Friday, July 27, 2018

Inception: Working with Refugees, Stage Two: Founding a Faith-Based Ministry to Refugees



Founding a Faith-Based Ministry to Refugees

Introduction

Three articles on faith-based ministry to refugees precede this one. The article titles are The Warp and Weft of Life[1], Conception: Empowering to Serve Refugees[2], and Inception: Working with Refugees, Stage One: Getting to Know Refugees[3]. Besides these, other refugee articles of mine relate stories directly from refugees about their lives. These articles begin with the title In Their Words[4][5][6]. One other article on working with refugees deals with the importance of letting the person tell his or her story. The title of this article is Just Listen[7].

In the earlier articles of this series, we learned who refugees are, how many refugees are in the world, and that they come from many countries. For faith-based refugee work, we must receive our vision from God, so we are steadfast in the work when days are hard and long, and refugee stories are painful to hear. The primary part of any faith-based refugee ministry must be prayer-continual communication with God.

From Inception: Working with Refugees, Stage One: Getting to Know Refugees, we learned again prayer must enwrap any ministry established. Prayer is important throughout all phases and stages of refugee work. With stage one of Inception, we learned once God gives us His vision for ministry, we must get to know the people with whom we will work. For refugee ministry, this is very important. Getting to know the refugees around you helps you determine to which group of refugees God wants you to minister. It reveals to you the leaders of the community, the history, culture, and religion of the refugees. You must talk to refugees to determine if ministry to all refugees at one time is impossible because of tribal, political, or national bias. As you listen to the refugees tell you of their needs, you recognize other areas in which they need help. From this understanding of the refugees’ needs and your acquaintance with them, different ministry areas enter your mind by which you can begin a program to help them. Prayer must continue to enwrap this stage and all phases of ministry to ensure you continue to follow God’s will for the ministry for which He gave you the vision.

Stage Two: Founding a Faith-Based Ministry to Refugees

In the next stage of Inception, which I have titled Founding a Faith-Based Ministry to Refugees, we will consider how to organize and establish a ministry program to help refugees. What does it take to constitute a ministry? Do we use common organization tools such as a mission statement, goals, objectives, actions, and steps? Why is it useful to write these? Will the organization be a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) or Non-Profit Organization (NPO)? Again, we must realize this stage, like all other phases and stages, must be bathed in prayer-before, during, and after.

Prayer

As we seek to establish a faith-based NGO or NPO, prayer must be paramount to make sure we follow God’s will for the vision He gave. Prayer is one way in which people stay and grow in their relationship with the Lord and learn of His will. When establishing any work for God, continual communion with Him for His guidance on founding the ministry is necessary to ensure the vision remains before us. Continuing communion with God helps us determine and stay with His goals and objectives for refugee work. Additionally, it ensures the mission statement reflects His intentions. As we seek to realize which services/ministries to offer the refugees, we must go to God to make sure we are planning the activities He wants to be part of the ministry. Prayer is necessary to ensure we continue to walk closely with the Lord, grow more like Him, and have a heart like His for refugees.

NGO or NPO?

Before establishing a charitable organization, we must decide if it will be national/local or international in scope. If it will be international, then an NGO (Non-governmental organization) would be the charitable organization most likely needed for the work. An NGO may receive government-raised funding and funds from the private sector. Its board members are voluntary and have no affiliation with governments. An NGO operates independently from any government entity. It provides services to communities through analysis, expertise, and advocacy for the people. A few services NGOs offer are health education, managing health crises, and environmental issues. Some NGOs are for-profit corporations, but most are Non-profit organizations.

An NPO (Non-profit Organization) seeks to help people in their local (city, county, or state) or national community. NPOs have a specific mission to achieve. They hire management personnel and aim to raise substantial funds through endowments and donations. NPOs do not seek to make a profit and any profits made from investments go into its operations, not to its members, directors, or officers. Most NPOs are tax exempt and have legal responsibilities that include reporting income and expenses through accurate accounting processes and auditing, and supervision and management. Services NPOs offer are charitable, religious, educational, preventative, and scientific.

With prayer, the vision God gave you, the understanding you gained while getting to know the refugees, the decisions about the scope of the organization, and the base from which you want to get your financial support, you can decide which organization style best serves the people to whom you seek to minister. If you want your faith-based ministry to be separate from government influence, then an NGO and NPO are both suitable for your organization. If your ministry will deal specifically with local or national issues, then an NPO is more suitable for your organization. If your organization wants to redistribute profits to it leadership, members, board, or shareholders, then an NGO is the right organizational structure for your ministry. If your faith-based ministry wants to ensure no part of government dictates to whom or how you can use their funding, then an NPO with a specific funding policy would be best.

Prayer

You should seek the Lord’s guidance about which organizational structure your faith-based ministry to refugees should become-NGO or NPO. Because God gave you His vision for the ministry, opened your eyes to the people to whom you will work, and laid their burdens and needs upon your heart, you should return to Him in prayer asking His will for the organizational structure of this ministry. We each have an idea about our ministry we think is good, but God knows best which organizational form will enable this ministry to grow and be strong for the task He has ordained.

Mission Statement

What is a mission statement and why does the ministry need one? Do NGOs and NPOs need mission statements? Are they not just for for-profit organizations? The answer to the first question answers the latter questions. A mission statement is a brief description of an organization’s principal purpose for its workers, recipients, and for outsiders to understand and follow. To be clear, the mission statement describes what the organization does, and how and why it does it. All forms of organizations need mission statements. A ministry without a mission statement is like a car with a driver who has no purpose for being in the car.

Consider this closer. God gave you a clear vision to work with refugees. As you got to acquainted with the refugees to whom God led you to speak, you understood they have several primary needs-language acquisition, document obtainment, and accommodation and food procurement. Perhaps when you prayed over their needs, God showed you most of the refugees had a place to live, but they had no way to get jobs since they did not speak the language. Without jobs, they could not pay rent, buy food or clothes, or pay for transportation to get their asylum-seeker or refugee documents. Through prayer, you decide the most needed ministry now is teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) and then helping with other things as financial backing increases for the ministry. The organization will also be a resource connector and lead the refugees to the correct person or organization who can help them with other needs-food, clothes, rent money, document assistance, etc. 

The mission statement for this NPO would be something like this. “XYZ Refugee Care Center shares the love of Christ and provides practical help to newly arrived refugees in the city of Toledo by teaching English as a second language and being a resource connector and provider. It offers these services as a testimony and in obedience to Jesus Christ to follow Him, share the gospel, baptize believers, make disciples, and love our neighbours as ourselves.” To be more succinct, this mission statement could say the following: “The XYZ Refugee Care Center provides practical help to newly arrived refugees in Toledo by teaching English as a second language and being a resource connector and provider as a testimony of Jesus’ love for all people.” Both mission statements answer the questions: What does your organization do? How will it do it? Why will they do it?

Prayer

After writing the mission statement for the new faith-based refugee ministry organization, return to commune with God. He led you to this task, introduced you to the refugees, and showed you their needs. God placed in your mind the services needed to help refugees you now know. He guided you as you wrote the mission statement. As you prepare for the next step of founding a faith-based refugee ministry, you need to pray over the goals and objectives for this ministry. Ask God to clarify the goals He has for the ministry and the steps/objectives needed to reach those goals by helping refugees.

Goals and Objectives

Goals and objectives are statements of what must be accomplished for the organization to accomplish its mission. Goal setting comes before determining what needs doing to achieve the mission statement. Objectives are specific actions and a timeline for achieving specific goals. They help guide and provide a measure of your progress toward your goals. After setting goals and objectives, decide on action plans with specific steps to reach specific goals and objectives. Without goals and objectives, no steering wheel exists to guide the ministry toward its vision and accomplish its mission statement. The driver is in the car and has a place to go but has no way to guide the car.

Goals are broader, more general statements of what you want the ministry organization to accomplish. They are longer-term than objectives. Objectives are short-term goals to get the refugee ministry toward its longer-term goals. Your organization fulfil its goals as it accomplishes its objectives.  Possible goals for your refugee ministry are noted with Arabic numbers and related objectives are noted with lowercase letters below.

1.      Establish relationships with key leaders in the refugee community
a.       Determine who is a pastor to the refugees
b.      Determine who is the trusted advisor in the refugee community
2.      Teach English as a Second Language
a.       Find a Bible-based English language curriculum
b.      Find a venue at which to teach ESL
c.       Teach 40 people English in the first year
3.      Distribute food and/or blankets to the refugee community
a.       Find a grant funder for food and/or blankets
b.      Find a vendor who will sell the food and/or blankets at a discount
c.       Determine which refugees need food and/or blankets
d.      Write a project proposal to an NPO/NGO to provide funds for food and/or blankets

The organization leaders will revisit the goals and objectives each year to determine what the organization accomplished, what was unfruitful, and what they should do next.

Prayer

Daily and continual prayer with God must be part of the organization. God will guide the ministry on where changes should occur, where additions should be made, and what people to include. Possibly He wants to expand the ministry into another community or city. Perhaps God wants to change the focus from English acquisition to emergency and material relief. Issues and needs change and any faith-based organization that seeks to help the community must poise itself to change or else become irrelevant. Prayer guides us to determine the direction for an organization, and to keep each person focused on God so the person grows in his or her relationship with God and in Christlikeness. Without this, the ministry becomes stale and risks losing its overarching goal-being a light for the gospel in that community.

Conclusion

The fun part of refugee ministry is seeing joy in a person’s eyes when he or she receives help. Not every part of ministry is fun. Some are hard, but very necessary. Faith-based ministry establishing requires activities other than giving tangible help. It involves writing a mission statement and setting measurable goals and objectives. Each of these comes because of God’s vision to you and to others to work for the good of refugees. When getting to know refugees, you learn of their needs. You must take these needs to the Lord. He will tell you for which ones He wants you to give help. The fulfilling of these needs become your goals upon which your objectives, actions, and plans are based.

Each of the people and their needs must be brought before the Lord. Each ministry possibility, ministry partner, and volunteer should be prayed over. The mission statement, goals, and objectives will all be focused on providing for the needs of the people to whom God calls you and for whom He gives you a vision. Without actual needs defined, no ministry will be focused. This makes the ministry irrelevant. All aspects of ministry to and with refugees must be brought before the Lord and bathed in prayer. We must seek God’s will in each facet of it. This will insure its relevance and greatest benefit.

Consider what David said in Psalm 127:1. He said, “Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.” Jesus taught in Matthew 7:24-25, “Therefore, everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house, and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock.” Two principles arise from these two passages. Make sure what you build is built because God told you to build it. Ensure every part of the refugee ministry is what God wills and is founded on Him. Both require constant and repeated prayer.