The latest issue of Lausanne Global Analysis, from The Lausanne Movement, is available online from here, including pdfs of individual articles as below:
The summaries are taken from the Issue Overview by Michael Soderling.
Florence Muindi
The Church and Whole-Person Care: Why the Church Should Have an Impact
Florence Muindi inspires us… with her own story of how her view of the calling of the church to ministries of health, healing, and wholeness evolved through difficult situations. While she was occupying herself with many ministry activities, her heart was broken by the sight of young shivering homeless children going through trash trying to eke out an existence on the street just blocks from her mission house. After much mental struggle, instead of starting an orphanage with a feeding program to minister to those suffering, she resolved to help the local church understand and embrace her calling to care for the whole person.
Karen Bomilcar
Mental Health and the Christian Community: Towards Interdisciplinary and Integral Health
Karen Bomilcar brings a holistic perspective to the role of the church in addressing mental health issues… Karen appropriately points out the ever-present challenge of a dualistic mindset that continues to plague the church. Humans are embodied souls and need to have their health problems addressed as such. For too long mental health issues have been ignored by the church with a common view that you cannot suffer from mental health issues if you believe in Jesus. To be depressed has been considered by many to represent a lack of faith. Karen helps us see how the church can be a true partner in addressing mental health issues in our fellowships using an interdisciplinary approach.
Nyalpi Nungarai
The Changing Face of Healthcare Missions: Opportunities and Challenges in the 21st Century
The world in which ‘traditional medical missions’ is being conducted has been changing rapidly. And we must acknowledge that old paradigms of what constitutes medical missions may no longer apply in most regions of the world… A shift is occurring – the incidence of suffering from the well-known infectious diseases is declining while the rate of diseases of affluence is increasing dramatically. The author offers helpful suggestions as to how we can be most effective in our healthcare efforts to our neighbors and concludes by affirming the key role we all can play in solving the complex health problems facing the world today.
Jason Lee
Untold Stories: The Intersection of Physical and Spiritual Health among Frontier Peoples
Recognizing the positive effect of the introduction of a Biblical worldview on human wellbeing, [Jason Lee] calls the church in our efforts to reach FPGs Frontier People Groups] to look for niches in these contexts, where we can shift to incarnational forms of outreach that emulate Jesus’ model of whole person care. Jason suggests: ‘Existing proximate groups or churches of disciples should become hubs of development and health, not necessarily by hiring health professionals or adding dispensaries, but by modelling Jesus’ paradigm of intertwining spiritual, physical, mental, emotional, and social health into disciples’ daily lives, at a level that local disciples can reproduce and sustain.’
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