Blog Archives

September 14, 2012

CCMP ‘out of control’ in Nepal

Following a series of Trainer of Trainers workshops in Nepal on the Nepali version of the Umoja material (run in coordination with a large number of organisations), there are now 12 competent trainers read to help ‘roll out’ the Nepali Umoja, with UMN and Micah coordinating continued reflective sharing and exposure visits to build competence and confidence. Many of these Trainers open new doors for the use of Umoja within churches and church networks who have not previous engaged with integral mission in this way.

Three examples stand out:

~    The ‘indigenous’ Gyaneshwar Denomination has about 200 churches and is one of the biggest denominations inNepal.  They heard about the first ToT workshop and asked us to run parallel workshops for some of their leaders. They are now piloting Umoja in their 4 principle Kathmandu churches and if successful Umoja could then steadily be shared and applied among the whole denomination.

~    One of the Trained Trainers leads a NGO which supports a rapidly growing network of churches (currently about 300) from many denominations across Nepal.  The NGO was set up to help church leaders tackle weaknesses in management and technical issues so they could be more effective in their ministries.  There is now potential to share and apply Umoja throughout this network.

~    One AoG pastor (a former UMN employee) who attended the ToT workshops is now passing on his learning to leaders from a group of 30 Methodist Churches.

Those involved in CCM/Umoja in Nepal now refer to it as a ‘movement’.  They very much consider it as ‘God’s business’ not an NGO-style project.  This is immensely exciting because it has the potential for widespread organic sustainable replication.  However, there are risks associated too, especially with regards to the quality of the training that will be given and whether churches can be properly supported during the early stages.  One of the big challenges now is, through our partnership with UMN, to maintain a healthy growth of awareness and competent use of Umoja without the ‘movement’ growing so quickly it spirals out of control with a possible loss of long-term impact or credibility for Tearfund as the material’s originators.

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September 10, 2012

Integral Mission & the community: local church, local change, global impact

Micah Network’s fifth global triennial consultation in coming up later this year.   It provides an exceptional opportunity to focus on the challenge of integral mission and grass roots impact in our communities. The focus is local church, local change, global impact!

Dates: 10th-14th September 2012

Location: Thun, Switzerland

Cost: From $440 for members

Speakers include: René Padilla, CB Samuel, Joel Edwards, Elmer Thiesson, Ruth Padilla DeBorst, Johannes Reimer, Amanda Jackson, Gbile Akani, Ebenezer Joseph, Rhiannon Lloyd

For more information, view the flyer.

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August 29, 2012

Peace Bridge

The organisation TASK runs a Church Capacity Building for Community Development project. This year they researched and fellowshipped with 10 churches to understand the needs of the church members in Khan Mean Chey.  As the result, there have been five workshop trainings with the organisation Peace Bridges, in which about 23-25 church members and pastors have participated.

After church members and pastors had finished the course with Peace Bridge, most of them understand about the important of having the peaceful environment for their church members and community, understanding that the peace should starts from their own self first.

Pastor Savoung of Noko Preah church shared his testimony:

“I am Pastor Savoung, I am 40 years old.  I serve the Lord in Noko Preah church.  My congregation used to have problems with each other not trusting or respecting each other. I have shared what I learned from with Peace Bridge and they now trust and respect each other more when they speak or communicate with each other which is a very big change.”

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Holistic Development in Cambodia

Mr Nou Vuth, 54, lives in Ampil village, Kraingyoew commune, Saang district, Kandal province.  Vuth is married and has eight children living with him.  The majority of the village are poor and do not possess any land for farming.  The villagers earn their living through migrating from their home village to another place in search of jobs in order to meet the family’s needs.

Vuth used to be a violent, aggressive person, with limited personal development skills and professional skills. He often beat his kids with a stick when he was angry, which made them very fearful of him.  His behaviour did not help him to connect well in the community, and  his relatives did not dare to ask for any help from him or connect with him.

On March 15, 2008, Vuth and his household accepted Jesus Christ and started serving the Lord. Vuth has been appointed to the assistant pastor at theNewLifeChurch.  After his conversion, God has tremendously transformed Pastor Vuth to have an incredible new life.  Pastor Vuth is a real changed person who helps his neighbours regardless day or night, believers and non-believers without favouritism.  Pastor Vuth is an honest person who loves God and serves Him faithfully. He lives holistically according to Jesus’ example in Luke 2:52, which reflects to physical, spiritual, intellectual and social response that he has learned from the training program provided by Cheas Ponloeu Project of Wholistic Development Organization (WDO).

Vuth’s community didn’t appreciated the Christian Faith, especially the village chief who has said Christians help only those who are in their care and work to convince people to convert to their faith.  The programme has been developed in response to this kind of view.

It is a pastoral compendium training program has been training pastors in Kandal province since 2005 in collaboration with World Vision International.  Whilst in the training program, Pastor Vuth has improved his ability to deal with personal and community problems.  As a result of the training, Pastor Vuth felt compassionate for the poor in the community.  He, then, mobilized other pastors and people from his church to plan and pray together that there will be funding and resources to help the poor.  In April 2010, God answered the prayers and blessed them with enough resources to help some poor families; a family of seven and a mother and her child who can’t make a living.  Each family received rice, soya bean sauce, cooking oil and some money.  This event was presided over by the village chief, and he was very pleased with this act of incredibly generous of Christians who were willing to help their poor neighbours.

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June 1, 2012

Integral Mission Conversation Bangladesh

Contact Michael Dey for more information

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May 23, 2012

Integral Mission Conversation Nepal

Contact Thir K. C. for more information.

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May 10, 2012

India Missional Church consultation

 

 

 

 

 

 

Micah Network are hosting this event.

Contact: events@micahnetwork.org

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March 24, 2012

Nepal Integral Mission Conversation

Micah Network is hosting its annual members consultation alongside a conversation on Integral Mission.

Contact: events@micahnetwork.org

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February 26, 2012

One Voice prayer week

In March 2011, we launched the One Voice Global Poverty Prayer Movement and we’ve been praying together throughout the year.

In 2012 we want to continue to grow this global movement, uniting even more people in praying for an end to poverty.

Please save the date and join us for our One Voice prayer week Sunday 26 February – Sunday 4 March 2012.

We have produced new resources for 2012 which will have everything you need to help your church or group pray, reflect and act as part of a Global Poverty Prayer Movement.

You can be part of this Global Poverty Prayer Movement now by signing up to our prayer emails, adding your prayer to our online prayer wall and downloading the  resources to help your church or group pray together.  Go to website.

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October 22, 2011

Nepal Network

NEPAL: In 1995 a group of Christians in Nepal were inspired by the work of the Micah Network, and the teaching they had heard about integral mission to get together to encourage the churches in their own country to understand and practice integral mission. Micah Network Nepal (they are the only national level Micah Network) is a Nepali Christian response to the needs of poor and oppressed communities which reflects the mandate given in Micah 6:8 “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God”, starting with a group of Christian organisations who:

  • Are committed to responding to poor and oppressed communities through integral mission;
  • Are equipped to challenge the wider Christian community to embrace integral mission;
  • Share their experiences and learnings with each other in a supportive environment;
  • Advocate with and on behalf of the poor on poverty and justice issues, individually; and
  • Collectively prayerfully support the network and its vision

In 2008 they also became part of the Integral Mission Initiative, committing to work with others in their country to promote integral mission. They have their own website and are currently organising a national conversation on integral mission in order to start working with other Christians groups in Nepal who share their vision.

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