"What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God"   (Micah 6:8)

Across the world Evangelicals are taking an exciting step of renewed commitment to biblical mission in the Micah Declaration.

This declaration was adopted in September 2001 by 140 leaders of Christian organisations involved with the poor and these included Baptist World Aid, Australia, and Tear Australia.

The Micah Declaration

The declaration speaks of "integral mission" and "holistic transformation". It says

"If we ignore the world we betray the Word of God which sends us out to serve the world. If we ignore the Word of God we have nothing to bring the world. Justice and justification by faith, worship and political action, the spiritual and the material, personal change and structural change belong together".

Last year (2002) the assembly of the Baptist Churches of NSW and ACT adopted the Micah Declaration for the consideration and response of churches.

A resource for this reflection is the book Justice, Mercy and Humility: Integral Mission and the Poor - The Papers of the Micah Network International Consultation on Integral Mission and the Poor (2001) edited by Tim Chester, Paternoster Press: Carlisle, UK/ Waynesboro, GA, USA, 2002, costing about $30.

This book includes essays from the Micah Network leader, Rene Padilla, from Tom Sine and Elaine Storkey, from Australians Tim Costello and Steve Bradbury, as well as a range of Christian leaders from the two-thirds world who have strongly shaped the Declaration.

     http://www.micahnetwork.org/about_micah/

A Campaign of the World Evangelical Alliance and the Micah Network

One of the first concrete steps of the Network has been to make a commitment to a unified Evangelical voice for the poor. The Micah Network (a network mainly of agencies working with the poor) in association with the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA - a network of Evangelical churches throughout the world) has conceived a campaign to mobilise Christians to play their part in reducing world poverty. This campaign is called "The Micah Challenge - Mobilising Christians Against Poverty".

In recent years the issue of poverty has become a challenge to the integrity of mission and the transformation of people's lives that we claim the Gospel brings.

A desire by Evangelical Christians to respond to this challenge has coincided with a renewed commitment of nations around the world to reduce poverty through the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

These goals aim at halving world poverty by 2015 through steps such as universal primary education, promoting gender equality, improving maternal health, ensuring environmental sustainability, and developing fair global partnerships for development.

See more on the Millennium Development Goals 

The Micah Challenge campaign has two main aims: 

• to give the global evangelical community a way to influence national and international policies impacting on poverty; and
• to significantly increase evangelical action in favour of the poor.

Why take up this campaign?

This campaign is an exciting step for Evangelical commitment to biblical mission. It links our traditional emphasis on proclamation to the demonstration that the churches of our theological tradition seek practical transformation in the world in terms of the reduction of poverty.

The Network and WEA recognised that together they could mobilise local churches across the globe to advocate for the eight United Nations MDGs. The Micah Network includes over 200 organisations from 60 countries working primarily in relief, development and justice ministries. WEA is a 50 year old network embracing 160 million evangelicals in 111 countries.

The global advocacy campaign will be launched in September, 2003 at a conference of the Micah Network in Real de Minas, Queretaro, Mexico. The theme of the conference will be "Globalisation and the Poor - Negative Impacts and Unprecedented Opportunities".

A Resource Paper on the Background to the Declaration and the Commitment to the Micah Challenge Campaign

"Releasing the Global Strength of Evangelicalism on behalf of the Poor "

An edited resource paper by Doug Balfour of Tear Fund UK  which explains more about the Micah Network, the World Evangelical Alliance, and the advocacy campaign focused on reducing world poverty via the Millennium Development Goals.


Australian Baptist Involvement  - Michael Smitheram - International Micah Challenge Campaign Coordinator

Michael Smitheram, a member of Canberra Baptist church, is the newly appointed coordinator of the Micah Challenge campaign. He has moved to London with his family because the campaign base is with Tear Fund, UK. Michael will run a small office which aims to assist national committees and local churches, mainly by providing high quality campaign resources able to be adapted and enhanced in response to local needs, languages and traditions.

Michael is a person of deep Christian faith. He has an extensive background in aid, advocacy and campaigning on peace, justice, reconciliation and environmental issues. His previous work with Community Aid Abroad/Oxfam and Ausaid (the Australian Government Aid and Development arm) has included field work in Ethiopia and extensive field exposure in the Pacific, South East Asia, South Asia and Africa.

Contact Michael on Michael.Smitheram@tearfund.org
 

Reflection, Acknowledgement and Transformation

The following issues and related questions might help a local church respond to the Micah Declaration and to the Micah Challenge campaign to advocate for the UN Millennium Development Goals - 

• Reflection on and consideration of the Micah Declaration and the campaign: What are the steps that led to the adoption of the Micah Declaration? What are its key ideas? What is its biblical grounding? How does the Declaration lead into advocacy? What are the strengths of being part of a coordinated campaign on the UN MDG's?

• Acknowledgement and commitment: How do we see ourselves challenged by the Declaration and what commitments are we prepared to make in response? Are we able and willing to advocate for and adopt specific goals or targets? How do we integrate our current mission programme with these commitments?

• Transformed by the Gospel: How are we transformed? How are communities experiencing poverty transformed? Is this transformation a mutual and fair process? Does it honour Jesus Christ who "in his life and through his death ... modelled identification with the poor and inclusion of the other" (from the Declaration)?