How can we talk about God's love without demonstrating it through meeting the felt needs of people all over the world? The compassion of God has been described as two hands being held together to form a cup. One hand is the temporal aspect of God's love and the other is the eternal aspect. Take either away and the "cup" of God's compassion is not fully formed. God calls us to move alongside of people in need with both his temporal and eternal help.

Most often those who work in compassion ministry work very closely in a team ministry with others who work in church ministry and sometimes marketplace ministry. The local church becomes the central expression of God's love for that community

Examples of Compassion Activity:

• Community Development
• Community Wellness
• Health
• Refugees
• Water
• Mobile Medical/Heath care

 

The following  section outlines the core qualifications for each category in the following three areas:

1. Spiritual gift(s)
2. Experience
3. Education

Spiritual Gifts:

We affirm the value and importance of all the gifts of the Spirit.  However, due to the nature of compassion activity, there should be a demonstrated evidence of giftedness in at least one of the following gifts that relates to the ministry you will be involved in:

• Mercy
• Helps
• Administration
• Leadership
• Evangelism

Experience:

• For those with a medical background, minimum 2-5 years experience in the medical field. 
• For all other areas,  appropriate experience that demonstrates sufficient competency to qualify for work overseas.
• Or participation in the Apprenticeship Program

Education:

• Bachelors Degree
• R.N. or M.D. for medical related work.
• Alliance History and Thought course
• Completion of Global Ministries' approved Training for Inter-cultural preparation. In many cases this may include the equivalent of the Diploma of Inter-cultural Studies at Ambrose Seminary.

FIRST STEPS