DOWNLOADABLE: Advent Prayer Chain

Source: Weave

The countdown to Christmas is on! Focus your family on God’s global heart and purposes this advent season. Jesus came to redeem all peoples. Create an Advent Prayer Chain and set aside time each day to intercede for those who have never heard the gospel. Each link of the chain represents a people group – tribal, Hindu, unreligious, Muslim, or Buddhist – with simple descriptions and prayers in child-friendly language.

Nice job, Weave: an easy, kingdom-focused craft project and holiday decoration all in one!

» Download instructions and materials.

» Karen at Weave also told us about “a pretty cool prayer journal for families to pray for the world.” Check out 40 Days 40 Bites: A Family Guide to Pray for the World, written by Trudi Parkes of WEC. Available in the US from Amazon for US$7.03.

NEWSLETTER: Catalyst Postings

Source: Catalyst Services

Postings is a free, monthly e-newsletter of thoughtful and practical articles for church mission leaders. All the articles are posted on the web so you can download and share them with your missions team and other leaders. Take a look at these editions from 2014:

» Learn more or subscribe to receive monthly editions.

TRAINING: Short-Term Missions 101

Source: Delta Ministries

Looking for an online training curriculum you can use to equip mission team participants? Check out Short-Term Missions 101 from Delta Ministries. This new online course provides ideas, techniques, and skills designed to maximize the on-field experience for adults and youth serving on a short-term mission. Training includes eight self-paced sessions, each of which should take typical participants about three hours.

Topics include character transformation, cultural adaptation, team building, evangelism training, and some field-specific modules. Registration includes access to the online biblical DISC personality profile assessment.

» Learn more or register for US$45. Note that Delta Ministries offers many other resources for short-term teams, some of them free.

BOOK: Know & Go

Source: GMI Books

Know & Go: Inspiring and Informing Global Mission, edited by Jon Hirst. GMI Books, 2014. 85 pages.

“From the Apostle Paul to William Carey to Billy Graham, the Church’s greatest evangelists and missionaries combine zeal with real-world data about the people they seek to reach,” says the new GMI book, Know & Go, which features articles by top researchers with GMI, OC International, and Joshua Project, as well as a foreword by Paul Eshleman of Campus Crusade for Christ.

This book makes the case for why knowing about your world is important. It addresses the opportunities and tensions that come with living in the information age and offers perspective on how to respond. It includes a history of Christian map-making and celebrates some milestones in the ministry of GMI and its sister organizations in the world of mission research, but also includes a great chapter with practical thoughts on how to do research on a budget.

This quick, inspirational read may only find a small audience but it does a great job of encouraging people to see research as something they can do within their ministry context.

» Learn more or purchase the Kindle edition from GMI for US$9.99; US$14.99 for the paperback. But from now until Monday, it’s 50% off ($4.99 and $7.49). Several other GMI books are also 50% off during this period.

WEBSITE: Great Christian Media in 12 Languages

Source: TWR

Have you seen TWR360? Both the website and the related apps provide a portal to inspirational, Bible-based Christian media to enjoy and/or share with others. Access audio and video material from dozens of ministries, study guides, scripture, Christian music, the Jesus Film, and other discipleship resources.

One of the most distinctive features of TWR360 is its ability to detect the language of a visitor’s browser and automatically function in that language. If a visitor selects one of the displayed topics, all available material on that topic in the visitor’s language will be presented. Nice.

» Is this something you could recommend to a friend showing interest in spiritual things or wanting to grow? Pass it on. Materials in two more languages, Vietnamese and Indonesian, will be added soon.

EVENTS: December Calendar

Source: Missions Catalyst Events Calendar

Not much on the calendar for December, though January is filling up. Please let us know about events you think we should add for 2015. Much thanks.

December 4, To the Unreached Peoples Scattered Everywhere: A New Era of Frontier Mission (online). Missio Nexus webinar with Cody Lorance.

December 11-13, Cat and Dog Theology Speaker Training (Nicholasville, KY, USA). Become a certified “Cat and Dog Theology” speaker.

» View the complete calendar and/or submit an item.

Missions Catalyst News Briefs

Missions-Catalyst-no-tagline_large

In This Issue: Lives that Inspire

Greetings!

Foreign Policy Magazine has just announced their choices for the 100 Leading Global Thinkers of 2014, in ten categories: agitators, decision-makers, challengers, naturals, innovators, advocates, chroniclers, healers, artists, and moguls. Interesting, but I found the story of Pema Tschering, told in film by a friend of his, more inspiring than them all. As a doer more than a thinker, he didn’t make the list. Against all odds, this young Bhutanese man lives with cerebral palsy and uses his feet to make beautiful wood carvings and live an independent life. Watch the five-minute film.

Good leaders inspire. Bad leaders, well, apparently they never step down. The Guardian offers to test your knowledge of some of Africa’s presidents for life. I scored 7 out of 10; slightly above average. Can you beat me? After this informative quiz, you might find this TED talk interesting: The Leaders Who Ruined Africa and the Generation that Can Fix It. You may find this young man more inspiring, too!

Blessed and challenged,
Pat

Fred-Swaniker

Ghanaian Fred Swaniker founded a leadership network to educate and support the next generation of Africa’s leaders. Watch his TED talk.

Pat

Pat Noble has been the “news sleuth” for Missions Catalyst since 2004. In addition to churning out the news, she is working to create a SWARM (Serving World A Regional Mobilizers) in Northern New York using the NorthernChristian.org website. You can connect with her at www.whatsoeverthings.com.

 

ASIA-PACIFIC: He Carried Her to Hear the Gospel

Source: New Tribes Mission, November 2, 2014

Finally, the time had come – the Bible lessons that Wapane longed to hear would be taught. She would be able to hear “the Talk” about the Creator and his Deliverer that had changed the lives of so many Moi people.

But the lessons would be in a village nearly two hours away by foot, and Wapane, the oldest Moi woman, was now too frail to walk the trail. Had she waited too long to hear this important Talk?

Ginogui, who had heard the talk and placed his faith in Jesus, knew he had to do something. This was more than just the concern of a believer for a lost woman; Wapane was a relative.

But what could he do? The trail to the village where they would teach was muddy and narrow and steep. Even if he could manage to carry her, could she cling to his back for that long? No, it was too far.

As Ginogui prepared for the trip – for he would not miss an opportunity to hear this Talk again – he could not get Wapane’s predicament out of his head.

He got out his largest string bag. The Talk started at Creation and went through Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, so he would be gone a long time. He put a hammock in his bag, but then he stopped, and smiled. His largest string bag was just large enough for frail old Wapane!

He emptied the bag and used it to carry her to the village for the Talk. For two hours he focused on the simple task of putting one foot in front of the other as he struggled to bring Wapane safely to her destination.

When she arrived, Wapane said, “I’ve come because of the Creator’s Talk. I’m really excited to hear it, so I’ve come to listen.”

Would you carry someone up and down a rough, muddy trail for two hours so they could hear God’s Word? If you’ve chosen to take responsibility to pray fervently and regularly for missionaries and those they serve, you are carrying a burden no less precious than Wapane.

» Full story with picture. See also a missionary’s report on the results from this time of teaching.

UKRAINE: Year-long Training and Evangelism Campaign

Source: Crossfield News, November 16, 2014

Mission Ukraine, a year-long training and evangelism campaign for the entire nation, will launch on November 21 with a five-day kickoff event.

The launch will feature youth rallies plus plenary talks from Dr. Ravi Zacharias and a team of international evangelists.

Mission Ukraine has two main purposes: Communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ across Ukraine, and serve as a catalyst for discipleship and missionary service throughout the former Soviet Union.

Iliya Kozubovsky, a member of the Mission Ukraine leadership team, says that Ukraine’s recent political and social unrest has created a huge hunger for truth in his country.

“Our dream and hope is to see spiritual transformation of our nation,” Kozubovsky says. “We’d like to see as a result of this evangelistic project more and more non-believers reconciled with God. We really hope that Mission Ukraine is God’s hope for Ukraine; it is one more good chance for Ukrainian people to feel his love and accept it.”

[Mission Ukraine advisor Blair] Carlson is asking Christians worldwide to pray for the success of Mission Ukraine, which is being held at a time of high political and spiritual tension across the country.

“Because Ukraine has the largest church base of any country in the region and supplies 70 percent of the church workers for the former countries of the Soviet Union, many believe that the current troubles relate to the spiritual powers of the world wanting to shut this all down,” Carlson says.

» Read full story and more details on specific events.

» Readers might also be interested in a fledgling volunteer military chaplain ministry in Ukraine (story from Operation Mobilization).