This is my first posting since before Christmas. I hope you had a good break and were able to celebrate the coming of Jesus to Earth for our sakes. Also, that you have entered the New Year full of hope and expectation!
The past month
There have been two significant events in my life in the last [...]
Continue reading about New Year, New Season, New Opportunity
Both Debt and Homelessness are two major problems in these days of recession and many churches are becoming involved in helping people in their localities. We, in Newfrontiers, are privileged to have two highly experienced long-standing networks which are eager to equip other churches to serve those who are affected by these two social issues.
Debt [...]
Continue reading about Equipping conferences in November - Debt and Homelessness
Development from a Christian perspective - Pt 9. Examples of excellence - Jubilee Health Centre pt 3
We have been visiting the Jubilee Health Centre in Cape Town. Now Dr Caryn Wilson, who leads the ministry, concludes her day in the life of the Clinic and shares some of the key features which define this successful ministry.
“The midwife reports back from a home visit to a tiny premature baby and her mom, [...]
Development from a Christian perspective - Pt 8. Examples of excellence - Jubilee Health Centre pt 2
In the last blog we began to hear about the Jubilee Health Centre in Cape Town and to see how the ministry holds prayer and team relationships central to their activities. Caryn continues to tell us about a day in the life of the Centre.
“You may feel somewhat overwhelmed at this point. But relax; the [...]
Development from a Christian perspective - Pt 7. Examples of excellence - Jubilee Health Centre pt 1
We will now return to the series on Development from a Christian perspective. In my recent book The Poor deserve the Best (see panel at side) I conclude with examples of ministries which I consider display excellence from around the world and across the development sectors. I would like to share some of these over [...]
Integral part of the community
The church, by its very nature, is an integral part of the local community. It is made up of people from that community and is well equipped to understand and contribute to the welfare of the community.
In this respect, also, it usually differs from the secular agency, although there are, of [...]
Continue reading about Development from a Christian perspective - Pt 6: Church characteristics pt 2
Having looked at some of the characteristics that relate to the secular agencies we will now look at some of the distinctives of the church in its development work. However, I must stress that this is inevitably a somewhat simplistic overview and there is often significant overlap between the practice of the church and the [...]
Continue reading about Development from a Christian perspective – Pt 5 Church characteristics pt 1
In the last blog I looked at the first three of five characteristics which I consider to be particularly applicable to a secular agency namely:
1. Expertise
2. Resources
3. Size
4. Quick fix
5. Staff mobility
We will now look at the fourth and fifth characteristics.
Quick fix
An aid agency may be particularly good at providing a ‘quick fix’ solution to a problem. However, sustainability and [...]
Last time we looked at the statements that have a spiritual impact. In this final part of the series I list those statements that we would expect to apply to any work of this nature, whether Christian or secular, NGO or Aid Agency. These are coloured green in the PowerPoint presentation.
9. Who?
It is clear who [...]
Continue reading about Ministry Health Check pt 6 - The ‘NGO’ statements
What are the other statements?
Having shared some examples of statements let me now provide the full list in this and the next posting. Written here they seem somewhat overwhelming but please do not be put off!
For clarification on any of these please refer to the series which I posted Sept - Dec 2009 where I [...]
Continue reading about Ministry Health Check pt 5 - The ’spiritual’ statements
