18Jan 2011 by Nigel Ring

Planning for Ministry Pt 3 – What is God saying?

Christian ministry, Equipping, Good Practice, Planning, Poor
[caption id="attachment_1710" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Equipping Oaks of Righteousness"][/caption] What is God saying? This must be the start of any ministry in the church. If ever we start a ministry because ‘we ought to' rather than because we sense God's leading it will rapidly become a dead work; those running it will burn out and the fruit will be negligible. So how do we know what God is saying? Clearly we may hear in the context of prayer, prophecy or some other way in which God speaks directly to us. However, I find a common starting point is often with one or more members of the church themselves have a sense God is calling them into a particular area of ministry. This may be expressed by a passion - what they…
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10Jan 2011 by Nigel Ring

Planning for ministry Part 2 – Where do we start?

Christian ministry, Equipping, Good Practice, Planning, Poor
[caption id="attachment_1699" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Equipping Oaks of Righteousness"][/caption] A story 25 years ago the elders of our local church (Church of Christ the King) were approached to launch a ‘soup kitchen’ in Brighton. Because the people concerned clearly had gifting and passion we endorsed their initiative and let them explore what God had for them. This is an important principle – build to gifting and passion (see my blog of Sept 29th 2009). This ministry was highly successful in providing food and contact for those who were ‘street homeless’ in the area. Subsequently, this grew into an evening ‘drop in’ with food, and clothes and warm bedding were given to them. That continued but expanded to include a house where 12 men and women could be resident as a step…
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03Jan 2011 by Nigel Ring

Planning for Ministry pt 1 – Project or People?

Christian ministry, Equipping, Good Practice, Planning, Poor
[caption id="attachment_1689" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Equipping Oaks of Righteousness"][/caption] First, I do hope you had a great Christmas celebrating Jesus’ birth and also having family and friends around you. I am aware that for some Christmas is a difficult time and if this applied to you I trust that you knew God’s grace for the circumstances. May 2011 be a fruitful and fulfilling year for you. Last year I shared an eight part series on some aspects of planning but made clear that these were essentially for an event or some other activity with a clear time boundary. Ministry is different. It is open ended so requires a different approach. This will be the subject of my next series. Terminology Before we dive into the subject I would like to express…
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24Nov 2010 by Nigel Ring

When Helping Hurts – Part 3 – Practical Strategies for helping without hurting

Christian ministry, Cross-culture, Equipping, Good Practice, International, News, Poor, Relief and Development, To the Nations
Concluding the review of this excellent book we shall now look at one very practical application. Short term mission teams. Like the story of the elephant and the mouse dancing together at a celebration - both benefit and enjoy it until the mouse is squashed - such can also be the effect of a short-term mission team. Who is really benefitting? Perhaps neither. The team have a ‘life changing experience' - but may learn the wrong things. The hosts can feel crushed. At the root of the problem is lack of sensitivity to others' cultures eg "Mine is the plumbline so any deviation is ‘wrong'". Consider time. In the ‘west' time = productivity; the emphasis is on good stewardship and using every minute productively. In the majority world there is…
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19Nov 2010 by Nigel Ring

Ministry Report – Feeding Programme in Mumbai

Christian ministry, Good Practice, India, Ministry Report, News, Poor, Relief and Development
Recently I was visiting India and was very impressed by what I heard of a beautiful ministry of compassion. I asked Lynn Fernandes to write it up for my blog: Around December 2007, a few of us from Living Word Church, Mumbai, India, felt sovereignly lead by God from a verse in Is 58:7 " ...is it not to share your food with the hungry, to provide the wonderer with shelter, to cloth the naked, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood." In short, to do something for the poor. There were so many poor people around us. Where were we to start and how were we to go about doing what we felt lead to? Feeding of the Poor We started off one Wednesday in…
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10Nov 2010 by Nigel Ring

When Helping Hurts – Part 2 – General Principles for helping without hurting.

Christian ministry, Cross-culture, Equipping, Good Practice, News, Poor, Relief and Development, To the Nations, Training
Continuing this somewhat protracted commentary on the strongly recommended book, When Helping Hurts, we will now see what the authors say about Principles that need to be followed to avoid causing damage to those who are in need. Relief, Rehabilitation and Development First, it is important to distinguish between Relief, Rehabilitation and Development. In true crisis (e.g. tsunami) people cannot help themselves and need Relief. After the crisis there is Rehabilitation when people can start to help themselves but need others alongside Development is about empowering, the point at which great discretion is needed - ‘handouts' can be very damaging, especially if the reason for needing help is of a person's own making e.g. through irresponsible living such as alcohol abuse. Cultural sensitivity At all times we must be careful…
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