By Allen Yeh | The term polycentric mission has become popular. While the term has a more recent origin, the concept can be traced to the inception of the church. In its earliest days, no one place held authority. The West became a Christian center for a millennia, but now we see a return to polycentric Christianity that goes from everyone to everywhere.
By Michael Soderling | Global healthcare challenges are complex. Attempts are regularly made to remedy them with technical solutions that do not address root causes. This often perpetuates problems and can cause unintended harm.
By Karen Bomilcar | The church has tremendous potential to help communities reach new levels of wholeness. This often-unexplored context for healing provides an incredible opportunity for a body of believers to address issues such as relationships, work, illness, disability, birth, parenting, divorce, substance abuse, aging, and dying.
By Boureima Diallo and Daniel O’Neill | A fruitful disciple-making movement in Burkina Faso has utilized community health outreaches as part of a holistic strategy to foster peace, make disciples, and plant churches among the Fulani people group. This indigenous and collaborative approach is a strategically significant way to meet whole-person needs in a local context.
By Latha Mathew and Lindsey Miller | IHS Global developed a training process that equips healthcare workers around the globe to be witnesses for Jesus in their healthcare settings. The course combines curriculum (translated into global heart languages), training (in-person, virtual, or hybrid), and follow-up led by trained leaders who have a heart for equipping others and for sharing Christ.
By Daniel Graham and Lena Wensel | Integrated into a holistic healthcare approach to missions, veterinary medicine provides an opportunity to engage the rural poor in agricultural communities through community development. Building relationships of trust based on care for livestock, Christian veterinarians support public health through nutrition promotion and disease prevention, all while expressing Christ’s love for others through their vocation.
By Anil Cherian | My wife, Shalini, and I moved from India to East Africa as medical missionaries, in 2014. In partnership with others, we trained more than 100 South Sudanese people to help fill the country’s desperate need for more healthcare workers. We also discipled young men and women to encourage them to follow Jesus Christ. And through the combination of these ministries, we saw the seeds of transformation sown into our students and their communities.
By Richard Davis, Evelyn Mbugua, Peter Halestrap, Ken Muma, Faith Lelei, and Chege Macharia | Ralph Winter describes four stages of development in mission/church relations: pioneer, parent, partner, and finally, participant. These stages can also be applied to mission hospitals particularly as they relate to the roles of expatriate and national medical missionaries. Analyzing these stages can help us discover where mission hospital development is stuck, and how to progress forward.
By Daniel W. O’Neill | Global health engagement is a key part of church planting efforts and an indispensable partner in meeting global goals for sustainable development. Health and healing can be experienced and, for the church, can remain as an essential pursuit – a sign of the presence of God, and a foretaste and anticipation of God’s intention for the reconciliation of all things in heaven and on earth
By Rebekah Naylor | In the twenty-first century is healthcare missions viable and strategic? Are we mandated to meet the physical needs of people? If so, what do healthcare mission strategies look like today? Going forward, should we expect new evolving avenues for effective healthcare missions in view of political and population trends?
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