Global Partnerships
Global Partnerships provides students with opportunities for cross-cultural experiences that expand their faith, their views of the world and their commitment to a lifestyle of justice. Through partnership trips that go out over winter, spring and summer breaks, students travel all over the world learning, building relationships and serving. These trips are open to students from all backgrounds, religious traditions and levels of experience.
Thanks to a generous grant from the Lilly Endowment, UMin, in partnership with North Park Theological Seminary, is offering a limited number of scholarships for Global Partnership Trip participants, leaders and advisors. For more information please contact Julia Styles Hastie.
STRATEGY
Education
We want students to learn about the culture and the faith of people who live in different areas around the world. A part of the educational process is for students to understand the socio-economic, geo-political and humanitarian issues others in the world are facing and their responsibility as global citizens. Through Global Partnerships, students will have cross-cultural learning experiences that will change their perspectives and their lives.
Relationships
When we know someone of a different nationality, we read the news differently, think of justice differently and spend our money differently…all because we now have a personal connection. Through Global Partnerships, students will have opportunities to develop relationships with people around the world by traveling to our partner locations. In addition, members from the partner organizations visit the North Park campus. And by keeping the same partners from year to year, we are seeing the relationships between North Park and our partners deepen over time.
Collaboration
By working with our partners, we identify ways to serve one another. When we travel to partner locations, we work under local leadership and serve alongside indigenous people to meet various needs and encourage healthy and sustainable communities. With sensitivity towards some of the limitations of short-term mission programs, our partners help us wrestle with the affects of colonialism, complex economic issues, and common paternalistic attitudes. We work together to support, encourage and challenge one another.
In addition to specific partnership opportunities, this program also sponsors various campus initiatives around global social justice. By raising awareness, encouraging advocacy and hosting events around such issues as AIDS and the environment, this program helps students to learn to pursue a lifestyle of justice.
VALUES
Missio Dei
Global Partnerships exists on the belief that God is a Sending God: sending Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Church into the world to reconcile God with humankind and the earth, to proclaim good news to the poor and weary, to seek and find those that have lost their way, to heal the sick and broken, to free those in bondage, and to bring justice and peace. This means that God is already at work around the world, in culture and in communities, and we want to participate in what God has been, is, and will continue to do around the world to glorify His name.
Worship & Intercessory Prayer
Global Partnerships members seek to worship God through our lives-through what we think, say, and do.
We believe it is important to rejoice in the LORD, give thanks, and pray for each other’s needs (Philippians 2:4-9). We also believe it is important to pray for God’s Kingdom to come, to ask God to bring justice, healing, freedom, and restoration to our world.
Global Partnerships participants are encouraged to explore different styles of worship and prayer, to learn about the worship traditions of our partners, and to seek ways to worship God through daily living.
Diversity & Culture
We celebrate diversity and include people of different races, ethnicities, cultures, and socio-economic and worship backgrounds, and help everyone find a place in this community to genuinely express themselves.
We seek out multicultural experiences, ministry opportunities, and relationships, holding in equally high esteem the diverse cultures and lives of all people.
We seek to Glorify God and recognize God’s presence within our cultures and our partners’ cultures.
Service & Advocacy
Following the example of Christ, we seek to serve God and serve others. Humbly we serve alongside our partner organizations in their communities, reaching out to vulnerable and marginalized people. Global partnership trips are transforming experiences, encouraging students to serve beyond the limits of a short-term trip.
We serve our partner organizations year-round by advocating on their behalf, educating our friends, churches and classmates on how our partners are impacting the world for God and what we can do to join them.
Students have opportunities to volunteer through out the city of Chicago and abroad on a regular basis. Students can learn about other opportunities for service through Urban Outreach and the annual Missions Expo.
Hospitality & Community
Global Partnerships affirms the ministry of hospitality as an expression of God's character and the value of people. We seek ways to practice hospitality towards each other, our Global Partners, and the larger community that surrounds us.
Global Partnerships believes community is important, and seeks to build relationships between the students, staff and faculty on campus. We do this by meeting regularly with our Global Partnership teams, inviting the campus to cultural events, collaborating with the cultural associations on campus, and inviting international students to fellowship with us and share their stories.
PARTNERS
North Park University partners with churches and organizations around the world that desire to collaborate with us to transform students to impact the world for God. We currently have eleven partnerships in six countries; United States (Alaska, Appalachian Mountains, and Gulf Coast), Ecuador, India, Mexico, Thailand, and Zambia.
Partner Criteria
We understand that there are thousands of great organizations doing holistic ministry around the world. If you think there is an organization that North Park should partner with in the future, please feel free to email the Global Partnership Coordinator explaining how the organization matches the criteria listed below, and we will consider your request for partnership or promotion during our annual Missions Expo.
Capability and Willingness
- To partner with North Park University
- To host groups of students during winter, spring or summer break
- To educate our students about your ministry and cultural context
- To build relationships with students, faculty and staff at North Park University
- To collaborate in ministry and service, by allowing us to serve alongside you or under your direction
- To communicate with the Global Partnership Coordinator by phone, email or mail throughout the year
Holistic Ministry
We work with organizations that practice holistic ministry, worshipping God through word and deed, evangelism and social action. Our partners also seek to minister to the least of these
- the oppressed, the sick, the poor, the incarcerated, women, children, immigrants, or the marginalized.
Local Leadership
We work under local leadership and serve alongside indigenous people to meet various needs and encourage healthy and sustainable communities.
Good Stewardship
We work with organizations that are good stewards of time, money, resources and talents.
Culture and Contextualization
We believe that translation is an integral part of missio dei, and confess that God can be worshipping in all languages and by all nations. We work with partners that value their culture and seek to worship God in their own language and context. We encourage our partners to teach us about their community, culture, history and theology.