Compassion Advocate

Advocate…one who pleads the cause of another. That’s the official definition. In essence, what it means to be an advocate for Compassion International is simply this: to plead the cause of impoverished children around the world in the name of Jesus. Quoting directly from Compassion’s website about what it means to be an advocate, we are to:

• Educate Christians concerning the biblical mandate to love the poor.
• Share Compassion as one solution to those needs that provides a way for people to respond to the biblical mandate.
• Increase awareness of the needs of impoverished children around the world.

My Advocate journey started in the fall of 2011. That’s when I first felt a tug on my heart to do more than just be a sponsor, although that is a very worthy position by itself. My husband and I sponsored our first Compassion child, a little girl in Brazil, in April 2011.

In the fall of 2011, I started wondering what more I could do on behalf of Compassion. At the time, I was taking a women’s bible study (“James”, by Beth Moore). This study is the thing that took it over the top for me. There was one session in particular that God used to tell me, without any doubts, that this was something I needed to do. If you’ve ever studied the book of James in the bible, you’re probably familiar with James 1:27: “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” James 15-16 also tells us to take care of those in need and if we don’t, ‘what does it profit?’. In other words, what good is our faith if we don’t live it out?

As I write this, I’m a brand new advocate, so I’ve just gotten started on this journey. If you’re wondering what it’s all about, and how to become an advocate yourself, here is how the process works.

First, I went to the Advocate’s area of the Compassion website. This is where you’ll find a complete Advocate Position Description as well as the application. Compassion makes every effort to make you aware of what an advocate’s responsibilities are even before you commit to it. This is one thing that I like about it because I’m a planner through and through. I want to know ahead of time what I’m getting into, what will happen, and how I can prepare for it.

Once you read the information on the website, you’ll fill out the application. This covers your basic contact information, your history with the Compassion ministry, some information about your interests and activities, how you’re involved at your church, and a statement of faith. You will also be asked to agree to a minor background check. Then, you click submit and it’s done. After that, you’ll wait to hear from Compassion about setting up a phone interview.

I had heard that it may take several weeks before Compassion would contact me about the next steps. I finally received an email from a Compassion staff member to set up my phone interview. He explained that it will take about 45 minutes. We scheduled it for the following week, and I’ll admit that I was a little bit nervous about it. In the end, though, it was an interesting call. In the beginning, he asked me some questions, which I answered easily (just a few things about myself, my testimony about becoming a Christian, and why I wanted to become an advocate). He then started telling me all about what is involved in being an advocate, what kind of training I’ll receive, what the next steps are, and other information. One thing about it is that they’re very flexible about this call. They’ll work with you for whatever day and time suits your schedule.

After the phone call, he sent me an email with a link to the online training at the website. It’s formatted like a powerpoint presentation, and is extremely informative (but, really easy to understand). I learned so much about Compassion that I wasn’t aware of before. I went through the training in one sitting, but it’s set up so that you can go through it as your time permits. If you only have 10 minutes to devote to it, then you can go through it for 10 minutes, and you just pick up where you left off when you have some more free time!

There were links to other online training tools as well as some great information about resources. Once I completed the training, I was an official Compassion Advocate!

You will be sent information with contacts in your region, such as your Regional Advocate Manager. I’ve already connected with several of my contacts and have even joined the Facebook advocates group for my region.

So, what happens now? What form will my ministry take and what form will your advocate ministry take? Well, the answer is any form that we want it to take! Compassion is very flexible and encouraging to advocates to work with their ministry, using our particular talents and gifts. Your advocacy may include things such as speaking at church, working tables at Compassion sponsored events (even concerts!), or sharing about Compassion with your family, friends and co-workers. I blog, so one form my ministry will take is to blog about Compassion on a regular basis.

I’ve been told that there are some opportunities to attend regional and national Advocates conferences. It will probably be a while before I can do that, but I’m looking forward to it when the opportunity comes my way. Perhaps there will be a local or regional event that I can attend in the near future. I’ve already connected with a local advocate on Facebook, and I’m hoping that we can meet for coffee and brainstorming sometime soon.

Have you thought about becoming an advocate? Would you like to find out more? Click here to read more about becoming an advocate. I’m so looking forward to this new journey I’m on, and I just know that the Lord will bless me for being obedient to His calling.

In His grace,

Sharon