Category: Biblical Foundations
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"Every Good Endeavor"
Tim Keller tackles the dualism of sacred vs secular work head on, helping us integrate our faith and work. We are not immune to this dualism in healthcare missions. One of our medical missionaries said to me that she was told ‘to get a ministry’ outside of the 70 hours-per-week that she was working in…
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Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection and the Mission of the Church
What would the resurrection have to do with the mission of the church? NT Wright makes a plea for us to connect the two. Our modern assumptions about life after death seem to disconnect the reality of life in this world and the next, but the Bible does just the opposite. “It has often been…
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Are we losing our compassion?
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, even before medical care became more professional. The prophet Malachi exhorts God’s people to “do…
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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 an exciting and joyous mission. How are you involved? We love the mission of God…
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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 an expression of our beliefs about God and man. We must not just care for…
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The Ephesian Moment — one body, many parts
Mission medical workers want to see healing of the body, the child with malaria, the mother suffering with postpartum depression, the young man wounded in a fight. But there is another body we want to see healed, the body of Christ. In Acts chapter 15 we read, “And some men came down from Judea and…
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True healing is not always what it seems
One week ago today my own mother passed away. At 87 years, she died in her sleep in the dementia unit of the nursing home. A nurse working there commented, “In my 36 years of nursing I have not seen anyone die more peacefully.” As a believer, she had trusted Christ for salvation over 40…
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"And who is my neighbor?"
Yesterday I was talking with a nursing teacher who is an expert in the care of women with childbirth injuries called fistulas. SIM has a hospital caring for these women in rural Niger, West Africa. She is considering ways to get involved helping train our national staff. The hospital treats any woman in need, regardless…
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So what do we mean by healing, anyway?
As a young person in medical school, my view of health was confined to understanding disease processes, drugs and physical causes. Health had to do with the body, and things of the spirit didn’t overlap the physical world. As a young believer in Jesus, I could see that He had dominion over both the physical…
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The wounded healer
When I arrived in Ethiopia in 1986 the country had been impoverished by communism, famine and long-standing poverty. I was trained in community health at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and was ready to roll out a comprehensive community health program, working alongside the church. With hindsight now I can say that I was…