Now Accepting Applications for CQ Fellows 2025! 

David Livermore

Book

Serving with Eyes Wide Open

Doing Short-term Missions with Cultural Intelligence

This award winning book has been a best-seller for more than 15 years. Based on research gathered from local communities that host charitable volunteers from the West, this book offers a constructive critique about the cultural ignorance that often occurs. But more importantly, Christian volunteers gain an understanding of how to serve better, by applying cultural intelligence to how they serve at home and abroad.

Each year, 4-5 million Americans participate in religious short-term mission experiences to respond to tsunamis, poverty, AIDS, orphans, and to carry out the work of Christian service and mission.

$2.25 billion dollars is spent on North American short-term missions trips annually.

What’s the impact upon those who go and the local communities who receive the volunteers? The research in this book begins to provide insight.

In three parts, Serving with Eyes Wide Open examines:

  1. An overview of the 21st Century world and Church
  2. The conflicting perspectives between Americans and the global church about short-term missions
  3. How to use cultural intelligence (CQ) to improve the effectiveness of short-term missions for everyone involved.