In This Issue: Small Steps to Change the World and Blogs That Matter
Missions Catalyst is a free, weekly electronic digest of mission news and resources designed to inspire and equip Christians worldwide for global ministry. Use it to fuel your prayers, find tips and opportunities, and stay in touch with how God is building his kingdom all over the world. Please forward it freely!
Practical Mobilization by Shane Bennett is published once a month.
Small Steps to Change the World and Blogs That Matter
By Shane Bennett
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following article contains links to many web sites. The valuable content accessible there may be mixed with unsavory things like bad words. Take caution. In the immortal words of Doug Lucas, “Eat the corn and throw away the cob!”
Ahhhh, the days of August. If you’re reading this in the U.S. you may be familiar with the sweet nostalgia associated with the final days of summer, and you may also have a sun-seared cranium. If you’re reading this in Europe, maybe you’re on holiday with most of the rest of your nation. If you’re reading this in South Africa, maybe you had to defrost your MacBook Pro before you could check your e-mail!
Wherever you are, I imagine you’re pretty busy. So this month’s Practical Mobilization goes easy on the content and heavier on the questions. You have opinions, right? I’d like to hear them. You have connections to sources of helpful information. I’d like to know about them. Maybe what you know is just what a sister in Shanghai or a brother in Brussels is waiting to learn.
Number One: Let’s Make a “Make a Difference” List
Many people we go to church with have their minds, lives, and worlds so ordered that it’s almost impossible for them to imagine relocating to live and work among an unreached people group. My hunch is that many things can change that. The Holy Spirit sometimes sweeps in and, in very short order, rearranges entire lives and outlooks. We should probably pray more for this to happen. I know I could. But I also have a hunch that most people will find their lives directed toward the unreached via small, reasonable steps.
I want to offer people dozens of ways to take their next step. You know what some of those steps are. You’ve taken them in your life or seen them taken in the lives of people with whom you minister. Let’s call the list, “Little Steps that Might Make a Difference.” Moving to Yemen would make a difference, but it’s not a little step, so it doesn’t qualify. Drinking water instead of soda is probably a little step. And it might make a difference, especially if the new water drinker invested the money saved in a new missionary enterprise. Here are 10 steps to get us started. Some of these I’ve done myself, and some I’ve recommended to others.
Little Steps that Might Make a Difference
1. Buy in bulk.
2. Stop watching television.
3. Eat foreign food.
4. Put international headlines on your home page or news reader.
5. Read an Indian novel.
6. Read a Donald Miller book.
7. Host a group in your house.
8. Pay for gas inside and chat with the clerk.
9. Rent a movie with subtitles.
10. Subscribe to Mission Frontiers.
Send in your suggestions to me. If we each e-mailed 10 little steps and as much as 30 percent of our steps overlapped, we end up with … hmmmm … about … well, a pretty long list! Feel free, but not obligated, to annotate your list, letting us know how your little steps can make a difference.
Number Two: Blogs that Do More than Just Waste My Time
I read a few blogs simply because my friends write them and I’m interested. They couldn’t really count as work time. A couple of others, though, serve to shape my thinking, speaking, and writing in significant ways. Reading them definitely sharpens the saw. I’d love to collect, then present to the group, the blogs that help you do what you do and become who God’s created you to be. Again, feel free, but not obligated to comment on your submissions.
Here are three from me:
1. Tallskinnykiwi.com – viewpoints on the emerging church by a New Zealander living in the UK.
2. Presentation Zen – good insights into creating simple and compelling presentations (and nothing to do with Zen Buddhism).
3. Guy Kawasaki – great information on business, speaking, and other stuff he has an opinion on.
Do you have three to pass along? Perhaps we could all benefit. Send them in.
Questions? Problems? Submissions? Contact publisher/managing editor Marti Smith.