Our ministry has the opportunity to grow, to reach more souls — to shape our world. To do this, we need a strategy, which is where Chuck Boudreau comes in.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

Are there letter-writing genies in the basement? Does Compassion’s headquarters even have a basement?

Do Santa’s workshop personnel kick it here during the off-season addressing and licking envelopes and sleighing over to Togo, India and Honduras to drop off sponsor letters? Payroll and finance must have a tough time keeping up with the influx of elfishness.

No genies. No basement (that I’m aware of). No elves. No sleigh. (Although there may or may not be a task force looking into the cost benefit analysis of said magical sleigh. Postage is expensive.)

Today, I will break this down into a very high level overview. It won’t be totally satisfying but one must start somewhere. We can get into the nitty gritty later.

First the Ministry Paradigm. Or rather, my version of it.

Before you tune out, the Ministry Paradigm is basically a high-level representation of how Compassion is organized to best serve children.

And when you think about it, every organization should have a specific goal: mainly to take the mission and vision, devise a strategy to implement change, employ specific operations to reach the desired outcomes, and measure them along the way to gauge impact. Right?

I think we can all agree that the children are the main focus of Compassion’s work. The children are the reason you sponsor, and it is you who allow us to serve them.

Now, we’ve got two sides of the equation. Two main feeders serving Compassion’s children — church partners in the field and sponsors here in the U.S. (and abroad). A gross misrepresentation, but go with this analogy: hands and money.

First, the hands.

Implementing church partners are those churches on the ground in developing countries that host the child programs. They provide services to children ranging from spiritual education to meals to health checkups and more.

How do they do this? With a lot of help. Undergirding all implementing church partners is an entity called International Program.

International Program’s main function is to implement and communicate programs. There are four programs that holistically serve children from infancy, potentially through college: Child Survival, Child Sponsorship, Leadership Development and Complementary Interventions (CIV).

The diagram below may look familiar to you.

The indiscernible numbers along the bottom represent the ages of children as they move through Compassion’s programs. The red line moving through the model represents Complimentary Interventions that complete the core programming as needed.

Disaster relief, water projects, infrastructure development and income-generating activities all affect the environment in which children live.

Interventions relating to AIDS, malaria or education are activities that supplement development outcomes of children. These are CIV.

We talked about the hands —  now, the money.

If you look back up at the Ministry Paradigm diagram, you’ll find sponsors, donors and supporting church partners play a crucial role in supporting children. Without these key players there would be no Compassion.

So, if you sponsor a kid, that’s you. You in Missouri, you in Canada, you in the U.K.

The Global Partner Alliance is the main body supporting sponsors, donors and supporting church partners. Its main function is to attract and engage sponsors and donors.

The Global Partner Alliance is made up of the 10 partner countries that fall voluntarily under the Compassion International umbrella. That is Compassion U.K., Australia, Korea, Switzerland, Italy, etc.

So, what drives the relationship between the hands and the money? How do you ensure that what’s happening in Togo is the same thing that’s happening in Guatemala, and that Compassion Deutschland is on the same page as Compassion Korea?

Good question. It’s the executive leadership of Compassion International, housed here at the Global Ministry Center in Colorado Springs.

They provide leadership and coordination at the highest level. They are the go-between for International Program and Global Partner Alliance, ensuring long-term integrity of operations and communications. No small feat for an organization of more than 2,000 workers serving more than 1 million sponsored children in 26 countries.

Undergirding it all is Global Support Services. Its main mission is self-explanatory but worth repeating: to provide shared support services across the greater ministry of Compassion International.

That, in its most basic form is the big picture — a high-level look at how Compassion is structured to carry out its mission of releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name.

Tune in soon for a breakdown of life and structure here at Compassion International in Colorado Springs — the Global Ministry Center. We’ll take a deeper dive into Global Support Services.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

• Part I
• Part II
• Part III
• Parts etc.

• What advice would you give to a young director of a small starting ministry? (Gabe)

Make sure the cause of the ministry that you are leading is your absolute passion. Ask yourself deep in your soul

Is this really what I’m all about? Is this absolutely my passion?

The test that I put myself through every few days — and I would tell you to do the same — is this:

When you think about this ministry that you’re launching, test whether or not it can move you to tears in 30 seconds — either tears of great sorrow at the need that you are trying to fill or tears of great joy at the impact and the joy of making a difference in your world? If it cannot move you to tears in 30 second, my advice is … don’t do it.

Don’t start a ministry without huge passion. It’s got to come from deep inside you.

• What is the best thing that people going on a short term missions trip can do to make a lasting impact with the people that they serve? (Sara Benson)

First of all I would say, “Good for you!” for going on a mission trip. I think in this day and age, as small as the world has gotten and how easily we can travel to any corner of the world, anyone who can financially do it ought to get out there and see it. But my caution to you, Sara, is that you’re in for a surprise. Because you are going to be the one who’s impacted.

I know that it takes a wonderful heart to go out there — a heart to bless people and to make a lasting impact on them. But you are the one who’s really going to be changed.

What you should plan to do is to go to love, to serve and to learn, and you should go fully expecting to be blessed. God gave us two ears and one mouth, and I advise you to use them in that proportion. I know that’s especially true when you go overseas into a setting that you are not familiar with. You should do twice as much listening as talking.

Go with a heart to bless, but my experience has been — and I believe your reality will be — that you will come back with a heart far better blessed than you could ever imagine. Your biggest challenge isn’t what you do over there. Your biggest challenge will be determining afterward what you are going to do over here with what you now know and what you now feel. Scripture says “To whom much is given, much is required.” And that isn’t about money … that’s about experience and heart and insight. So I wouldn’t go over there without a realization that when I come back, I’m going to have to do something with what was done to my heart.

And one last thing I have to say is read Hope Lives – Amber Van Schooneveld’s book. I don’t know of a five-week personal journey that better prepares someone for a mission trip than that book.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

I’m not sure how that started. Perhaps it’s because we were so poor and often didn’t have anything else to put between our two slices of Wonder Bread. It’s not very nourishing. But at the time, it was a wonderful snack.

And now, having grown up and had all sorts of meat-filled hoagies, clubs, burgers and Reubens — mayonnaise sandwiches don’t sound very appealing.

The early part of my spiritual journey was just like that mayonnaise sandwich. I had the bread, but not much to put in the middle.

My early walk with Christ was encapsulated in the only two things I really knew about Jesus:

1. He was born of a virgin, in a manger, under a bright star. Wise men came to see Him and brought Him gifts.
2. He was crucified for my sins. But after three days, He rose from the grave…proving His power over death, and thus granting us everlasting life.

But I knew very little about the middle of the sandwich. What happened between birth and death? What did Jesus do with His time here on earth?

We can grow so complacent in our spiritual journeys that we forget about the middle of the story. And frankly, part of that may be the fault of the Church.

Pastors — not all of them, but many — find it easy to talk about the bread. Sermons about how Jesus was born…and how He died for our sins are abundant. It’s an easy topic to give the body. But what about the middle?

Last year, a Barna poll found that more than 50 percent of church-goers in the US said they had not heard a single sermon about ministering to the poor over the past 12 months. Over 50 percent!

But so much of what Jesus did was ministering to those who were hungry, thirsty, hurting, sick, lame, blind…poor. Jesus spent the better part of His ministry addressing those needs. And He told us to do likewise.

Why isn’t the Church teaching about the middle?

Seems to me that ministering to the poor ought to be the most preached topic in the Church today…not one of the least.

If we truly want to be Christ-like, and we should, then let’s start teaching Christ’s message to the Church. Let’s start doing what Jesus did — and what He told us to do…serve the poor.

Anything less…is just a mayonnaise sandwich.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates