For all these reasons, if STMs didn't exist, I think we would need to invent them. Without STMs, our ministry to students easily could end up sealed in a bubble of individualistic consumer culture; and they would experience neither the astonishing abundance of the body of Christ around the world, nor the piercing pain of the least and the lost.

As vivid as the needs are that we see in places of material poverty, our need for these trips is greater than anything we'll see there. After all, thanks to ubiquitous Western media, the friends we visit already know an awful lot about us and our affluent lifestyles. We are the ones who know very little about them.

When Pilgrimage Becomes Tourism

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Unfortunately, STMs often fall short of these ideals; and when they do, these trips can undermine not just our own ministries, but the body of Christ in the places we visit. Without a commitment to transformation and learning, pilgrimage becomes tourism—as in the short-term team I heard about from one Caribbean leader who canceled the last three days of their Vacation Bible School program in order to spend more time on his island's lovely beaches. Tourism is no good for us spiritually, but it's worse for our hosts. They are demoted from saints to be celebrated, emulated and encouraged, to mere providers of lodging, meals and opportunities for us to feel good about ourselves.

If pilgrimage easily can become tourism, our call to sharing in the joys and sorrows of brothers and sisters around the world can devolve into mere voyeurism. Voyeurs, by definition, keep their distance. They lurk behind some form of protection that conceals their identity while ogling other people at their most vulnerable.

When we drive through neighborhoods where most people have no option but to walk; when we venture forth from the privacy of our guest quarters to places where people have no option but to live out the ugly consequences of poverty in public; when we bring gifts for local children that are cheap for us but more precious than anything their parents can afford to give them—as good or as guilty as any of these activities make us feel, they do nothing to establish real, trusting relationships with the people we think we are "serving."

One of the most devastating moments in the student-produced documentary Missio Docs: Mexico is when a teenage STMer is asked what he enjoyed most about his trip, and he cites meeting Mexican kids his age. When asked to name a single Mexican he met, he comes up blank. The silence is deafening and damning—not of a well-intentioned, naïve 13-year-old, but of the leaders who failed to create an environment where real relationships could develop.

The Thing We Do Best

When you start to awaken to the huge investment and uneven returns from STMs, it's natural to ask if it wouldn't be better instead to raise money and send the cash to our partners overseas. Yet, not a single global church leader I've spoken to wanted to see that happen. They see the real potential of STMs: not the chance to get a wall painted, a latrine built or hold a Vacation Bible School but the chance to develop lasting relationships with other Christians.

In fact, so highly do most of our hosts value relationship, they simply cannot imagine that we would spend so much money and expend the effort that goes into an STM for anything other than building a deep, lasting friendship and partnership in the gospel. So, what exactly do we Americans think we are doing on these STM trips? Suppose we were able to tell our hosts and the people we serve honestly that we're pilgrims, not tourists; that our intent is to share their joys and sorrows, not to be voyeurs of their suffering; that we want to build relationship, not buildings.

Suppose we could tell them about our hope to help our students escape the clutches of our materialistic culture, with our hosts' help. Suppose our short visits were part of lasting partnerships between their churches and ours, with both parts of the body of Christ sharing our gifts and our needs.

Actually, if all that were true, I bet they'd never ask the question; and STMs really would be one of the best things that we do.