Global Member Care Resources (MemCa)
Summary of Vancover Consultation June 1-6, 2003
The purpose of MemCa is to help develop member care internationally, prioritising personnel from the Newer Sending Countries and those working among the least evangelised.
Thirty member care colleagues met in Vancouver, Canada for our MemCa Consultation, over a six day period. The Consultation was part of a broader conference on globalisation, sponsored by the WEA Missions Commission. This was our fourth such Consultation since MemCa was launched in 1998. Our purpose for meeting in Vancouver included:
Relationships-building closer friendships among ourselves and the Missions Commission Reports-exchanging updates of our respective regions/ministries and reviewing our goals
Restructure-adjusting our structure to be more effective
Resources-sharing about tools and projects to help develop member care in different areas
Renewal-seeking the Lord together as a group and praying for each other.
...........Read More
Participants
Africa: Karen Carr, Darlene Jerome (Ghana), Naomi Famonure (Nigeria), Dirk Visser (RSA)
Asia: Pramila Rajendran (India), Belinda Ng, Gracia Wiarda (Singapore), Harry Hoffmann (Thailand), Philip Chang (Malaysia), Byun-Moon Kang, Grace KS Lim (Korea)
Australasia: Murray Winn (New Zealand)
Europe: Anke Tissingh, Rosangela Amado* (Spain), Kelly O’Donnell (France), Siny Widmer* (Switzerland), Annemie Grossshauser, Hartmut and Friedhilde Stricker (Germany), Marion Knell, Marjory Foyle (UK), Arie Baak (The Netherlands)
The Americas: Marcia Tostes (Brasil), Dave Pollock, Brent Lindquist, Richard and Laura Mae Gardner, Bruce and Kathy Narramore, Denny Milgate* (USA)
Note: * = special guests to the Consultation
Some of the Main Topics We Covered
MemCa Structure
Kelly presented a proposal for our “functional structure”. The core group for MemCa involves three subgroups: a) two Coordinators who are point people with the Missions Commission and who represent MemCa to other groups (David Pollock and Kelly O’Donnell); b) Leadership Team consisting of about seven people who help provide practical and spiritual oversight for MemCa and our projects (Pramila Rajendran, Laura Mae Gardner, Marion Knell, Harry Hoffmann, and others to be appointed); and c) Links-Liaisons/Leaders of Interagency/International NetworKs. Our group will remain between 25-35 people, and will primarily include respected colleagues who represent regional or speciality member care networks. Kelly also described the essence of MemCa as being a core-alition (a core group of friends and a coalition of networks).
Regional Interagency Member Care Affiliations (RIMAs)
We spent several hours listening to different members share updates and issues about member care within their regions. Europe is very strong (with 20 members and bi-annual member care consultations) and India is developing well under the leadership of the India Missions Association and others. Latin America via COMIBAM is in the process of regrouping their RIMA. We also heard updates from Africa and Asia in general (the continental RIMAs there are not practically functioning), as well as from South Africa, Brasil, Korea, East Asia, Central Asia, Oceania, North Africa, and West Africa. Nothing was shared about the Middle East.
Member Care and Religious Liberty
We watched a brief video from Open Doors about the persecuted church. We also prayed for Christians and Christian workers who are subject to disinformation, discrimination, and persecution.
Theology of Suffering and Biblical Basis for Member Care
We discussed these subjects, and agreed that it would be good to assemble some core papers. Writing a summary/overview of a Biblical basis for member care would be very helpful and could pave the way for a greater understanding and acceptance of member care. Byung-Moon Kang has offered to look into this. It was noted that Dave Pollock and Glenn Taylor have written helpful foundational pieces (in Doing Member Care Well and Enhancing Missionary Vitality, respectively). One other thought was to write something on these topics for the Dictionary of Mission Theology which is currently being compiled/edited by John Corrie.
Developing Member Care Hubs and Centres
We had a good discussion on this topic, with input from Bruce Narramore, Brent Lindquist and others. A hub is a strategic location where member care colleagues in proximity voluntarily associate/meet in order to provide personal/professional support and engage in joint projects when possible. A centre refers to an actual facility in a strategic location which works at the interagency and interdisciplinary levels. Hubs and centres are an important way forward for member care. In general it would seem that costs are justified for centres when such centres have a diversity of staff/services, work with a diversity of mission personnel, are well-networked, and are situated in central locations. It was suggested that an article be written on this subject, possibly based on an updated version of Brent’s helpful article on Missions Support Centres in Missionary Care (1992). .Kelly presented a grid to help guide our thinking and investment in such centres and hubs:
Set up-practicalities, location, costs
Structure-board, leadership team, terms of reference
Support-finances, support staff, equipment
Service providers-types of people and disciplines represented
Services-resources offered, languages
Service receivers-focus of the services, location of the services
Standards-ethical codes, policies, best practice principles
Guidelines for Member Care Workers (MCWs)
Probably the “hottest” topic we discussed was the need for and appropriateness of some general standards for MCWs. Many contributed to the discussion, with Harry Hoffmann helping us understand that any guidelines that we formed would need to reflect diversity-generational, gender, organisational, cultural, and disciplinary. Most agreed that such guidelines were necessary to help inform both service providers and service receivers alike as to what is expected in the competencies, character, and training of MCWs. Dick Gardner also walked us through a chart differentiating the training and roles of human resource personnel, therapists, pastoral counsellors, and member care facilitators.
Kelly synthesised a few brief working papers from the group and added his perspectives, coming up with 15 principles-commitments-for MCWs. He will continue to work on these principles with others, and with a view towards MemCa endorsing and distributing them broadly. They are not meant to control people but to clarify practice. And they serve to complement any existing professional standards or ethical codes that MCWs embrace already.
Basic premise: MSWs are committed to provide the best services possible in the best interests of the people with whom they work.
Commitment to ongoing training, personal growth, and self care
Commitment to ongoing accountability-personal and MCW ministry
Commitment to providing quality services and to “doing no harm”
Commitment to recognizing strengths/limits in one’s self,/skills/services
Commitment to understand and respect the felt needs of service receivers
Commitment to work with others in a team/group, and make referrals when needed
Commitment to consult and get supervision as needed/regularly
Commitment to accurately represent their skills and background, populations to be served
Commitment to prevention as well as support and restoration
Commitment to cultural and organizational sensitivity and diversity
Commitment to not impose one’s disciplinary/regulatory norms on other MCWs
Commitment to work as a link/ombadsman between staff and organizations when needed
Commitment to abide by legal requirements for offering member care in a given country
Commitment to understanding and practicing member care in an ethical manner
Commitment to Christ, the Best Practitioner.
Member Care by Radio
Siny Widmer, Brent Lindquist, and Denny Milgate updated us on this radio ministry. Every day a special 15 minute programme is sent into Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and bordering areas. This ministry is part of TWR, and is designed to encourage Christian workers who speak English. The next important step in its development is to further organise member care practitioners who can record short programmes on various, relevant topics. The thought is that different groupings or even hubs of people in different areas could take responsibility (with some training) for recording these programmes. Several from MemCa offered to be involved, a subsequent meeting was held, and a radio working group was formed led by Siny. It was noted that Member Care by Radio is one of the major member care projects currently being done anywhere, and that it has a major international audience with possibilities of expansion into different regions and language groups. Member Care by Radio was officially endorsed by MemCa at our Consultation.
MemCa Web Site.
Brent shared about what Link Care is doing with their web site and offered to significantly help MemCa upgrade and maintain our web site. We appreciated Brent’s help, and formed a working group to pursue this under Brent’s direction. The current web master, Steve Burgess, has done an excellent job getting it launched and is now wanting to hand the site over so it can be taken to its next level.
Getting to Know MemCa Members.
We agreed to do a brochure about MemCa (we have none) and to make this available on our web site. Denny Milgate took digital photos of each of us and we put together a brief description of each MemCa member along with his/her photo. Kelly will work on these two items.
ReMAP II
We attended a 30 minute update on the ReMAP II project, which is exploring missionary retention. Detlef Blocher shared and so far one of the general findings indicate a positive correlation between the amount of member care and staff retention. Also, in general, NSCs have a longer retention rate than OSCs. There are many results and many things to explore.
Upcoming Conferences
It would be good for a few MemCa members to attend some of the upcoming regional missions conferences and to include a member care component/track. In 2004 there will be regional conferences for the Caribbean (Bahamas). In November there will be one for Latin America organised by COMIBAM in El Salvador as well as one in Nairobi organised by the Association of Evangelicals in Africa. MemCa members have attended similar gatherings in the Ivory Coast, India, and Brasil in the recent past.
12. Additional Projects
This last item is actually a grouping of various projects that were either discussed in Vancouver or else have been discussed in the past. We include them here as they are important to keep track of and pursue.
a. Translating some materials from the Mobile Member Care Team’s web site on crisis response, into different languages.
b. Project to translate materials into a major Asian language.
c. Encourage a few more member care components in the next WEA Missions Commission conference (likely in two-three years time) in order to further support leaders-small groups and counselling/consultation opportunities. Also plan ways for additional interaction between the Task Forces of the Missions Commission and between Missions Commission Associates.
d. Encourage the development of best practice guidelines for the selection of mission personnel, a project initially started in New Zealand by Don Smith, a MemCa member.
e. Laura Mae Gardner is working on a set of guidelines for preventing and dealing with child abuse in the missions community. She briefly reported on these.
f. Harry Hoffmann has done some work on a member care CD with core articles on it, and there has been some discussion with Kelly about putting together a core CD with some of the main member care books on it.
g. We want to continue to link with other networks outside of the Evangelical missions world, such as the international health care and humanitarian aid communities.
h. We have had discussion in the past about organising an International Member Care Consultation. There has been no further progress on this idea.
i. There has also been discussion in the past about putting together on-line member care courses. But no progress yet, at least from MemCa.
j. We spent some time discussing the implications of globalisation for member care, but did not come up with a summary statement. As participants in the overall WEA Conference on Globalisation, we received copies of Richard Tiplady’s recent book, One World or Many?
As you can imagine, there were many other items and interactions that took place that are not recorded here. Not to mention fun times out at cafes, just relaxing and not always talking about member care of mission things! We are so grateful for the staff of the Missions Commission and the many volunteers who helped put together the overall Globalisation Conference, and who helped make our MemCa Consultation possible. We ran out of time on the last day to review and debrief more fully about our Consultation experience. Individuals have given some feedback and all MemCa participants are very welcome to send suggestions/feedback to the Coordinators (Dave and Kelly). The next MemCa Consultation will likely be in 18-24 months. Feel free to circulate this summary widely.
Prepared by Kelly O’Donnell
