People reading this blog and seeing the pictures may think that this is one glorious holiday. Some time ago we got wind of this rumor and wrote the following to help put matters right. It might be helpful to remind ourselves of our goals once again:
Please understand that none of the TEA leadership would want anything to do with a holiday adventure programme, even a Christian one. We are not on OM for that. We want to glorify God and see people coming to know Him, and that is our driving force in running TEA. We are very clear in all our promotional material and website that this is a discipleship and evangelism training programme. Our ‘catch-phrase’ is ‘Are you thirsty for God?’, not for an extreme holiday in New Zealand.
We use the outdoors for a number of reasons:
- New Zealand is crawling with foreign tourists who come for the outdoor activities. Many of them, as explained on our TEA video, seem to be at the tail end of a world trip and searching for fulfilment. By the time they get to NZ, they are often facing home again and very open and full of questions about deeper things in life. They are searching, and we want to reach them. By spending time in mountain huts, we are very often sharing our accommodation with such travellers, and since we are in the mountains with no electricity, there is nothing else to do but talk. A perfect opportunity. So we go into the outdoors because it is a field ripe for the harvest. Backpackers are a ministry focus for us. They are the same ages and cultures as TEA participants, yet usually easier to reach with the gospel here than at home.
- We are interested in holistic growth. We have seen time and again that people grow spiritually when challenged physically. We are not doing ‘fun’ activities for the sake of it. In fact, at the end of an 8 hour day of tough hiking, very few on a team would say it was fun. However, these activities gel the team together and cause them to trust each other and God more than in many everyday situations. The times of silence in nature are excellent ways for teams to connect with God and, when we arrive at huts to find no other travellers, we use these times to get deeper into study and discussion.
- Practically, it’s cheaper this way. We buy each team member a pass which allows them to stay in back-country huts as many nights as they like for a set price, equivalent to about a week’s worth of stay at other cheap accommodation. The ten week programme only costs €1500, that is €150 a week. Compare this to other programmes and you’ll see we are not charging a lot. This is only possible because we are very careful with the budget.
- New Zealand is beautiful, and we believe we are glorifying God by enjoying being in His creation. We are not being hedonistic in this – since the tourists we are trying to reach travel to beautiful areas, we go where they are. Of course we’ll enjoy seeing creation at the same time, just as anyone who looks out of a van window marvels at the view.
Some misconceptions about TEA:
- We do not include the cost of ‘holiday activities’ such as bungy jumping, sky-diving or other extreme adventures in our programmes, and we make this clear. If any participants want to do these things, they do it in their free time, with their own money. Adventure for us involves being in the outdoors – hiking, walking or kayaking, (all cheap, all where backpackers go,) as well as being an itinerant team. New Zealand being the size of Colorado, it’s easy for us to get around.
- We have never called ourselves a ‘short term mission’. We are a discipleship and evangelism training programme, and have called ourselves this since day one. When I think of short term missions, I see people coming for set projects with the goal of reaching people for Christ. Our methodology may be different, but the goal is the same. Jesus said to make disciples. We want people to come here and make Christianity and evangelism into more of an everyday lifestyle that they will continue when at home. One thing that led to us starting TEA was seeing how many people would go on a short term mission, and either think they had fulfilled their missions quota for the next while with no more responsibility at home, or return home and lack confidence in further evangelism since they were used to being in team with a specific planned task. We want TEA participants to learn to treat evangelism as an everyday normality, and we train them in this. A bit like the ‘teach a man to fish rather than giving a man a fish’ analogy. So we focus on training and everyday evangelism, with the view always of growing in discipleship and reaching the lost. It is a joy to see this happening on TEAms as well, as members are encouraged and challenged to make the most of every opportunity to share Christ, rather than having a programme mentality.
- Some think that the emphasis is on the adventure. That is unfair. Please look at our website to see this is absolutely the opposite of what we do. We make it very clear, and participants who join us seem to understand this for the most part. If anyone takes time to read through all our material, it will be very clear to them that we are nothing like a holiday tourism programme. The reason we give so much information is because we want people to be clear about our purposes, especially home offices, since they are the ones who approve of applicants at the first stage. If I thought a country was running a programme with an emphasis on adventure, I wouldn’t send people to them either. But this is not what we do. Please look at our website. www.om.org.nz/tea
As far as fund-raising goes, many participants pay for themselves. However, those that do raise support communicate the nature of TEA clearly to their prayer and financial supporters, and we have only had positive feedback in this regard. If a church knows why a young person is coming, they realise that they are not supporting an all-expenses paid holiday of a lifetime. Far from it.
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