Terminology

Asset/talent: A useful or valuable quality, person, or thing; an advantage or resource. Examples: Knowledge, skills, relationships, property, money, mindset.

Budget: An estimate of income and expenditure connected to an activity during a specific period of time. Budgets are used to plan and control/manage income and expenditure.

Community: A group of people sharing lives and/or a common interest.

Development: A positive change, growth, improvement, progress in a situation. Bringing about social change that aids humans in reaching their full potential.

Diakonia (similar to “Integral mission”): From the Greek word “diakonos”/ “diakonein” (Romans 12:7), which means “to serve”. Diakonia is often referred to as “Christian Service”.

“Diakonia is the caring ministry of the Church. It is the Gospel in action and is expressed through loving your neighbor, creating inclusive communities, caring for creation and fighting for justice”. *

Both evangelism (reaching people with the gospel of God’s grace) and diakonia (reaching people with works of love) are integral parts of God’s great plan.

Facilitator: A person who enables, encourages, and promotes other people.

Monitoring and Evaluating: It is a good idea to put into place ways to check that your work is going forward successfully. We can do this through monitoring and evaluation. By thinking through who is going to follow-up the work and how, deciding how to monitor the work and setting a time for evaluation, we are helping ensure that our work stays on track and learn from our mistakes.

It is outside the scope of this book to cover project monitoring and evaluation, but there are a lot of resources available (please take a look at our suggested publications).

Integral mission (similar to “diakonia”): an understanding of Christian mission that includes both evangelism and social responsibility. As Christians and as a Church, we should communicate the gospel in all we say and do.

Project: “A project is a series of activities aimed at bringing about clearly specified objectives within a defined time period and with a defined budget”. **

Talents/assets: A useful or valuable quality, person or thing; an advantage or resource.

Examples: Knowledge, skills, relationships, property, money, mindset.

“Use Your Talents”: This is a Bible-based approach to asset-based development.

References And Additional Resources

Publications

Church of Norway plan for diakonia, 2007 European Commission’s Project Cycle Management Guidelines

TEARFUND:

Roots books by Tearfund aim to help Christian development organizations in their work. They provide detailed information on relevant subjects – either on organizational devel-opment topics, or on good practice in key development issues: www.tearfund.org/roots

Footsteps magazine aims to share information, ideas, contacts, and experience in a Christian contest at grassroots level. It encourages the practical outworking of integral mission in all aspect of local development work: www.tearfund.org/footsteps

Umoja’s facilitator guide: www.tearfund.org/umojaguides

RESOURCES ON PROJECT MONITORING AND EVALUATION:

TEARFUND:

Simple: https://learn.tearfund.org/en/resources/publications/footsteps/ footsteps_11-20/footsteps_11

Detailed: https://learn.tearfund.org/~/media/files/tilz/publications/roots/english/ pcm/2020-tearfund-roots5-project-cycle-management-en.pdf?la=en

INTRAC: https://www.intrac.org/resources/monitoring-and-evaluation-planning-series-5/ https://www.intrac.org/resources/me-universe/

BOND: https://www.bond.org.uk/monitoring-and-evaluation

BOOKS:

Cameron Harder, “Discovering the other: asset-based approaches for building community together”

Sigurd Haus (Ed.) 2017, “Use Your Talents – the Congregation as Primary Development Agent”

Alf B. Oftestad, “How to build a diaconal church”