Serving with Eyes Wide Open: Doing Short-Term Missions with Cultural Intelligence

David Livermore's Serving With Eyes Wide Open is the best resource I have ever seen on serving the world church with cultural intelligence. As a long-term missionary of 34 years, I have frequently worried and fretted about American youth groups, synodical tour groups, and short term missionaries who confidently breeze into an Asian, Latin American or African setting armed with plenty of good intentions but with little cultural sensitivity and intelligence. Many leave as ignorant as they come, totally unaware of the problems their individualistic, achievement-oriented personalities and programs have created for national counterparts. Kudos to David Livermore! It's about time a manual like this was written - not only for those taking short term mission trips but for anyone desiring to serve in another cultural setting with eyes wide open.

With the amount of money spent on short term missions trips, it is about time that we begin to take a critical look at them. The majority of short term missions trips that I've seen advertised have 2 selling points: 1) the positive change that will take place in the lives of those going on Short Term Missions, 2) All of the amazing sight seeing tours that can be "tacked on" to the Missions trip. This book challenges the motivation for such trips and causes one to focus on the people that we are supposed to be serving, rather than the benefits to the short term missionary. I would recommend this book for anyone considering a short term mission. I would emphatically recommend it for "habitual" short termers.

This book gave me a better understanding of my own culture and how it influences the way that we Americans do missions.

I give this book one star because of Part 1 dealing with the world and the world church, this part was well done.

Part 2 called "Conflicting Images" should be retitled "Cynicism and why you should be embarrassed to be an American Christian." While it does make points about the fact that Americans tend to be loud and overstate our impact on the nationals that we are serving, I find that Livermore's delivery would make most not want to do missions because apparently we as Americans are doing great harm by being a part of short term missions.

Part 3 is the solution which instructs us to find out the stereotypical behaviors and understandings of a culture to improve our impact. Of note in Part 2 you are warned not to believe stereotypes.

I wonder how the church managed to ever grow outside of Jerusalem with all the harm the apostles were doing by insulting the new converts outside of the Jewish world?

While making the valid point that American short-term missionaries need to exercise humility and sensitivity, this book is overkill on the subject. Livermore here makes an argument that could have been written in far less pages -- American short-term missionaries sometimes are clueless to the true spirit of missions. I agree with that point, but disagree with the extent to which he magnifies it.

Livermore goes as far as to question the validity of the entire idea of short-term missions, a practice that is revitalizing missions work in the 21st century. Short-term missions trips are far from "mini-vacations" and should never be viewed as such. In my experience with them as a pastor, I have yet to find any group who actually viewed them in such a manner.

If you want a book to equip you for a short-term missions work, try getting a volume that will educate you on the customs and practices of the people to whom you will be ministering. Understand better their customs and way of life, and show appreciation for those two things. You'll be putting into practice the valid point of the author here, and also saving the money required to purchase this book.

As a doctor who goes on short-term mission trips on a regular basis, I felt I ought to read this book. I must admit that the title and the cover had me expecting a dry read. Instead, I found this little book to be extremely pertinent. In fact, it has affected my outlook on much more than the actual mission trips. I'm afraid this book will have limited readership, which is a shame. I would recommend this book for everyone with a Christian world view who has any interaction with people from different worldviews or cultures. Isn't that almost all Christians, except maybe those who intentionally separate themselves (e.g. the Amish)? I wish the book had been titled "Engaging the World: Being a Christian with Cultural Intelligence" or something like that. I'm glad I ran across a book review and decided to check out this gem.