In This Issue: Domestic Short Terms among the Unreached?
- Domestic Unreached Short Terms: Reader Follow-up
- Four-shot Youth Mobilization
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.
Domestic Unreached Short Terms: Reader Follow-up
By Shane Bennett
Sometimes you get a chance to put your money where your mouth is. I did this morning. Over a cup of leftover Christmas Blend at Starbucks, our youth pastor gave provisional permission (a giant green light in my book!) to consider a domestic, unreached short-term trip for our youth group this summer.
If you caught last month’s Practical Mobilization column before your Christmas cheer kicked in, you may remember me asking about projects that could introduce young people to unreached peoples without a passport and international plane ticket. Thanks for the great response by several Practical Mobilization readers. I’m particularly grateful now that I’m actively considering how we might deploy our youth this coming summer. Here’s a synopsis of the ideas sent in by readers. I don’t have personal experience with any of these programs (yet!), so please check them out thoroughly.
1. Tony from Baltimore said, “One great ministry opportunity we have taken is with Larry Holcomb of Urban Impact New York. It’s great to see NYC as a melting pot of the gospel with all the unreached peoples that live there. It’s also perfect for students, because they get to see NYC … its easy to get to, and Larry has a real heart for building into students.”
2. Wade passed along another New York recommendation from his brother, “He said by far the most effective training he ever had was Christar’s FirstSTOP Muslim outreach training in NYC. It’s a great combination of classroom lecture/discussion and hands-on practice meeting and befriending Muslims.”
3. Dana, working with STEM International passed on some information about two STEM initiatives:
• Inner City Urban Minneapolis: You can join or form a STEM Ministries Team working with refugees, alternative youth cultures, the urban poor, the hopeless, and homeless in the inner city of Urbana Minneapolis. Many tribes, tongues, and nations make their home in Minnesota, including Somalis, Tibetans, Hmong, Hispanics, Liberians, and Native Americans.
• STEM also sends Hispanic and Asian-American teams to work with the Ojibwe people on the Red Lake American Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota. Ethnic minority teams share a minority status with the Ojibwe people that helps build bridges to the Red Lake community.
4. Marian in Cameroon with SIL offered e-mail addresses for Cameroonians in Oregon and Washington. E-mail her for more information.
5. David recommends connecting with Persian World Outreach, a cutting-edge, cooperative Christian mission reaching out to meet physical and spiritual needs of Persians worldwide. “They gladly welcome people thinking of heading to Iran and Afghanistan to plug into their Persian church plants here in the U.S. to learn the culture and confirm God’s leading.”
6. Chris in Virginia with AIMS passed on their recently started ministry project – Philip 8.4.8 – designed to reach unreached peoples in the U.S. and then connect participants to bigger projects in the 10/40 Window.
7. And finally, David at ShortTermMissions.com sent in this list of possibilities:
• Arab World Ministries work with Muslims in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and Toledo.
• Target Teams work with Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists in Philadelphia.
• International Teams work with refugees in Minneapolis.
• InterAct Ministries work with Sikhs and Native Canadian Indians in western Canada.
• CityTeam Ministries work with various ethnic groups in Northern California, Portland, Seattle, and Philadelphia.
If you’re so inclined, there are some agencies to team up with. If you do, please drop me a line and let me know how it goes. If the youth at my church and I end up serving among a domestic unreached people this summer, I’ll try to write again about this topic and let you know how it goes for us.
Four-shot Youth Mobilization
You know that cup of Christmas Blend at Starbuck’s this morning? Well, before I finished it, our youth pastor asked if my wife and I would take four Saturday nights of youth meeting time to build world vision in our kids. We think we’ll do it. It’s a great group made up of long-term believers, newbies, and often a few people who only know Jesus as a swear word. Their general pattern is to wrestle with Scripture and key questions in a discussion format.
My question for you is, what would you do with this? How would you approach it? What methods and content would you employ? Basically, how do you take four 90-minute blocks with 25 kids and end up with a youth group ready to grab Acts 1:8 and head for Tibet?
I know you’re busy, but I’d love to hear your ideas. As is the pattern, I’ll gather our responses, correct the most grievous spelling errors, and report back our collective wisdom. If you have thoughts, advice, or words of warning, please pass them on for the benefit of our Missions Catalyst community (well, and me and my wife!)
Questions? Problems? Submissions? Contact publisher/managing editor Marti Smith.