As followers of Jesus, we’re called to serve the vulnerable. And children living in poverty are among the most vulnerable. Around 333 million children live in extreme poverty around the world. How is it possible to serve so many? By working together.
Compassion partners with more than 8,000 local churches in impoverished communities around the world who love and care for children in need. Through their work, we currently serve 2.3 million children (and counting).
Each church partnership can change many children’s lives. That’s why we work hard to build great partnerships and keep them healthy — so we can continue to release children from poverty in Jesus’ name.
What’s Here:
8 Must-Haves for Building Healthy Partnerships With the Local Church
At Compassion, there are eight must-haves we’ve adopted to guide us in building healthy relationships with churches. They’re adapted from Rodd Wagner and Gale Muller’s “Power of 2,” which includes extensive research on partnerships of all kinds.
1. Acceptance
When two partners come together, there’s bound to be friction from their different perspectives and skill sets. This can be a recipe for conflict unless both partners learn to accept each other’s differences.
In the work we do, we get to partner with churches from 29 countries, all with their own distinct cultures and ways of life. Acceptance and understanding are critical to working harmoniously and effectively serving children.
How do we practice acceptance? We’ve found that taking time to respectfully converse with our partners often helps us build a meaningful plan together that benefits all.
2. Forgiveness
People are imperfect. They make mistakes. In fact, this is why our Savior, Jesus, went to the cross. In the ultimate act of love and forgiveness, he sacrificed his own life so that we may have eternal life, despite all our sin.
In the same way, we’re called to forgive those around us. Without forgiveness, partnerships couldn’t survive. Forgiveness can, in fact, trigger deeper and better partnerships by bringing us closer. We’re called to forgive and to ask for forgiveness when we make mistakes.
3. Complementary Strengths
One of the most powerful reasons for partnering is to work with someone who is strong where you are weak and vice versa. It allows you to tackle challenges together that you couldn’t face alone.
Our local church partners have a presence in their communities. Because of that presence, they know how to serve those living there best. The local church knows more about the children who need served than we do.
On the other hand, we have access to resources and tools, such as finances and developed programs that children need to thrive. By combining our strengths, we provide the unique love and care children need to journey out of poverty.
4. Fairness
No one likes to be taken advantage of. It could be easy for a partner from a well-resourced country to callously use a partner in an impoverished area for their own agenda and to fulfill their own goals.
In the same light, it’s possible for a partner from an impoverished area to take advantage of the giving potential of the other partner. The key is for each partner to work fairly and respectfully with the other.
At Compassion, we carefully assess our internal policies, such as those involving our finances and those of our partners. This ensures we’re both being held accountable to the same standards, treating each other with respect and fairness.
5. A Common Mission
When partners are passionate about reaching the same goal, they’ll make the sacrifices necessary to see it through. For us, the common mission of releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name unites us with our partners.
Despite any differences, struggles or disagreements, the call to serve the least of these (Matthew 25:40) brings us together and pushes us forward.
6. Trust
You aren’t likely to do your best work unless you trust that your partner will too. Our partners want to trust us to be there for them, not only in everyday matters but also to look out for their best interests in times of crisis.
In turn, we want to trust our partners to continually do what is right for the children we serve and the mission. We build this trust by consistently working together and showing that we’re for one another.
7. Communication
The only way partners can be united in one mission is when the pair communicates well. In our partnerships, partnership facilitators ensure a consistent flow of communication between church partners and our ministry.
Our partnership facilitators are of the same nationality and usually of the same culture and language group as the local church partner, enhancing our ability to communicate effectively.
8. Selflessness
The mission of releasing children from poverty is bigger than us. To complete our mission, we must remain selfless, working to help our partners succeed instead of focusing solely on our own success.
This is why we work to help our partners mature in carrying out the ministry within their communities. We work to empower them, so they’ll one day be able to do so without us.
A Healthy Partnership Saves Lives in the Philippines
By building healthy partnerships with local churches around the world, all of us are saving lives every single day. In fact, one healthy partnership with a church in the Philippines protected children from deadly disease.
Many homes in Dapitan, Philippines, lack basic sanitary facilities. In fact, many children live in homes without wash areas or toilets. Unfortunately, lacking safe washing areas exposes children to life-threatening diseases like dengue fever.
Seeing the need for clean washrooms, Benlie, the Dapitan Compassion center director, reached out for help. With trust in the support he would receive from Compassion, he asked for the funding needed to construct new bathrooms.
Compassion approved the request, and new facilities were built that included four toilets, four urinals, an area for kids to wash their hands and feet, a water tank and even extra space to grow.
Now, children at the Compassion center have a safe, welcoming place to take care of their bodies, protecting them from disease.
Benlie used his strengths to see and find a solution to a desperate need within his community, reaching out to his partners here at Compassion. And at Compassion, we used our strengths to provide resources that helped fulfill that need.
Together, as partners, we took another step toward fulfilling our common mission of releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name.
We can’t succeed without our partners. That’s why we focus on building healthy relationships that last, both with our church partners and supporters like you. We know that together we can achieve so much more than we could alone.
This was originally published on February 11, 2012 and was updated on February 4, 2025.
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