Vacationaries

You have the heart of a missionary, but you also have a career. What to do? Take a vacation with a mission!

It's become as much a summer rite of passage in churches as Vacation Bible School or the church picnic: groups of teens and/or adults packing up tools or tracts and heading out on short-term mission trips to faraway places. Many of them will spend more than $1,000 to get on a plane and fly to their destinations, which can be anywhere from Africa to the Far East to wherever people may be poverty-stricken and in need of strong American hands and resources.

The folks taking these trips have good intentions, following the biblical mandate to care for the poor and needy, and spreading the good news of the gospel. A growing body of research, however, suggests that these temporary missionaries may actually be doing more harm than good. Some critics, in fact, have taken to calling these short-term mission trips "religious tourism" and their participants "vacationaries" -- a mash-up word describing these combination vacationers/missionaries.

It's somewhat easy to think that way when you hear...