A little over two years ago, Chalmers started an Ambassador program. Through this two-month-long intensive training, ministry practitioners from all over North America have been certified to represent Chalmers in their region or ministry field. This has allowed Chalmers to send out Ambassadors to provide presentations of a biblical framework for poverty alleviation and help churches and organizations implement healthy, sustainable ministry initiatives.

We asked a few of our current Ambassadors to share with us how being part of this program has benefited their ministries.

Helping Churches Help Refugees without Hurting

Austin Donahoo, Senior Church and Community Engagement Specialist at World Relief Upstate South Carolina said that he sought out the Ambassador certification to be better able to equip churches and ministry partners to walk alongside refugees, many of whom have experienced major trauma and loss. “Working with refugees,” Donahoo said, “I realized there were a lot of unhealthy understandings of missions and how to serve those in poverty well [among partner churches].” 

He added that the principles and tools learned through the Ambassador training are a real value-add for the churches his organization works with. He is able to give them something concrete to use rather than only asking them for help and funds and point them to resources and knowledge that can help them rethink their ministry approaches. “It’s helpful to have as an offering to the churches we work with, a way to equip them as we partner together to serve our families,” he said. 

The training itself helped give Donahoo a framework to understand the complexity of poverty that cuts across divisions about how best to address poverty. “It’s both of those things. It’s a heart change that needs to happen…but also structures that need to change,” he said. “But most organizations tend to fall on one side of the road or another” in the ministry approaches they emphasize.

A New Lens for Ministry

Lisa Sheltra, Director of Community Engagement for Salt and Light Ministries in Urbana, Ill., describes how joining the Ambassador program has helped encourage and reinforce her day-to-day work. “When you first start with the principles and When Helping Hurts, it’s like picking up the glasses to see clearly. You start out having to do it really intentionally, but you want to get to the place where you’re just wearing those glasses all the time. The more training and immersion I have from Chalmers, the more I feel I’m able to deeply understand it and articulate it in every situation. And every time I do that, it does nothing but help enhance my work at Salt and Light.” She added, “Drawing attention back to that vision of a restored kingdom…that’s what keeps my passion about the work we’re doing and helps me offer a credible and enticing invitation to churches who are thinking about working with us.”

Engaging the Local Church and the Church Universal

Kevin Peyton, Senior Pastor of Village Church and executive director of Joshua’s Place Ministries in South Lebanon, Ohio, finds great encouragement in his work as an Ambassador. “It’s great to see the kingdom of God being manifest in different contexts in different denominations, different organizations. As a follower of Christ, that’s encouraging. I get to see the “Big C” Church at work, and as a guy slugging it out in the “little c” church week to week, it’s good to pull your head up and realize that there’s good things going on all over.”

Building a Network of Holistic Ministries

Levi and Kateri Gill, a husband and wife ministry team serving through Hope Exchange in Jackson, Miss., were already running Chalmers’ Work Life Faith & Finances programs when they decided to join one of the pilot cohorts for Ambassador training. Kateri said they were “eager to be better able to communicate what we were doing among the churches we were already working with,” as well as needing some encouragement for ministry with a community of like-minded practitioners around the country. Levi shared that they wanted to encourage people to do the work of poverty alleviation holistically, not just through one or two specific programs, so the Ambassador training offered them a bigger toolbelt of resources for the churches they work alongside.

Levi described the Ambassador training as a way to “see under the hood” of Chalmers and better understand the ways Scripture and best practices are integrated into other curriculums and programs. This perspective has helped them better articulate what they’re trying to do in Jackson. 

Kateri shared, “Every place we go and share, whether an official Ambassador assignment or casual conversation, you have to contextualize/repackage it in a different way. Depending on your context, you may have to lean more heavily on the biblical, others on the practical, and sometimes letting them ask questions. [The training has made it] easier to explain what we do in ministry and why, framing it in terms of a recognized program and framework from Chalmers.” 

Levi notes that the Ambassador program is about so much more than just their ministry or Chalmers, but about helping Christians everywhere do more faithful work in their own communities. “How else will these principles get across the country without people championing these ideas and being willing to walk with organizations and churches” he said. “It’s not enough to just hope that churches and people ‘get it;’ we need to show them, and put principles in practice.”

For more information about the Chalmers Ambassador program and how you can get signed up for the fall cohorts, click here.