Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 2(1),  Summer 2010  

i 
Hoksbergen,  

 

Editor’s Introduction:  

Our Mission in Trying Times 

Roland Hoksbergen 

 

 
The Accord Network of Christ-centered relief 

and development organizations holds that Christians 

are called to witness to the integral love of God and be 

agents in the transforming power of that love in the 

parts of the world community where poverty reigns.  

Accord members work to overcome, defeat, and 

abolish the individual, spiritual, structural, and 

relational barriers that keep people from living the 

lives that God desires for them.   

Anyone who looks around will have no trouble 

discerning the presence of such barriers. Right now, 

we are in the midst of a global pandemic that has 

already resulted in almost 700,000 confirmed deaths 

globally, a lower-than-true figure due to what is surely 

serious undercounting. Other evils, of which racism, 

violence, corruption, disease, violation of human 

rights, raw poverty, abuse of power, environmental 

destruction, and gendercide are but a few, intersect 

with the pandemic in these trying days to create 

serious threats to global peace, justice, security, and 

general well-being.  

As the Accord Network’s fifth principle of integral 

mission says, in the midst of all this, faithful Christ-

followers labor to “address immediate needs and the 

long-term systemic causes of the problem” and show 

the way toward a better way of life in a better world. 

At Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy, 

the editorial team is dedicated to playing our part in 

carrying this mission forward. Our hope is to cultivate 

a forum where thoughtful Christ-followers can share 

their research, reflections, and analyses and discuss 

and critique all this in community as we work to learn 

all we can in the broad areas of relief, development, 

and advocacy.  In this issue of the journal, and in the 

heat of these pandemic times, we learn how four 

organizations are responding to the present realities by 

changing how they go about their work, especially the 

way they monitor, evaluate, research, and learn 

(MERL). The article by Rosie Fyfe wonders how 

Christian development workers are affected by their 

almost total immersion in the waters of secular 

development theory, practice, and general culture. As 

an alternative, she illustrates how Christian liturgy 

might mark the way toward a different consciousness 

and different patterns of life and work that are more in 

keeping with Christ’s call on our lives.  A third article, 

by long-time development worker, Jaisankar Sarma, 

discusses how important it is for development 

organizations to empower their frontline fieldworkers, 

not so much with marching orders, but with an ability 

(and permission) to discern, process, and make 

decisions in relationship with their co-workers from 

partner organizations. 

These three articles are followed by insightful 

reviews of four excellent recent books that are worth 

our time and attention. 

If you have done research or reflected upon any 

of the areas listed above and want to join the 

conversation with other thoughtful and experienced 

people who, like you, want to be faithful to their 

calling to be salt and light in a broken world, please 

consider submitting something for these pages.  If you 

have an idea you would like to explore, please contact 

CRDA editor-in-chief, Roland Hoksbergen, at 

CRDA@accordnetwork.org.  
 

mailto:CRDA@accordnetwork.org