This paper represents background information for the World Evangelical Alliance and the Micah Network about the agreement to create a worldwide evangelical campaign to speak out against poverty around the world and give a voice to those who “cannot speak up for themselves” (Proverbs 31.8). Micah and the WEA have agreed to partner in the Global Campaign and join with Micah members to think about creating National Campaigns once the Global Campaign has been launched.

• Arose out of the closure of the IRDA network in 1999

• First activity was workshop in September 2000 on ‘Christian Leadership’ in Thailand

• First International Consultation of the Network in Oxford, UK in September 2001

• Comprises of Evangelical Christian Agencies working primarily in Relief, Development or Justice ministries who are committed to holistic mission and interested in working in and through the local church whenever possible

• Network has now 220 members, 205 organisations from 60 countries

• Micah has 3 objectives:-

• to prophetically call on the leaders and decision makers in our society to maintain the rights of the poor and rescue the weak and needy

• to speak out to the Church in promotion of a holistic mission

• to strengthen our own capacity as organisations

A Coordinating Group has fully endorsed Micah’s offer of partnership to WEA in this venture

At the Micah Network’s first International Consultation in Oxford in September 2001, it agreed a Declaration on Integral Mission. Taken from the Spanish phrase for ‘holistic mission’ we affirmed that:-

• The World Evangelical Alliance was founded in 1951, and now embraces 160 million evangelicals in 111 countries.

• The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) is a global network of 120 national and regional evangelical church alliances, 104 organisational ministries and 6 specialised ministries serving the worldwide church through the WEA.

• The WEA’s mission is that it and its’ member organisations exist to:

The Resolution of the World Evangelical Fellowship General Assembly 2001
“As a global Christian community seeking to live in obedience to Scripture, we recognise the challenge of poverty across God’s world. We welcome the international initiative to halve world poverty by 2015, and pledge ourselves to do all we can, through our organisations and churches, to back this with prayerful, practical action in our nations and communities. We believe, however, that there is unfinished business on the international agenda if the poverty targets are to be met:

In this Jubilee year of the World Evangelical Fellowship, we urge governments and financial institutions of both North and South to act decisively, transparently and with integrity to combat corruption and fulfil the Jubilee 2000 vision by taking the necessary steps to break the chains of debt and give a new start to the world’s poorest nations.” 10^th May 2001

• A joint WEA / Micah global campaign on behalf of the poor

• Facilitated by the Micah network

• To create and resource a global campaign linking together evangelical fellowship / alliances, Churches and Christian organisations…

• To run a worldwide advocacy campaign on global poverty working on a range of activities

• Under the theme of the 2015 Millennium Development Goals

• Which are appropriate both in the North (finance, trade, debt, relief, poverty) and the South (corruption, governance, PRSP’s, poverty)

• Seeking to unlock the global spread and strength of evangelicalism on behalf of the poor

• In a worldwide campaign that can be a framework for numerous national campaigns

We believe this to be God’s time for a campaign such as this with concern for the poor to be right at the centre of God’s heart. Both the Old and New Testament’s are full of God’s concern that His people take the plight of the poor very seriously – from the Old Testament mosaic laws on Jubilee to the writings of the prophets like Isaiah warning of judgement on Israel due to their idolatry and injustice to the vulnerable, to Micah 6. 8 (after which the Micah network is named) exhorting God’s people to “act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God”. The New Testament then picks up the same theme. Jesus himself in Nazareth when announcing the start of his ministry proclaims “freedom for the captives” and “good news to the poor” (Luke 4. 18). Paul in Galatians 2 recounts that when approving of his calling to the Gentiles the only thing that James, Peter and John asked was that “we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do” (Galatians 2. 10).

Jesus asks us to pray “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth” in the Lord’s prayer (Matt 6. 10), and we are expected to be workers together with God in fulfilling God’s clearly stated expectation that we: “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy” (Proverbs 31. 8-9).

The Core Concept
A biblical theme reflecting God’s heart for the poor demonstrated throughout scripture which also lends itself as a widely recognisable biblical ‘catchphrase’ that crosses cultures and continents. This needs to resonate with the evangelical community (e.g. the way ‘Jubilee’ did for the debt campaign)

A Clear Goal for the Campaign

• To contribute significantly to global poverty eradication by giving the global evangelical community a way to influence national and international policies affecting key poverty areas

• To significantly enhance the worldwide Church’s understanding, sense of responsibility and empowerment to champion our Christian responsibility towards the poor by providing a convincing, effective and attractive entry point on global poverty issues

The Opportunity: A ‘Kairos’ time for evangelicals to speak out.

The Greek word ‘kairos’ means a time of decision or moment of truth. We believe this is an opportune moment to launch a campaign focusing on evangelicals all over the world to speak out in their own ways on global and local poverty issues for the following reasons:

1. Lessons, experience and encouragement from the Jubilee 2000 Campaign

2. Emergence of the interest amongst some Western governments to see some sort of global Campaign against poverty and the focus of the development world on 2015 ‘poverty’ targets – The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

3. The growing constructive relationship between the Micah Network and WEA. The Micah Network brings Christian relief, development and justice organisations together from over 60 countries

4. Debate on globalisation within WEA, the WEF General Assembly resolution on debt and poverty, the teaching on Discipling Nations by Dr. Jun Vencer and the opportunity for a worldwide voice for WEA in the 21^st century

5. The opportunity for Micah, who mainly represents local Christians involved in alleviating poverty, to link with a global body representing as many as 160 million evangelicals worldwide. This gives evangelicals the opportunity to change millions of poor people’s lives by acting and speaking out at the global, national, regional and local level, and through the campaign’s witness see many come to know Christ.

6. The declaration could be a defining statement of evangelical belief in God’s concern for the poor in the 21^st Century.