Strategic Use of Mission Volunteers
Short-term mission can be powerful when volunteer teams are engaged in critical areas of God’s mission. While at the same time offering a wide array of mission opportunities for UMVIM teams and individual volunteers, the church is calling all of us to be more strategic in the mission work that we do. As we go forward over the coming quadrennium, it will be important to focus on strategic areas of ministry that are at the heart of The UMC.
The Council of Bishops, the Connectional Table, and the General Conference have done a service to The UMC and the UMVIM movement by offering the Four Focus Areas of Ministry. The General Board of Global Ministries has adopted these areas of focus for the new quadrennium, 2009 to 2012. The role of Mission Volunteers in the new quadrennium will be to engage and deploy United Methodist volunteers in the mission of The UMC as outlined in the four focus areas of ministry.
1. Develop principled Christian leaders for the church and the world.
2. Create new places for people by starting new congregations and renewing existing ones.
3. Engage in ministry with the poor.
4. Stamp out killer diseases by improving health globally.
Mission volunteers can enhance and strengthen existing ministries that address the prevention and treatment of the killer diseases of poverty. A network of medical mission volunteers can be used to supplement the capacity of hospitals and clinics to address medical needs. Disaster hurts the poor disproportionately harder than anyone else. The poor do not have the capital reserves to regain their footing. After natural disasters, UMVIM teams collaborate with annual conference disasterresponse leaders, volunteer coordinators, and UMCOR staff to get the right kind of help to places where it is most needed.
UMVIM teams are collaborating in Colombia with UMCOR staff, Global Ministries health-care missionaries, the leaders of the Colombia Methodist Church, and the leaders of the Sincelejo village to serve the needs of a small village named Brisas del Mar. The poor people of this small village were brutalized by a Colombian paramilitary group that was encamped a kilometer away. With the contributions of UMVIM teams, clean water has been supplied to the village from a new well, a village leadership team has been trained and equipped to oversee the well, a community health-care plan has been established, and a clinic is under construction.
In Mission Together church partnerships exist to support and sustain emerging churches in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Central America. UMVIM has played an important part in such partnerships by sending teams to renovate church buildings, establish Vacation Bible Schools, develop church camps, and teach church administration.
Global Ministries Health and Welfare office and UMVIM are working closely to develop new volunteer mission opportunities related to the United Methodist hospitals in Africa as they focus on the killer diseases of poverty: HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. A new resource for health-care volunteers can be found online at: http://www.umvim4health.blogspot.com/
Excerpt from an Article by Clinton Rabb published in November/December 2008, "New World Outlook" to read entire article, click here.