Our ministry has its source in the Triune Sovereign Creator God whose concern has always been for the whole of his Creation. We are partners together with God in his mission to redeem and restore this fallen and sin-ravaged world, made possible through the atoning work of Christ’s death on the cross.

We serve together towards fulfilment of the mandate given by Jesus to his disciples, demonstrated and exemplified in his own ministry on earth, and extended to the universal church of which we are a part. Our ministries are modelled on and reflect the nature of Jesus’ ministry and are characterised by unconditional love, compassion, mercy, justice, humility and sacrificial service.

We recognise the presence and effects of sin around and within us, as we live in the time between Christ’s first and second comings. The Kingdom has ALREADY been inaugurated but it is NOT YET complete. The Holy Spirit has been given to us as the ‘guarantee’ of that completion. So we acknowledge our inherent human frailty and weakness and our dependence on the Spirit to recreate and empower us for ministry. One of the results of this limitation is the difficulty we often find in holding together all the dimensions of our ministry.

We work towards the ultimate goal of God’s purpose – the universal establishment of God’s Kingdom, guaranteed by Jesus’ victory over death in the resurrection, in anticipation of his return with authority to judge the living and the dead and to ‘restore all things’.

Our ministry can be summed up as bearing witness (martyria) to the character of God and his mighty acts of redemption. This includes proclamation (kerygma), service (diakonia) and fellowship (koinonia). We announce the good news of repentance and faith in Christ (kerygma); serve the needy and counter evil and injustice (diakonia); and share fellowship in the Body of Christ (koinonia). In this way we fulfill the mandate to make disciples, to reconcile and restore broken relationships in a sin-spoiled world, and so reflect the unity of the Triune God.

These aspects of our ministry belong together and cannot be separated. Together they contribute, in different ways, to our overall witness. Within this unity we recognise different dimensions, which also need to be held together. They include:

The proclamation and demonstration of the gospel cannot be separated.

There is no separation between our personal faith and our actions, between believing and being. We express this in the various communities in which we live (family / neighbourhood / Interserve / local church / city / nation etc.). Wholistic ministry is impossible without integrity in our lives.

Each of us has skills for our daily life and our work – for example homemaking, professional or vocational skills, parenting, leisure activities. For some these may be our main activity, on which our visa or financial support is based. For all of us these skills and activities are part of our service to God and our neighbour. So they are equally important to the way we live and how we relate to those amongst whom we live, work and serve. They have value in their own right and form a part of our ministry.

God works through His people. All our ministries should contribute (in different ways) to the establishment and building up of the church, the community of God’s people who are called to bear witness to Christ and to be signs and agents of his kingdom.

We resist the tendency to compartmentalise aspects of ministry and rank some as more important than others. However we recognise that they will be combined in different way for each of us according to our situation, gifts and stages in our life and ministry.