MC Sync-Link 8

Member Care Update--August 2017

During 2017 we are syncing our CORE MC entries with our monthly MC Updates. Essentially, we'll add a monthly weblog entry that contains brief excerpts from the MC Update for that month. By linking their two strap lines together, the purpose and potential for connecting these two MCA tools becomes clear: "expanding the global impact of member care...reflections, research, and resources for good practice." May these materials encourage and equip you as you endeavor to practice member care well, with character, competence, and compassion.

*****

Love
A command to cherish and obey

 (Click HERE to access this issue.)

I Corinthians 13:8

Love never ceases.

In this Update we focus on love. We see love as the essence of member care. Love is the foundation, motive, strategy, goal, measure, and future of member care. It is a practical, sacrificial, and celebratory command.  Love never ceases.

We hope that you will be able to ponder and apply the brief, central thoughts from Scripture in this Update. The commands for love--for loving God and others, for laying down our lives--are meant not just for our member care work of course, but also for our overall, daily lives. This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters (I John 3:16). 

Share your comments/resources about this Update
on the MCA Facebook page. 

Share this Update with your colleagues and networks.

Kelly and Michèle

Global Integrators--11

First Love

Values that Guide and Goad GI

We think that the time is coming for a diversity of colleagues to come together intentionally, visibly, and practically on behalf of global integration (GI). GI put simply is how we skillfully integrate our lives and values on behalf of the issues facing humanity. Likewise we think that the time is coming for colleagues to carefully reflect and act on what it means to be good global learners-practitioners--to seriously consider what it means to be what we are calling global integrators (GI-People).

*****

This entry is definitely a work in progress...

GI at its core involves values. Core values. Not just good actions or recognized codes of practice or even human rights standards. But rather the underlying, deeply help moral convictions that motivate action, foster commitment, and priortize goals. Values that guide us and which goad us as Global Integrators. Values that reflect both desire and duty--and delight!  

I like to think of the core of the core of these values as our First Love. It is our highest good and our core existential belief which shapes and supports us, our work, and our world. GI would never be the same without core values. And core values would never be the same without our First Love.

Listed below are five of my core of the core values--First Love--that guide me and goad me as a growing Global Integrator who is a committed Christian. It is helpful to make them explicit as they are deeply ingrained with who I am, my identity. They also are a reflection of the "faith-based" influence on personal and organizational involvement in the secularized humanitarian/development sectors.

 1. Shema+. Love the one Lord God with everything that you are (Deuteronomy 6:4,5)

2. Agape. Love never ceases (I Corinthians 13:8)

3. LTP. Loving truth and peace at all levels of relationship (Zechariah 8:19).

4. GloballeluYHWH (Global-alleluia-Yahweh).That God may be known and loved, and praised by all peoples. 

5. TBA...something like personal transformation as well as public transformation as a core component of well-being for all people and the planet...something like character and virtue...something like the necessity to explicitly consider moral measures, moral motivations, moral means, etc. as per the example of the current papal encyclical on climate change...

Note though that values--my values--often get mixed up with other, well, lesser values (motives/commitments/goals--mocogo) which I don't usually like to admit or show to others and which I am sure are often under the radar of my own self-surveillance. Some of these less noble examples: self-interest (what's in it for me?), convenience (could it interfere with my lifestyle?), fear (what would people say or think?), getting attention and getting people to like me (am I really special and important?) etc.  

So, staying in tune with such a "mocogo mix" is a good idea as Global Integrators seek to let their First Love shape and support their GI involvement. And making one's First Love explicit is also a good idea, knowing that there are a variety of world views whose pathways can lead to similar core values and core of the core values.

MC: Global Letters for a Global Community—8

Love Never Fails

The Great Commandment and the Great Commission are inseparable.

Dave Pollock (Dave died eight years ago, 11 April 2004)

.

We are writing to member care workers and all those with member care responsibility within international mission/aid who identify with the historic Christian faith. We write to encourage us all to stay the course in our service to God and humans and to take full advantage of the many opportunities to provide and develop member care. We write fully aware of the problems that can discredit, divide, and disable the church-mission community (CMC) and all of our member care efforts. We write with a commitment to the love that is necessary to resolve these problems and to promote health within the CMC.

*****

"It has been my conviction over the last four decades of my work in missions that member care is by its very nature the tangible expression of the love of Christ for us and our love for Him. It is not simply a program or a plan; it is the product of who we are because of our relationship to Him and our being His “new creation.” He is Emanuel, God with us, and it is Christ in us that is the hope of glory. The flow of caregivers, cooperating together to support mission personnel, is one more demonstration to the world of the unity for which Jesus prayed. Providing the flow of care is a body effort of mission agencies, sending churches, supporting families, and committed caregivers who realize that the Great Commandment and the Great Commission are inseparable." Dave Pollock, Developing a Flow of Care and Caregivers, Doing Member Care Well, (2002, p. 3)

.

We wish the very best for all those attending the Member Care Conference in Bangalore, India (18-20 April) and the Global Member Care Conference in Chiang Mai, Thailand (23-27 April 2012). We remember dreaming of international member care gatherings like this with Dave Pollock and others in the 1990s. We were inspired by  a compelling vision to see quality member care and member caregivers going global and a desire to build upon foundational gatherings in the 1980s such as the Mental Health and Missions conferences (Indiana, USA) and the International Conferences on MKs (Manila, Quito, Nairobi).   
.
May these two upcoming conferences in India and Thailand (Asia!) be an incredible time together, far beyond expectations. May they result in a wealth of new and old treasures (resources, relationships, directions) to strengthen the mission/aid community and far beyond (MT 13:52). May those with member care responsibility be encouraged to carry member care’s foundational practice of love to the ends of the earth and to the end of this age! Amo neniam pereas (I Cor. 13:8).

.
 Kelly and Michèle

Member Care and Resiliency—Part 6, Conclusion

Agapetic Humans

The American WWII cemetery, Normandy, France.

Human resiliency is the ability to face reality:

to deal with and grow through life’s challenges.

How resilient are you?

You may never know until you lay down your life.

*****

 Our discussions of resiliency and the flow of this entire weblog are intentionally heading us towards an ultimate destination: agape. Resilient love.

Resilient love is what characterises agapetic humans. Agapetic is derived from agape + etic. Yes, of course it is a new word. (smile) It is a combination of the Greek theological word for the truest form of selfless sustainable love (agape) and the anthropological term also derived from the Greek which refers to an objective perspective/observation that is relevant across cultures (etic).

*

Resilient love is universally relevant.

Across all people, places, and time periods.

*

Agapetic humans have a resilient core that helps them to consistently give life to others. They are committed to truth, justice, honesty, courage, peace, and all virtues. Their love, as stated in I Corinthians 13, never ceases. It is not just life-giving and sacrificial, however. It is also life-filled and celebratory.

*

Celebrating love, 1985, in California. This year is our 25th wedding anniversary.

Photo taken down the road from where/when We Are the World was produced.

*

The foundation for member care is agape.

The motivation for our work in mission/aid is agape.

Our work/relationships require
resilient love from agapetic humans. 

*
Notes, Quotes, and More

This year marks the 25th anniversary of  the song We Are the World. When you click on the song there is also a special box to expand that includes the lyrics and the names of each musician that is singing.
*

This song was recorded in 1985 as part of a major effort to raise awareness and commitment to help people in dire need, especially in Africa. It was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, and co-produced by Quincy Jones and Michael Omartian.
*
According to the Wikipedia entry, “In all, more than 45 of America's top musicians participated in the recording, and another 50 had to be turned away. Upon entering the recording studio, the musicians were greeted by a sign pinned to the door which read, "Please check your egos at the door". They were also greeted by Stevie Wonder, who proclaimed that if the recording was not completed in one take, he and Ray Charles, two blind men, would drive everybody home.”
*
The song, released 7 March 1985, was part of the We Are the World album and became a huge chart success internationally. It’s words still ring true today, 25 years later. It’s message still grips our hearts and galvanizes us to actively and practically love.

*

Courage.

Trust God.

Stay the course.

May your resilient love give life and celebrate life.

*****

*
Reflection and Discussion

1. What are a few experiences that have influenced your capacity to be an agapetic human?

*

2. List a few recent examples of how you have experienced or expressed resilient love in your own life.

*

3. What were some of your responses as you watched the music video above, We Are the World?

*

4. Here are some of the main terms and concepts from all six weblog entries on resiliency. Which ones do you find the most relevant? You may have to review the entries to be sure! Perhaps one day we will find many of these words in all good dictionaries. (smile)

*

**High salinity humans: resiliency like salt enhances and protects the quality of life and helps detoxify; 3Ps of resiliency are perseverance (inner strength), people (social support), and purpose (meaning in life and belief in God’s goodness).

**Hydro humans: H2O is a metaphor for resiliency--Human inner strength, Human relational support, and  GOD; aquatic qualities to access sustaining/refreshing water for self/others even during the “droughts” of life

**Hydra humans: hydrainers that drain life and hydragons that destroy life; the continuum of parasitic pathogens and pathogenic parasites.

**Salquatic humans: capable of crying, healing feeling, tear flows of emotional saltwater.

**High-virtue humans: core trio of virtues—perseverance, honesty, courage (virtrio) and virtrios humans; core trio of evil--corruption, cover-ups, cowardice (trimangle); resilient virtue prevails against resilient evil.

**Agapetic humans: sacrificial and celebratory resilient love.

*
5. Francis Schaeffer, a 20th century historian and philosopher, has stated that love is the final apologetic. What do you think and above all how is the reality of your beliefs demonstrated in your life?

*****

Note: This entry and the upcoming index, conclude three years of "reflections and resources for good practice" on the MCA weblog. We have been delighted to share with you this “public journal of our private journey." We trust that the current entry especially will be a helpful bridge into the future by encouraging resilient love—sacrificial and celebratory. Agape is from God. It is the foundation and the capstone for member care and everything in between, and indeed for all of life.