and make disciples (Matt. 28:19–20). Every Christian should live on mission, but not every trip is a mission trip.

2. Mission Trips That Objectify Rather Than Honor

On one missions trip, I watched as teammates spent more time snapping pictures of local poverty than engaging with local people. Without consent. It made for great Instagram posts—but it was dehumanizing. If you wouldn’t dream of doing that in your own context, why would you think that it is OK in someone else’s?

If your “missions experience” is centered on documenting someone else’s suffering for your social media feed, stay home.

Missions is not about using people. It’s about loving them. And those two things are mutually exclusive.

On the positive side, missions trips can be a powerful means of stirring up our compassion for the lost. But biblical compassion doesn’t just say, “Wow, that’s sad. Let me take a picture.” It says, “I must do something. Let me start praying that God would send laborers, and even be willing to go long-term myself.”   

3. Mission Trips That Are About Self-Fulfillment Rather Than God’s Glory

You’ve heard it: “I thought I was going to help them—but I realized I was the one who was changed!”

On one level, that’s great. Mission trips can open your eyes to your own selfishness, lack of gratitude, and spiritual apathy. But on another level, that mindset can be dangerous.

Missions isn’t a personal development program. If the trip is primarily about your experience, then missions may have become just another avenue for therapeutic self-fulfillment. And we don’t need any more of that. 

But biblical missions is not about us. It’s about making God’s glory known among the nations, not our psychological self-fulfillment through the nations (Ps. 96:3). Go ready to be humbled, challenged, and convicted—but don’t make your personal enrichment the point.

4. Mission Trips That Prioritize Projects  Over People

You’ve probably seen this kind of trip: a big team in matching t-shirts flies into an impoverished country, paints a building for a week and then goes home. In and of itself, none of this is bad. 

While it is truly a good thing for Christians to serve and help one another, these kinds of trips may unintentionally create an unhealthy dependence on international teams. 

It says, “You can’t do this. You need us to do it for you.”

It may feel helpful, but it’s help that hurts. It subtly reinforces the message that American Christians are the experts, and everyone else is just waiting to be rescued. It forgets that Jesus is the sole Savior--not us. 

But the goal of missions isn’t to do for others what they can and should do themselves. It’s to equip others for sustainable, indigenous ministry. As Paul writes, God gave leaders “to equip the saints for the work of ministry” (Eph. 4:11–12). What is true in the local church is also true in international missions. Missionaries are called to raise up local leaders—not replace them.

So what might a better model look like? That might look like coming alongside local believers, not replacing them as they reach out to their community. That might mean pastors helping train local elders (2 Tim. 2:2), medical professionals equipping local caregivers, or volunteers doing childcare so missionaries can attend a marriage retreat.  

As my friend Matt Allen once said, “Missions is sitting in the dirt.” It's about the people and the relationships--not the projects. It might not make for exciting Instagram, but it might just produce more eternal fruit.

5. Mission Trips That Spend Rather Than Invest

The difference between spending and investing is focus. Spending emphasizes short-term impact. Investing looks for long-term fruit.

Let’s be honest: a ten-day trip probably won’t change a community long-term. But a missionary who lives there for thirty years, learns the culture, plants churches, and trains leaders? That will.

And yet, millions of dollars are spent each year flying Americans around the world for short-term experiences, while long-term missionaries struggle to raise support.

What if we invested differently?

What if churches funded fewer short-term trips and more long-term laborers? What if we sent fewer teenagers with paintbrushes and more pastors with theological training ? What if we supported national leaders, trained church planters, and resourced Bible colleges in hard-to-reach places? What if we prioritized missions trips that focused on raising up long-term workers rather than creating short-term memories? 

That would look more like the kind of missions Jesus envisioned.

6. Mission Trips That Prioritize Numbers Over Disciples

We’ve all heard it: the team returns and reports, “Through our VBS, 180 people made decisions for Christ!”

Of course, we rejoice when people respond to the gospel. But the Great Commission isn’t about counting converts—it’s about making disciples who are baptized, taught, and growing in obedience (Matt. 28:19–20).

The parable of the soils (Matt. 13) warns us about shallow decisions that spring up quickly but have no root. Our obsession with numbers can reflect a results-driven ministry mindset that prioritizes optics over spiritual fruit.

Real missions isn’t measured by emotional moments or decision cards—but by lives rooted in Christ and connected to the church. Of course, I'm all for evangelistic endeavors, but we need to remember that it is God who brings about the harvest. We simply plant and water. 

7. Mission Trips That Ignore the Local Church

Sometimes trips bypass local churches entirely—working instead through NGOs, parachurch groups, or even independent efforts. These can do some good. But God’s primary vehicle for gospel advance in the world is the local church. When the apostles in Acts carry out the Great Commission, what do we see them doing? Preaching the gospel, baptizing, and starting churches with qualified leaders (Acts 14:21-23). That's literally how we teach believers to do everything Jesus commanded until the end of the age. 

When short-term teams work apart from local churches, they often leave new believers isolated, confused, or disconnected. The trip may create short-term enthusiasm, but with no discipleship pipeline in place, that momentum often fades.

Local churches know their culture, their needs, and their people. Partner with them, not over them. The best mission trips I have experienced have been those that support and encourage the ordinary ministry of local believers. 

8. Mission Trips That Confuse Good Deeds With the Good News

The gospel is the announcement that Jesus Christ died for our sins, rose from the dead, and calls all people to repent and believe in Him. That message must be proclaimed (Rom. 10:14–15).

There are many good works Christians can and should do to reflect the gospel. Acts of mercy and justice adorn the message of Christ. But good deeds are not the gospel.

To paraphrase John Piper, we should care about all suffering, especially eternal suffering. 

Mission trips that only feed the hungry or build homes—without any effort to share the gospel—fall short of the Great Commission. If we never speak the truth of Christ, we’ve withheld the most important gift of all.

Don't get me wrong: that doesn't mean that your trip to Africa to drill wells was sinful or bad. We just need to recognize that, while good deeds adorn the gospel, they are not the gospel. 

That doesn’t mean every trip must look like open-air preaching. There's a rightful place for compassion-focused ministry. But it should be in support of Word ministry. 

It may mean supporting long-term missionaries so they can proclaim Christ. It may mean preparing the way for gospel conversations. Just don’t confuse the fruit of the gospel (good words) with the gospel itself (the good news of Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection in the place of sinners).

9. Mission Trips That Are Emotional Substitutes for Spiritual Passivity

The church announces a mission trip to Honduras, and suddenly people who attend sporadically, rarely share the gospel, and exhibit little spiritual fruit rush to sign up. Too often, mission trips become a way for guilt-plagued evangelicals to feel better about not evangelizing at home—by doing it, briefly, somewhere far away.

But if you're not faithfully heralding the gospel where you are, you're unlikely to do so effectively somewhere else. It's worth noting that before Paul and Barnabas embarked on their first missionary journey, they were already serving faithfully in the ordinary rhythms of church life in Antioch (Acts 13:1–3).

Once again, I’m not opposed to mission trips. I’m simply advocating that we staff them with believers who are already living on mission in their local context. This principle applies to ministry more broadly: someone who needs an official title or position in order to serve Jesus likely isn’t ready for either.

When it comes to filling up the missions team, look for people who are already sharing the gospel, serving others, and committed to their church. Take them on a mission trip, and some of them just might go back—and stay—for the rest of their lives.

So… Should You Ever Go?

Absolutely. Just go for the right reasons—and in the right way.

Go to serve, not to be served.

Go to learn, not to control.

Go to expand your vision, not impose it. 

Go to encourage, not to impress.

Go to equip, not to run the show.

Go with humility, not with hashtags.

Stop taking mission trips that serve yourself.

Start supporting missions that serve the church, serve the nations, and most of all—serve the glory of God.