What Does Doulos Do?

Doulos’ purpose is to promote the message of Jesus and serve others worldwide. There are four broad kinds of activities that enter into achieving these goals.

Doulos works to involve people in Christian services

Many people we talk with are consciously seeking ways to serve God; their obstacles often being a lack of experience or knowing where to start. An on-going dialogue at Doulos is how to help these people find areas in which to serve. Often it begins with small activities close to home–maybe sponsored by their local church. We have come to believe mission is much more than just sending a check to some ministry in a foreign country. The development of local outreach, the steady move toward involvement of every church member in hands-on service, and the continued education of the entire congregation in mission principles we believe are all important.

Doulos gathers information and studies Christian mission

At Doulos we are collecting and organizing mission information. We study mission so we can help churches develop their mission programs and guide individuals into the areas of service most suited to their abilities and opportunities.

Doulos works to enhance the efforts of Christian workers

We want to help every Christian servant to be more effective. By conducting training programs, developing teaching materials, and helping solve problems encountered in missions we believe we can enhance the efforts of others. We work to help churches and workers become more self sustaining; to expand their ministries without becoming trapped in unhealthy dependencies. Our efforts to help those who minister include bible distribution, seminars, and when appropriate bicycles, teaching materials, and church equipment.

Doulos develops infrastructure (such as schools, medical facilities, children’s homes)

We encourage short term projects, but we believe that more important is the development of permanent institutions such as schools, colleges, libraries, community improvements, medical facilities and homes for children. Such works will be here many years after our generation is gone and these strengthen the hands of every Christian who ministers in an area, giving their work increased power and credibility.

Three Principles of Ministry (Service)

As Doulos has developed, three principles of ministry have repeatedly been found valuable:

• Every Christian has ministry (service)

Each person God calls into relationship with Himself has big responsibility. His surrender to God entails a life of active service and obedience in God’s kingdom. To be a Christian is to be much more than a passive spectator.

• Each ministry (service) is different from all others

The word “minister” is sometimes misleading. We think of the pastor or preacher as a minister and sometimes fail to think of each ordinary Christian as having unique personal ministry before God. Even if two Christians do what looks like the same service, beneath the surface no two ministries are the same. With different backgrounds, minds, opportunities and relationships, each of us is unique before God. No one can take your place–your ministry is personal and different from all others.

• Every ministry (service) is important

Some of God’s assignments are large and very public; but many more are humble and easily overlooked. If God is the source of your commission, your task is important no matter how humble or common it may look. To accept even the small and humble tasks God assigns is to honor him and be the person he intends us to be.

Seven Guidelines for Doulos Programs

Beyond theory and principle, Doulos has adopted some practical operating policies. These approaches are based on much input from others about the world of mission and a sincere desire to hold to the good and workable, not repeating the mistakes of the past.

1. Seeking God’s Guidance Comes First

Every activity or project, to be valid in God’s service, must originate with God’s guidance. All that we do must begin with prayer, meditation and study–to know God’s purposes and his assignments. Without this, we will fail to be people he can use for his glory in sharing the message or serving others.

If our activities flow from God’s will, then we have boldness and power. We are protected from petty,sectarian, unworkable, ego driven, competitive and argumentative plans and ideas. We want to be objective and surrendered to God, always conscious that we are sinners saved by grace and knowing that all we accomplish is because God’s Spirit is at work in us.

2. Work for the Personal Development of Each Person

“Give a man a fish, he will eat for one day. Teach him to fish and he will eat the rest of his life.” We are committed to strengthening each person to make him more capable. Well intentioned charitable efforts that result in dependency and the destruction of initiative and purposeful living we avoid. Some mission efforts have been ill conceived in this manner. We want to equip people for fuller, richer and more meaningful lives.

This is not at all to deny food, clothing, or shelter to those in need–but the long range goal is always to help people become more capable of solving their own problems. Some are truly unable to be independent and these we must love and care for as our on going service before God.

3. Practice Integrity, Quality and Authenticity

God works powerfully in us if we are genuine and we do the best we can in every situation and deal honestly with all people. Whatever we do–whether it’s building a school, conducting a seminar, or helping a church–we want to do good work for God. These three qualities come only from surrender to the Lordship of Jesus. There is no room for the things of the unregenerate ego–competition, jealousy or a critical spirit.

4. Work for the Long Range Future

We serve the Creator God whose purposes encompass all of time and eternity. Human activity, by contrast, often involves instant gratification, planned obsolesence, wasting resources and trading future good for present convenience. In Doulos we try to work with an eye to generations yet to come. Our Christian faith and message have life changing effects in human souls. This has eternal significance. We are not merely working for temporary fixes in a world full of “band-aid” solutions.

Because of this, we focus on such things as education that affect people for entire lifetimes. Building institutions that will outlive us, protecting earth’s resources, practicing good stewardship of time and money are our concerns. We operate in the present but are deliberately conscious of the long range effects of our work.

5. Be Open Minded and Inclusive

Openness and inclusion are traits that accompany humility and God-engendered faith, while exclusiveness rises from the human ego. Narrow thinking is destructive to the message of the Gospel. Openness and inclusion are not equivalent to indifference or a failure to stand for truth and oppose evil. They are expressions of courtesy and respect for others and the willingness to take other people seriously.  They are antithetical to self righteousness.

Only in an open and inclusive environment, can we dialog with each other, extending tolerance and love towards those who disagree with us. Each of us is accountable to God and each of us is a vehicle for God’s love to others. If God is at work in us, our differences in viewpoint, culture, and understanding are not fatal to relationship. If God’s Spirit is absent, however, each tiny difference becomes a barrier that divides the body of Christ. Because Jesus is Lord, there is continual input of God’s activity in our lives. It is through this presence of God that real unity comes–it is never something artificial imposed from the outside.

6. Serve the Whole Person in Body, Soul and Spirit

People are divinely created and complex. Each of us is a unique “self” with a unique relationship to the personal God. Biblical terms such as body, soul, and spirit are complex and at times are overlapping and confusing. However, they seem to mark out three real components of our humanity. In over simplified language, we can say the body is our physical self (atoms, molecules and energy) but within this existence there is a psychic self scripture refers to as “soul.” This soul-function is not so easy to examine as the physical, but is just as real, involving things like will, intellect and emotion. More obscure and difficult to define is that part of us we call “spirit” that God has given us, created in his own image.

Though we speak of the various components that make up what we call “self,” the bible treats the human as a unity–an integrated whole. Our modern world suffers extensive fragmentation of the person, perhaps due to our tendency to analyze parts rather than think holistically. To serve others comprehensively, we need to avoid rigid divisions between the “physical” and the “spiritual” and supply the needs of both, realizing that each affects the other and that the lines are somewhat vague.

7, God’s Love is Incompatible with Prejudice, Racism and Bias

We want to be consciously respectful of others. Respect is not the same as abandoning or compromising truth, but simply treating others with dignity and consideration. It means listening carefully to others, trying to understand their viewpoint and treating them as we wish to be treated. We intend never to slander someone else’s religion, race or culture though we may disagree with their beliefs or practices.  God’s servants must not be condescending or patronizing. Contempt for others comes from self righteousness, but the authentic servant approaches all disagreements with humility and courtesy.