Missionaries & Projects
The Whole Gospel for the Whole Person
MIA BlogSpot | July, 2010
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July 21, 2010
Posted by Steve McGeeI’ve previously written about the great work that MIA missionaries Billy and Sherri McKillop are doing in Jamaica. They direct theological education in Manchester and Hopewell, support pastors in Montego Bay, serve on the Board of a crisis pregnancy center and reach out to children and families in their neighborhood.
This week they are hosting a team from Granada Presbyterian Church in Miami for a church construction project in Manchester. Next week they will host a team from Pinelands Presbyterian Church in Cutler Bay, Florida. The Pinelands team will be conducting a VBS and performing outreach in the Flankers neighborhood of Montego Bay along with the Flankers Peace and Justice Center.
The Peace and Justice Center, offering a wide range of programs for children and conflict resolution services, is directed by Marilyn MacIntosh-Nash, who left a successful career in the banking world and moved with her family into Flankers, which had one of the highest crime rates in Jamaica. Since it opened, the crime rate has dropped by 45%. Billy McKillop has been building a relationship with Ms. MacIntosh-Nash so that MIA can partner with the Peace and Justice Center in community transformation.
MIA Director of Theological Education Barry Smith will also be in Jamaica next week. He will teach Introduction to Biblical Counseling at the MIA IONA Center in Manchester Monday through Wednesday. On Thursday he will conduct a workshop on Counseling Principles for the staff of the Peace and Justice Center and then join the Pinelands team on Friday for their outreach ministry.
July 12, 2010
Posted by Steve McGeeFor the past few months I’ve been reading "The History of the Christian Church" by Philip Schaff. In Vol. 2 of his work, I was taken aback. In the midst of outward and inward persecution, the Christian church conquered the Roman empire! Schaff comments, “Christianity was placed in the most unfavorable circumstances that it might display its moral power and gain its victory over the world by spiritual weapons alone.”
The first 300 years of the Christian church were marked by severe persecution and martyrdom, yet Christians did not resort to the weapons of this world. They used the spiritual weapons of Christ: prayer, loving their enemies, and ministering holistically.
Schaff further remarks, “No other religion could have stood for so long a period the combined opposition of Jewish bigotry, Greek philosophy, and Roman policy and power; no other could have triumphed at last over so many foes by purely moral and spiritual force, without calling any carnal weapons to its aid.”
The early church father Tertullian writes in his Apology, “We are a people of yesterday, and yet we have filled every place belonging to you, cities, islands, castles, towns, assemblies, your very camp, your tribes, companies, palace, senate, forum! We leave you your temples only! We can count your armies: our numbers in a single province will be greater.”
When the Church of Christ rediscovers its roots and applies the Gospel in the same manner as the early church (the whole gospel for the whole person), we will find radical Christians who actually believe the words of Jesus and the Apostles. They will go out and engage religious pluralistic cultures and tyrannical leaders with love and grace.
This is exactly what Ministries in Action is all about - our missionaries preach Christ as they bind up the physical wounds of His broken body and bind up spiritual wounds with the balm of Gilead.July 6, 2010
Posted by Steve McGeeMIA has an exciting new project that we hope will greatly expand the number of students enrolled in our IONA theological education programs. According to the Billy Graham Center for Evangelism only about 5% of pastors and church leaders in developing nations have access to Bible school or seminary training. For more than 40 years MIA has addressed this need in the Caribbean and Latin America by providing theological education to students through our IONA study centers. During that time we have graduated thousands of students.
Typically this has involved recruiting pastors and professors from US colleges and seminaries to travel to one of our centers to teach weeklong courses. This limits us to the availability of faculty and the students being available the weeks that faculty can be there. There is also the concern of the cost of getting faculty to our centers.
We are hoping to expand the reach of our classes and reduce the cost by putting our courses online. This way, students can access the courses according to their schedule and it would eliminate the cost of sending faculty to our centers.
Since many of our students do not have access to computers or the Internet we are planning to install computer labs at each of our IONA centers. We anticipate the cost of putting in computer labs in Jamaica, Granada and St. Vincent will be $17,500. Please pray with us as we seek funding for this project. If you would like to participate please send contributions to PO Box 571357, Miami, FL 33257.
P.O. Box 571357, Miami, Florida 33257-1357 USA | Tel. (305) 234-7855 | Fax. (305) 234-7825
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