Member Care Updates Expanding the global impact of member care
Working together for wellbeing and effectiveness
Special News—August 2025Global Pearl: 8Aboding with Jesus Christ
If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him,
and we will come to him and make Our abode with him. John 14:23  Image from cover of GMC 2Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold everything that he had and bought it.
Matthew 13:45-46-------------------- OverviewGreetings! In this issue (#196) we continue our 12 part series called Global Pearl to help shape and support good member care practice around the world. Throughout the series we emphasize Jesus Christ—the Global Pearl of Great Price (MT 13:45) as we collaborate to engage in mission among all peoples—the global treasure of great price (MT 13:44). Featured ResourcesCore Book--Resilience in Life and Faith: Finding Our Strength in God (2019) by Tony Horsfall and Debbie Hawker (Kindle and paperback editions). "Through biblical wisdom and psychological insight, [Tony and Debbie] show us how to understand ourselves better, appreciate our areas of strength and strengthen our areas of weakness. Read this book if you want a faith that persists to the finishing line." You can access the English version of the book's Resilience Rating Scale HERE and versions in 10 other languages HERE (see the Resilience section).Podcast--The Unseen Journey: 50 Years of Gospel Advancement by RW Lewis (29 minutes). This podcast is the latest episode of Staying the Course in Member Care and Mission (August 2025). It features a special presentation given at the Perspectives Course's 50th Anniversary Celebration (2024). It reflects on "the tremendous impact of global mission efforts over the past five decades...how cultural and linguistic barriers are being tackled, the historical roots of contemporary missions, and the unique calling to reach Frontier People Groups. It also includes array of insights, maps, and quotes, this episode will inspire you to keep the momentum in global evangelism."Multi-Sectoral Tools--The latest featured items for multi-sectoral member care are from the CHS Alliance (2020-2024). We share four short reports with guidelines to support wellness in humanitarian organizations which are also relevant for mission and member care: Working Well. Leading Well. Governing Well. and Funding Well.Blog Post-- Resources for Good Practice is an excerpt from chapter 8 of Global Member Care Volume 1 focusing on promoting health in mission organizations. Some examples 'bad leaders: "They do not avail themselves of needed input from others to complement, balance, and correct themselves...They become entrenched in their ways, even when it is obvious to others that these leaders are digging a bigger pit of mistakes into which they and others will fall..."See these Member Care Updates Staff Wellbeing and Effectiveness: Managing-Supporting-Working Well ( June 2021)Unreached Peoples: Reviewing and Renewing Our Roots (April 2019)Jesus Christ—The Lord of Member Care (September 2015)
News and Notes--Soul Tending: Leadership for Strategic Human Flourishing (book--2025)
Virgil Tanner
--Sending Culture: Caring for Missionaries in Hard Places (book--2025)
Nik Ripken and Ruth Ripken-- World Humanitarian Day--19 August 2025--Aid Worker Security DatabaseSee our framework for engaging in the world as followers of Jesus Christ:Following Jesus Globally: Engaging the World through Global Integration, Lausanne Global Analysis (2020) and the expanded version (chapter 2) in Global Member Care Volume 3: Stories and Strategies for Staying the Course (2024). ----------------- Warm greetings, Kelly and Michèle   --See more resources on our MCA website and MCA Facebook page --Send us your ideas and resources for future MC Updates
--Forward to your colleagues and networksMCAresources@gmail.com
Featured Resources
Global Pearl: 8
Aboding with Jesus Christ
 Image from cover of GMC 3
If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him,
and we will come to him and make Our abode with him.
John 14:23
--------------- Resource One--Special Book
Resilience in Life and Faith: Finding Our Strength in God (2019)
Tony Horsfall and Debbie Hawker 
Detail of the book cover Tony and Debbie are respected colleagues in Christian ministry, mission, and member care. They "encourage us to develop our resilience and to prepare ourselves for the challenges that life throws at us in an increasingly difficult world. Through biblical wisdom and psychological insight, they show us how to understand ourselves better, appreciate our areas of strength and strengthen our areas of weakness. Read this book if you want a faith that persists to the finishing line" (quote from Amazon site). It is available in paperback and Kindle editions.
Resilience Tool. You can access the English version of the book's Resilience Rating Scale HERE and versions in 10 other languages HERE (see the Resilience section). We encourage you to review the many other member care resources on the website of Dr. Debbie and Dr. David Hawker as well as Tony's many books HERE. See also: Resiliency for Team Leaders, Member Care Update ( May 2018)
 This podcast--The Unseen Journey: 50 Years of Gospel Advancement--is the latest episode (August 2025) of Staying the Course in Member Care and Mission (STC). It features a special video presentation (29 minutes) given at the Perspectives Course's 50th Anniversary Celebration (2024). "Join us as we reflect on the tremendous impact of global mission efforts over the past five decades. From the pivotal role of the 1974 S.I.I.S. course to the far-reaching consequences of William Carey's Protestant missions, this video highlights the progress made and the challenges that remain in spreading the gospel to all peoples. Discover how cultural and linguistic barriers are being tackled, the historical roots of contemporary missions, and the unique calling to reach Frontier People Groups. With an array of insights, maps, and quotes, this episode will inspire you to keep the momentum in global evangelism." (quote from the video summary)
Excerpts from the Conclusion:
"I think we should prioritize the nearly 300 mega frontier people groups—those frontier people groups that have a population of greater than a million in size. Just these 300 mega frontier people groups contain 80% of the total population of all 5,000 frontier people groups [representing] 1.6 billion people and over half of these people...are in just the 37 largest frontier people groups that are greater than 10 million in size...Here are the 300 mega frontier people groups on a map separated by religion. 57% of the mega people groups are Muslim, 41% are Hindu cast Hindus. 70% of them are in South Asia that includes Pakistan and Bangladesh...and 52% of all of them are just in the country of India alone.”
“I pray that you would help the next generation to be willing to sacrifice everything they know and hold dear to be able to be your partner, your coworker, your friend reaching the lost sheep that is not in the fold. So we thank you that your power is available to us. We thank you that you rejoice and hover over those who are fulfilling your purposes. We are so glad to be on your team and we are so grateful for all that you've done in Perspectives all these years Lord.” 
See also: The Telos Fellowship website, "an international network seeking to identify and communicate insights leading to breakthroughs of the Good News in Frontier People Groups, the 25% of the world’s population with little chance of ever meeting a Jesus follower" and the interview with RW Lewis in Staying the Course--Episode 2: Prioritizing Frontier Peoples (September 2024).
Note--STC podcasts (video and audio versions) feature our interviews with and materials from several of the 50+ contributors in Global Member Care Volume 3 (GMC 3). GMC 3 is a collaborative book with 20 chapters full of stories and strategies, and reflections and resources from colleagues around the world. It is inspired by the vision to see member care further develop globally to support mission among all peoples.
STC Podcasts—Featuring GMC 3 Chapter Authors
--Overviewing Global Member Care Volume 3 (August 2024)
--Prioritizing Frontier People Groups (September 2024)
--Developing Member Care in Indonesia (October 2024)
--Mental Health as Mission–Trauma Training and Care (November 2024)
--A Team Model for Pastoral Coaching (December 2024)
--How Is Coaching Different? (July 2025)
--The Unseen Journey: 50 Years of Gospel Advancement (August 2025)
STC Podcasts—Featuring GMC 3 Consulting Editors
--Trauma and Tragedy on the Mission Field (January 2025)
--Trauma and Soul Care (February 2025)
--Sharing My Father with the World (March 2025)
--What We Wish Mission Workers Knew—Counselors' Perspectives (April 2025)
--Resilience, Trauma, and Post-Traumatic Growth (May 2025)
--Asia MC Network Conferences and the MC and Counseling Seminars (June 2025)
Resource Three--Multi-Sectoral Tools
Four Reports and Guidelines for Wellness in Humanitarian Organizations (2020-2024). Core Humanitarian Standard Alliance (CHS Alliance)
  The latest featured items for multi-sectoral member care are from the CHS Alliance (2020-2024). We share four reports and guidelines to support wellness in humanitarian organizations which are also relevant for mission and member care: Working Well. Leading Well. Governing Well. and Funding Well. Check them out!
Working Well? Aid Workers Wellbeing and How to Improve It (2020). "The CHS Alliance has long been concerned about aid worker well-being. Why? Because staff and volunteers are crucial to the delivery of meaningful, high-quality aid. The actions of staff and volunteers underpin each of the Nine Commitments of the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS). To fulfil the CHS, organisations must support staff and volunteers to do their job effectively and treat them fairly and equitably. Ultimately, if people are not treated well – if they are not well – then they cannot serve well. The report presents the findings to date of the CHS Alliance-incubated Initiative to Cultivate Caring, Compassionate Aid Organisations. It considers well-being at the intersection between mental health, people management and organisational culture. It proposes an inclusive, multi-stakeholder process as a way forward to address the findings."
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Leading Well: Aid Leader Perspectives on Staff Well-Being and Organisational Culture (2021). "To adequately deliver on their mandate, humanitarian organisations have a duty of care to promote their national and international staff’s mental and physical well-being and avoid their long-term exhaustion, burnout, injury and illness...
[15 humanitarian] leaders identified five key challenges to staff well-being and supportive organisational culture. First, professionalisation and bureaucratisation have turned us into...paper tigers” drowning in a sea of compliance requirements. Second, our sense of control is naturally tested by the stressful contexts and situations in which we find ourselves, which can be traumatising. Third, the rewards offered by the work are sometimes not adequate enough to satisfy our perfectionist tendencies and willingness to sacrifice our well-being for the cause. Fourth, our workplace relationships and sense of fairness are negatively affected by the internalisation of oppressive systems – patriarchy, neo-colonialism, white supremacy and others. And fifth, our personal and organisational values can seem mismatched once we realise that competition is often the key driver in our sector, not compassion." (quote from the Executive Summary)  
Governing Well Five Questions Aid organiza=sations' Boards CH=Should be Asking (2022). "Aid organisations’ governing boards could and should play a much stronger role in ensuring that the organisations they oversee meet the CHS Commitments to people affected by crisis. This “Governing Well” report makes the case for doing so, and offers five questions for boards to consider with examples:
1.What do we value, and how can we “live our values”?
2.What is power, and how do we use our power?
3.What is organisational culture, and how can we make ours people-centred?
4.How is the workforce doing, and what do they need to succeed?
5.How can we continuously learn and improve?
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Funding Well: A Path Towards Values-Aligned, Trust-Based Solidarity (2024)."After scouring our sector and others for examples of “funding well,” we present them to you as part of a proposed path forward to achieve a trust-based humanitarian system aligned to values like compassion with accountability and solidarity with equity... Ultimately, if the humanitarian system continues to be financed using the status quo approach of short term, tightly earmarked funding slowed by heavy bureaucracy, we cannot, collectively, meet the Core Humanitarian Standard. The report that follows provides a framework and a path forward to get from the system we have today to the system we could have in the future, powered by those in power: donors."
See also: Voices and Videos: Lessons from the Humanitarian Trenches, Member Care Update (March 2015); the Nine Commitments of the Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability including Organisational Responsibility 8.9 (“policies are in place for the security; the well-being of staff") and the CHS Guidance Notes and Indicators related to agency, managerial, and individual staff member responsibilities; and Charting Your Course Through the Sectors in Global Member Care Volume Two, especially the section on 'Ten Lessons from Crossing Sectors."
Global Member Care--12 Pearls
Twelve special blog posts to explore good practice
I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven
from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband....
The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl.
Revelation 21:21
 Image from cover of GMC 1 This set of blog entries from 2011 explores member care by using brief quotes from the book, Global Member Care Volume 1: The Pearls and Perils of Good Practice (GMC 1). There is one excerpt from each of the book's 12 chapters. Each excerpt is like a huge pearl—a pearl gateway—that allows us to enter more fully into the global field of member care. Challenging and relevant!Below are quotes from two of the seven resources featured in chapter 8 of GMC 1. The seven resources are: Safe People and Safe Places, Organizational Health and Dysfunction, Organizational Politics 101, Good Leaders Live in Reality, Leadership Listening, Preventing Corruption in Humanitarian Assistance, and Healing the Body. Pearl Eight--Resources for Good PracticeQuote One. “People ought not to be encouraged or allowed to acquire the rights of statutory tenants to any part of the organization. In the voluntary world this applies particularly to management and executive committees, which have a preference for the re-election of their existing members, for co-option and for committee nomination for new members. Such ways encourage vested rights, and while there is a lot to be said for retaining wisdom and experience in the organization it need not always sit in the same place.” (Charles Handy, Understanding Voluntary Organisations, 1988, page 148) (page 140 in GMH book)
Quote Two. Some examples [of “bad” leaders, based on a lecture from Dr. Robert Sternberg, Tufts University, October 2007]:
• They see themselves as being above accountability—“ethics” are for other people.
• They do not avail themselves of needed input from others to complement, balance, and correct themselves.
• They lapse into an unrealistic and often disguised sense of omnipotence, inerrancy, mega-importance, unrealistic optimism, and invulnerability.
• They become entrenched in their ways, even when it is obvious to others that these leaders are digging a bigger pit of mistakes into which they and others will fall.
• They may have high intelligence, but ultimately all the above makes them “foolish.”
Ultimately, bad leaders distort and ignore reality. They create their own reality.
Bad leaders also display a significantly diminished moral competency. (page 144 in GMH 1)Reflection and Discussion--Recall one aspect of your life/work that relates to the quote above.--Connect the above quote with a current international area that interests/concerns you.--Discuss the quote with colleagues.See also: March 2023: Developing Our Character--Being the People Our World Needs and our Reality DOSE! main article on organizational health and dysfunction.
--------------------- For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,
neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth,
nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God
that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39
Member Care Associates
MCAresources@gmail.com
Member Care Associates Inc. (MCA) is a Christian non-profit organization working internationally and across sectors. We focus on personnel development for mission, humanitarian, development, and health workers and their organizations; global mental health; ethics and good practice; and integrity/anti-corruption. Our services include consultation, training, research, developing resources, and publications. MCA is shaped by the Global Integration framework and the Missio Dei model of global member care (updated in Global Member Care Volume 3 in 2024). ----------
Our Special News-Updates 1) promote the wellbeing and effectiveness (WE) of staff and their families and sending groups and 2) support the diversity of colleagues with member care responsibilities. The focus is on the mission sector with applications for/from the overlapping health, development, humanitarian, and other sectors.
Global Integration (GI) is a framework for responsibly and actively engaging in our world--collaborating locally through globally for God's glory. It encourages connecting relationally and contributing relevantly on behalf of human wellbeing and the issues facing humanity, in light of our integrity and core values (e.g., ethical, humanitarian, human rights, faith-based). See more perspectives about GI HERE. |
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