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Member Care Updates
Expanding the global impact of member care
Working together for wellbeing and effectiveness
Special News--May 2022
Loving Our Mission Workers
Staying the Course in the Missio Dei
Engaging the Least-Reached Peoples and Places
Global Member Care Model:
Member Care in the Missio Dei
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.
We love because He first loved us. (1 John 4:7,19)
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Overview. In this Update we call attention again to the central place of love in member care as we endeavor to serve God in the missio Dei among the least-reached peoples and places. Love is the ultimate measure of the effectiveness of our member care. Love is the final apologetic.
We feature the latest compilation of member care articles--the special issue of Evangelical Missions Quarterly (EMQ April-June 2022), published by Missio Nexus. This special issue offers 24 articles on a variety of member care topics. It begins with an editorial-overview that emphasizes loving one another, followed by 20 articles, and then three more articles that are available exclusively online (not in the hard copy).
Good news--six of the articles are available for free on the EMQ section of the Missio Nexus website (see the table of contents below to access them--just click the title of any of the six articles in blue highlights).The other articles listed below are linked to a short description of the article which is on the Missio Nexus website.
--You can purchase a hard copy of this special issue via Amazon HERE ($14).
--You can subscribe to EMQ HERE ($26.95 per year for four issues).
Important Applications. As you look over the materials:
--Review the Table of Contents below of the EMQ special issue and choose a few articles to read in the coming days (they are short, focused reads).
--Discuss one or more articles with colleagues in light of the articles' relevance for your mission and member care work and the Lord's mandate to "love one another"--loving one another through quality member care.
--Consider how this special issue might move member care forward strategically into the missio Dei--the many realms and ways in which God is at work in the world. For example how do the articles reflect the seven spheres of the Missio Dei-Global Member Care Model? How are they helping us to cross cultures (beyond "Western" approaches) and cross sectors (into humanitarian, development, peace-security, environment etc. challenges and opportunities) on behalf of the least-reached peoples and places (LPPs)?
Doing Member Care Well. We finish this Update with materials from Doing Member Care Well (2002), celebrating the 20th year of is publication. It includes links to many of its chapters in six languages and encourages us to prudently build on our member care foundations by "doing love well" as we face the ongoing and overlapping issues in our precarious, perilous, and precious world.
See these Member Care Updates:
--Doing Global Member Care Well: 25 Member Care Books (September 2021)
--Love: A Command to Cherish and Obey (August 2017)
--Special Issues on Member Care: Journals and Magazines (1983-2017) (January 2017)
Warm greetings,
Kelly and Michèle
 
--Share your comments and resources on our MCA Facebook page
--Send us your ideas and resources for future MC Updates
--Forward to your colleagues and networks
MCAresources@gmail.com
Featured Resources
Loving Our Mission Workers
Staying the Course in the Missio Dei
Engaging the Least-Reached Peoples and Places
I Corinthians 13:8
Love never ceases.
Epigraph from the Prefaces in the Global Member Care book series.
Have a look at this list of 40+ "One Another" verses in the New Testament.
They describe what "loving one another" involves.
“Member care is demonstrating one anothering love. The apostle Paul reminds us in his first letter to the Corinthian church that without love, our words, insights, knowledge, faith, generosity, and endurance mean nothing (1 Corinthians 13:2–3). Love is the way of the cross. Serving the nations requires caring for one another. Without love, we proliferate the resounding gongs and clanging cymbals of which Paul speaks (1 Corinthians 13:1). Prioritizing care, then, keeps us from moving mountains on our own and preserves our partnership with God in his global mission.” Heather Pubols, Member Care: Loving Those We’ve Sent (EMQ, April 2022)
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Special Issue on Member Care
Evangelical Missions Quarterly (April-June 2022)
Editorial and Overview
--Member Care: Loving Those We’ve Sent
Heather Pubols. “This issue of EMQ focuses on member care....We invited nearly 30 people from more than 10 nations to contribute to this issue. Their articles explore ways that member care continues to develop theologically and contextually for communities and individuals. They also look at ways member care continues to be expressed asymmetrically through professionals and mutually through supportive peers.”
“The first article traces the roots of member care through the whole Bible and points to Jesus as the source and model for care. The next articles look at the role of local churches in care from their partnership with missions organizations to ways they can demonstrate care not only with missionaries but also with every person in their congregations. Then several articles investigate how nurturing organizational cultures of love, grace, inclusion, and honesty improve staff well-being. In here is a summary of the groundbreaking Resilient Global Worker Study which looks at current critical care needs for cross-cultural workers. After that, a few contributors provide insights on the member care needs of missionaries from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. While several more look at practical care matters including hospitality, conflict and spiritual miscarriage. The final article explores the continuum of member care involvement from beginner to trainer.” [The three additional articles (exclusively online) address member care: by sending organizations, in Nigerian mission, and in crises.]
Articles
--Towards a Whole-Bible Theological Framework for Staff Care and Wellbeing
Rosie Button
--The Local Church is the Foundation of Member Care
Jeremy and Anastasia Thomas with Mary Tindall. “Many missionaries long for their home churches to offer more support, embracing a larger role in member care.”
--Beyond ‘Paying and Praying:’ Engaging the Church in Member Care
Rene Rossouw
--Growing Your Church’s Capacity for Meaningful Member Care
Ivan Liew
--Oikos Care: Caring for Our Missionaries by Caring Through Our Missionaries
Pam Arlund, Mary Ho, and Peggy Spiers
--Best Practices for Church-Based Missionary Care
Lori Rogers and David Wilson
--Building Team Love
Michel Hendricks
--Supporting Today’s Global Workers Toward Missional Resilience
Geoff and Kristina Whiteman. “Global workers are also questioning their calling and leaving the field or switching organizations. Now is the time to intentionally foster resilience.”
--How to Make a Successful Missionary
Curtis McGown
--Do Your Members Really Want to Work for You?
Wendi Dykes McGehee
--Fostering Sexual Wholeness: Breaking Silence to Defeat Shame
Dennis Martin
--Building and Leading Culturally Diverse Teams
--Galen Burkholder and Tefera Bekere
--Towards Contextualization of Member Care
Sampson Dorkunor
--Member Care from an Asian Perspective
Belinda Ng
--Missionary Care from a Latin American Perspective
Paulo Feniman
--From Ministry Call to Home Call: The State of Member Care in India
Isac Soundararaja
--Safe Harbor: The Role of Hospitality in Member Care
Celeste Allen
--Missionary Conflict: Destructive or Constructive?
David R. Dunaetz
--Spiritual Miscarriage: The Death of a Vision
Brenda Bosch
--A Guide for Member Care Engagement
Harry Hoffman
Web Exclusives
--Member Care Toolbox Maintenance Strategies: Five Questions
Brent Lindquist and Larrie Gardner. “Regular maintenance should be performed on the ways organizations provide member care and the resources they utilize for member care. Here are five questions to guide your review.”
--Member Care in Nigerian Missions
Adegbite Olanihun. “As the Nigerian Church wakes up to her global missions responsibility, addressing member care issues becomes more critical, and the Church is responding.”
--Crisis Planning and Response
Anna E. Hampton. “Crises are an unavoidable part of global missions, yet their affects are not. Impact is dependent on our preparation and response.”
Doing Member Care Well
Doing Love Well
Building on Our Foundations into the Future
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.
John 13:35
This year 2022 marks the 20th anniversary of Doing Member Care Well (2002). Many of the 50 chapters are available in 6 languages and many are online for free. We continue to build on this historic volume via this Update's focus on loving one another through providing and developing quality member care into the missio Dei on behalf of the least-reached peoples and places and encourage you to have a look at the excerpt below and to review the two chapters highlighted.
“Everything that is gold does not glitter. Not all those who wander are lost.
The old that is strong does not wither. Deep roots are not reached by the frost.”
Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
In the world of missions and member care, some of the choicest servants are unheard of, not necessarily professionally trained, and not usually invited to be plenary speakers at conferences. But they are solid gold—they sparkle internally, privately, out of the limelight; and they are sturdy folk, with deep roots in God, putting into practice the biblical call to “love one another.”
It is not the member care specialists—as important as these are— who are the main practitioners of member care, even though some of them might be leading the member care charge. Rather, it is the missiological equivalent of “the average person on the street”—the mission worker on the field. Herein lies the backbone and the future of member care: mutual support and spiritual nurture among mission workers, and between mission workers and the people to whom they are called. We member care workers primarily polish the gold that is already there.
May God give us grace to follow their examples of sacrifice. And may we do our part in supporting them in their most holy work, serving with them unto the ends of the earth and until the end of the age." Introduction: To the Ends of the Earth--To the End of the Age (page 10)
--Chapter 34. Helping Missionaries Start Healthy and Stay Healthy by Michael E. Jones and Kenneth Gamble. “In this chapter, we review ways in which physicians, acting as medical officers for mission agencies, can help ensure that candidates at selection are medically fit for their work. Physicians can also confidently reassure serving missionaries that they are fit to continue on the field. Experience and staying updated in tropical and travel medicine are essential.”
--Chapter 42. A Mindset and Department for Member Care by Bruce Swanson. "Member care is a core value that we build into our hearts and into our organizations. It is a way of thinking, and a way of being. The author offers many practical suggestions for cultivating the type of attitudes (mindset) and programs (departments) necessary to adequately support our mission personnel."
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For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,
neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth,
nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God
that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39
Member Care Associates
MCAresources@gmail.com
Member Care Associates Inc. (MCA) is a Christian non-profit organization working internationally and across sectors. We focus on personnel development for mission, humanitarian, development, and health workers and their organizations; global mental health; ethics and good practice; and integrity/anti-corruption. Our services include consultation, training, research, developing resources, and publications.
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Our Special News-Updates 1) promote the wellbeing and effectiveness (WE) of staff and sending groups and 2) support the diversity of colleagues with member care responsibilities. The focus is on the mission sector with applications for/from the overlapping health, development, and humanitarian sectors.
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Global Integration (GI) is a framework for responsibly and actively engaging in our world--collaborating locally through globally for God's glory. It encourages connecting relationally and contributing relevantly on behalf of human wellbeing and the issues facing humanity, in light of our integrity and core values (e.g., ethical, humanitarian, human rights, faith-based). See more perspectives about GI HERE.
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