Christian Missions Blog - TEAM Christian Missions Blog

Do Western Missionaries Damage Cultures?

Where culture doesn't contradict spiritual truth, western missionaries must take care to leave it unchanged. Photo by Robert Johnson / TEAM

Apr 15 2014

Today, TEAM missionary Brett Miller shares about how missionaries impact cultures in good and bad ways — and how to avoid the latter. Recently, I went pheasant hunting with some friends of my Dad who were kind enough to include me in their circle. It was a special day and, as one of them pointed out, likely my last day of pheasant hunting. There are no pheasants in Swaziland, where my wife and I are going to serve as missionaries. One of the men I was hunting with made a perceptive comment. He told me that missions had done serious…

TEAM videographer Joel Hager builds relationships with children in a neighborhood near Arequipa, Peru, while working on a story about their community. Photo by Andy Olsen / TEAM

Apr 08 2014

Everyone loves a good story. Except, sometimes, when it’s about them. Like most missions agencies, TEAM has a dedicated group of professionals who work to tell the stories of what God is doing around the world. Our storytelling team (in my opinion) has one of the best jobs around, getting to know our amazing workers on the field and inviting people half a world away to experience their work through words, images and videos. Our goal is to tell the most accurate, compelling and authentic stories we can. But that goal sometimes conflicts with the desires of our story subjects,…

Business builds community at TEAM's SonRise Café in Tokyo, Japan. Photo by Robert Johnson / TEAM

Mar 27 2014

We asked Doug Witzig, one of TEAM’s business-as-mission experts, to share his thoughts on current trends and challenges in the BAM movement. This column appears in the spring 2014 issue of Horizons magazine. By Doug Witzig “To do business in this country, you have to be like a wolf! But you are a missionary, a pastor, so you act like a sheep!” My friend and business partner was right to warn me before we launched a factory project using business-as-mission (BAM) strategies. I was a shepherd by training, concerned about the souls of the people I meet and wanting their…

Staff at Potter’s House, a TEAM-partnered ministry in Guatemala City, work to empower families in a community near a massive garbage dump. Improving life for such communities is a long-term process. Photo by Robert Johnson / TEAM

Mar 19 2014

“Development” is a word thrown around a lot these days: international development, economic development, community development, sustainable development, etc. Years ago, it was a concept often seen as separate from missions work, safely contained on one side of the wall that divided ministries of “word” and ministries of “deed.” But today, the church is a lot more comfortable knocking down that wall and allowing those ministries to commingle into a more holistic approach. At TEAM, community development is one of our core ministry focus areas (we have 24 of them in total). Because this is a broad term that’s sometimes…

It may be that what you do before (and after) your mission trip matters even more than what you do during your trip. Photo by TEAM

Mar 13 2014

Spring is just around the corner, which means we are well into the season for summer mission trip fundraising. Many of the questions we get asked at TEAM are about raising support, and there are lots of great fundraising resources out there. But if you’re planning on raising funds for a short-term trip — whether for two weeks or a year — here’s a big idea that many people overlook in their support-raising approach: Your potential supporters are investors. Treat them that way. We need to learn from the sharks. If you’ve never seen the popular show Shark Tank on…

China is a quickly urbanizing country where, by some estimates, more than 20,000 new skyscrapers will be built in the next two decades. Robert Johnson / TEAM

Feb 27 2014

You may have heard it, the saying often attributed to pastor and author Tim Keller, about why God loves the city more than he does the country. The country has more trees than people. The city has more people than trees. Because God loves people more than he loves trees, he loves the city more than he loves the country. This bit of tongue-in-cheek probably strikes you differently depending on whether you live among the trees or the concrete. But at least as it relates to global missions strategy, there is much truth in it. Urban mission is one of…

Photo by Pete Johnson / TEAM

Feb 18 2014

In a Field Journal this week, TEAM missionary Emily Johnson shares about her journey to understand poverty in the town where they live in Baja, Mexico. I have a friend who lives in the neighborhoods where we work. She has two children and one on the way. Her husband works hard and so does she. Like many of their neighbors, they live in a house with walls made of cardboard and a metal laminate roof. One day, after a tropical storm, she called me. I thought perhaps it was to ask for help. I had been worried about them after…

[Video] Graffiti Gospel

Video by Joel Hager / TEAM

TEAM places a high value on storytelling. We love to inspire and educate the church by offering peeks into what God is doing around the world. Occasionally, we even publish stories that have only a roundabout connection to TEAM, simply because we feel they are unique or noteworthy enough to tell. When good things are happening in the kingdom of God, we are happy to share them!

This video highlights the budding Christian graffiti scene in Adelaide, Australia. Josh Routley, one of the artists interviewed in the video, is a student at a TEAM-partnered college. Josh and others like him are trying to bring hope into the often brooding and anger-filled culture of street art.

Check out the video in HD here. You can also read more about Australian street art in the accompanying story from Horizons, TEAM’s magazine.

Learn more about what TEAM is up to in Australia and how you can get involved there.

Feb 10 2014

The Choice

Photo by Jimi Allen for TEAM

Jan 28 2014

Every so often, we’re going to post glimpses of the daily life of missionaries at work, in an occasional series we’ll call Field Journals. This is the first post, written for us by a TEAM worker in East Asia who will remain anonymous. Walking home one night from church, I glanced down the street while waiting for the light to change at an intersection and spotted a homeless man digging through a trash can. He was dirty, with long, unkept hair and a scraggly beard. Though the temperature was in the lower 40s, he was wearing almost no clothes. He…

TEAM Christian Missions Blog

Exploring cross-cultural ministry around the globe.

Do Western Missionaries Damage Cultures?

Storytelling and Respecting Subjects

Not Just Business

What is Community Development?

Mission Trip Fundraising – Treat Your Supporters Like Sharks

Why Cities Matter (INFOGRAPHIC)

Field Journal: Learning Rocket Science

[Video] Graffiti Gospel

The Choice