Blog
This blog explores how our medical work can align with God’s purposes. We don’t have to guess how to connect our work to the Kingdom of God. Understanding how healthcare fits into the whole story of the Bible will help us recover a sure foundation. A solid integration of healthcare and mission will help us move ahead with confidence and joy.
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When we reflect on the reasons to come alongside those who are hurting physically and serve them around the world, compassion must be the #1 reason. It was the foundation of the early church’s response to human suffering around them,…
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How should we do justice?
I’ve mentioned Tim Keller’s “Generous Justice” before. Today I’d like to underline a practical and theological issue about “how.” Keller tells us about Abraham Kuyper, a Dutch theologian and statesman who ‘remade the churches into voluntary institutions’ in Holland over…
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Medical Missions, an assessment by a historian
Christoffer Grundmann writes, “Most nineteenth-century people, medics and theologians alike, paid little, if any attention to medical missions — even if they were addressing mission. And when they did, they almost always did so in very limited confines, leaving their…
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How can local believers show compassion through healthcare ministries?
As we communicate the love of Christ in another culture, it is easy to think that the ministry revolves around our activities. In fact, the key word in Christ’s “Great Commission” is to make disciples. That means enabling others to…
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Highlights shared by SIM medical missionaries
We have 250 medical professionals serving in SIM. We recently surveyed some of them. We asked each one to share a highlight of their ministry. Here are some of their responses. One bullet point per person: The opportunity to develop…
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Myths of medical missions
Medical mission work must have an vision, a framework for understanding how it fits into the work of God in the world. This framework must come out of our understanding of Scripture. Many times however we can operate on faulty…
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The Cape Town Commitment of faith and call to action – – the mission of God
Here is a rich description of the mission which God calls us to as believers, expressed in the words of the Lausanne commitment at Cape Town, South Africa This is section 10 of that commitment word for word. It is…
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Racial Reconciliation
Tim Keller wrote “Generous Justice” in 2010. He speaks there about John Perkins’ strategy for rebuilding poor communities (Perkins has been a leader in community development and racial reconciliation for many years in the USA). I think the principle he…
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Sustainability
in StrategyThere is much good talk and fine-sounding theory about sustainability and sustainable development these days. When I first went to Ethiopia and did community health, I thought that my work should continue beyond my time, without outside financial input. It…
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Christian Social Responsibility as described in the Lausanne Covenant
I think the Lausanne statement on Christian Social Responsibility is a helpful framework for our response to the brokenhearted of the world, and I commend it to you, along with the commentary by John Stott produced below. Medical missions is…
