Missions Catalyst 12.08.10 – Practical Mobilization

In This Issue: Annual Christmas List Edition

• INTRODUCTION: Our Christmas Lists
• LIST #1: Gifts that Mobilize
• LIST #2: Gifts for Mobilizers

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.

INTRODUCTION: Our Christmas Lists

Welcome to Practical Mob’s Annual Christmas List Edition! I know you’re in a hurry to get to your quiet and happy place to meditate on the warmth and depth of Advent, so I’ll get right to it.

You love Jesus. You believe he loves the world. And you gotta give some Christmas presents. What if the very presents you gave also served your ministry purposes? Oh sure, some people would call that mercenary, but we – we happy few – know that no opportunity can be missed. “Give ’em a present. Give ’em the world.” That’s our creed, our motto, our, uh, credo. So the first list consists of presents you can give that will turn your recipients’ hearts to the nations.

The second list consists of gifts that will help you or the mobilizers you love do their jobs better. This list is alternatively known as “The Stuff I’d Like to Get for Christmas That I’ve More or Less Rationalized as Being Somewhat, Maybe Tangentially, Related to My Mobilization Endeavors.” I think you’ll like it.

LIST #1: Gifts that Mobilize

Operation World

Best resource for praying for the nations, hands down (or, for those of us who are more charismatic, hands up!) Twenty-five years ago, when I was still just a mobilization pup, Operation World was already a classic. This “fresh from the oven” edition is the first with Jason Mandryk at the helm he ably took over from mobilization legend Patrick Johnstone. My friend, mental giant, and fact-checker extraordinaire Michael Jaffarian also did his share of heavy lifting for this edition. Get a bunch of copies and give them out freely.

Plays and Playthings

Faithful Missions Catalyst reader Lois offers this great idea: “In our city there is a Christian theater group. The tickets are very reasonable and in each production there is a spiritual, thought-provoking message to a modern world. This year we are giving friends gift certificates to attend their plays.” Some films, such as Arranged, might have similar effect.

Surf over to the Holiday Gift Guide for the “Cosmopolitan” Kid for cool, globally oriented games and toys. I particularly like the “I Never Forget a Face Memory Game.”

Gifts That Keep On Giving

Rev. Moyo says his Christmas dream is “to get Bibles and discipleship training materials to the 645 people my team has baptized so far this year.” Contact me if you’d like to get in touch with Rev. Moyo (or, for that matter, to get baptized!)

Loretta in Yuma shared this great idea: “Last year we gave our 12- and 14-year-old granddaughters AIDS orphans for Christmas. We explained in a card that it would mean one less gift under the tree for them, but life to the children in Kenya. We were afraid they would be disappointed, but they wept when they read the card. We work with Tumaini International Ministries, where for $35 a month a child is provided schooling, medical care, food, and clothing. I know there are many other similar programs out there.”

Lolly shares her success with such gifts: “For several years my husband and I have been giving our family and friends items from the Compassion International Harvest Catalog for Christmas and other occasions. This includes everything from an inexpensive bowl of soup for the hungry to building a house for the homeless. Our second daughter once said, ‘I can’t wait every year to see what you give me.’

“Our third daughter started doing the same thing each Christmas. Our oldest granddaughter, now married, asked us how she could give her mother-in-law something like we always gave her! This is spreading through our family and beyond. Along the way it is accomplishing two important things: It teaches us to be generous, and it provides much-needed resources to others.”

Literary Offerings

For the artsy and literary on your list, Dr. Lisa from Santa Clarita says, “I have two books I like to give for Christmas. One is The Coming by Rachel Pearsey. It is an exploration of Messianic prophecies in English and Arabic accompanied by her amazing artwork painted on quilts and reclaimed paper. The other is A Blossom in the Desert by Miriam Rockness. It is a companion to her biography about Victorian artist and missionary to Algeria, Lilias Trotter.

For the young and literary on your list, Linda offers two choices: “The Little Drummer Boy by Ezra Jack Keats is a beautiful book. The fact that it shows the kings as people of different ethnicities is not original, but their worship of Jesus as they give their gifts is powerful. Also, Mary and Jesus actually look like they might be Jewish and from the Middle East.” (Unlike these goofy nativity sets which Linda does not recommend!)

Secondly, “Babies on the Move, by Susan Canizares and Daniel Moreton, is a great book that shows how kids from all over the world are carried in baskets, strollers, backs, blankets, etc.”

Finally, for the bold, unafraid, and literary, Lorena advises copies of David Platt’s Radical, Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream. “We met this guy and he exudes Christ. I don’t think he’s taken Perspectives, but he writes like he has.”

Mobilization Mastication

Want to point someone toward the nations? Angle their stomach that way. For the timid (giver and/or receiver), go with chocolate. For the bold (and well-heeled), perhaps an ethnic food gift basket?

LIST #2: Gifts for Mobilizers

Thirteen fun or interesting ideas:

1. iPad. Mobilizing is great. Mobilizing while looking cool: Breathtaking.

2. Amish fiction, so you’ll know what the rest of Christian America is reading. Amish fiction is the Left Behind of our decade.

3. A good pillow. God loves mobilizers and he gives them sleep. A great pillow will help make it sound and comfy.

4. David Mays chimes in: “Here’s a self-serving idea for a mobilizer Christmas gift. Give your pastor, mission chairman, or mission committee member a copy of my new book, The Mission Leadership Team: Mobilizing Your Church to Touch the World. You can get quantities at a discount from me.” Yeah, I suppose you could say that’s self-serving, but it’s hard to see it in the shadow of the massive service David has rendered for mobilizers over the years. Thanks, David.

5. White panel van. Mobilizers are always moving stuff. The classic WPV also lets you help your friends move, but not the big, heavy stuff that requires a pick up.

6, 7, 8, and more. Missions recruiter Myrna weighs in with these smart gifts: “Housing wherever we roam, since hotels are expensive. Loaner cars. We recruit nationally for our relatively small organization. The cost for a rental car for our recent three-week recruiting trip in one area of the country was $800. And invitations to share our passion: God’s glory among the nations.” What doors might you be able to open for an aspiring mobilizer? If you promise that the conversation will not include a request for funds (veiled or otherwise) you’ll be surprised who might be willing to listen.

Myrna goes on, “Encouragement is such a great gift. Let us know you read our newsletters and that you pray for us and our work. When we come to an area near you, invite us to meet with you or visit your home. And the best gift of all, effectual and fervent prayer.”

9. I can’t walk away from this list with our saying: Airline miles make such a sweet gift.

10. Tech expertise. Believe it or not, many mobilizers score low on what Len Sweet calls the TGIF scale (Twitter, Google, iPhone, Facebook). Maybe you have no money, but you do have know-how. Give your mobilizer friend a coupon to help her get her website past the shameful state, or maybe help him consider how a Twitter account could aid his ministry, or maybe just help him get contact information set up on his new phone. Teach them to use Skype (see the final item below), and you might jump up five places in line to ride horses with Jesus in Heaven.

11. Creative resources. Maybe the mobilizers you hang with have the tech thing going on. Give them a kick in the creative pants with credits at istockphoto.com or xtranormal.com.

12. Used copies of Rosetta Stone programs. Once you’ve mastered Hindi, Russian, or Arabic, pass on the discs to mobilizers who can’t otherwise spare the coin to join the Rosetta Stone Polyglot Club.

13. Finally, scoring the prize for most sensitive and helpful, our own Marti Smith offers, “I’d like to see all missionaries, mobilizers, and ministry leaders have someone or a group of someones who will ask them what their hopes and plans are for the year and then commit to remember, pray, and ask how things are going in those areas. If that really happened, wow, what a Christmas gift. Extra credit for being the one who takes initiative to make regular meet-ups or Skype-ins happen.” Thank you, Marti!

Conclusion

Got a comment or a better idea? Fire away. Want something on this list, but embarrassed to ask? Forward it to a likely friend or two. They’ll get the hint.

God bless you as we celebrate this little babe and the promise his birth portends.