In This Issue: Brother Yun, the Esimbi of Cameroon, and More
- BOOK – Living Water from Brother Yun
- EVENT – African American Mission Conference
- PRAYER GUIDE – The Esimbi of Cameroon
- FREE ARTICLES – Mission Issues
- BOOK – Perspectives Study Program Releases Fourth Edition
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!
Resource Reviews, edited by Marti Smith, are published once a month.
Dear Readers,
Greetings from beautiful Colorado! Pat in New York and Shane in Indiana join me in wishing you a great holiday, whether you’re trying to keep warm by the fire this Christmas or enjoying a sunny South African summer. Take a moment to join us in praying for our many brothers and sisters around the world who may have the chance to point others to Jesus this Christmas!
Today’s edition includes several resources (including free ones) from Caleb Resources, a ministry born out of Caleb Project. Caleb Resources, now part of PIONEERS, also provides a home for Missions Catalyst.
blessings,
Marti
BOOK – Living Water from Brother Yun
Source: Asia Harvest
Living Water, by Brother Yun, edited by Paul Hattaway. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. 320 pages, 2008.
Brother Yun’s testimony recorded in book The Heavenly Man has deeply impacted the lives of hundreds of thousands around the world since its [2002] publication.
The companion volume Living Water includes many accounts from Yun’s personal life. He openly shares his struggles and the long process of refining and shaping through which God has led him. Brother Yun spent decades in China in the midst of revival. He has seen God move in ways that many of us can only imagine. Yet he often grieves to see among God’s people a lack of obedience and loss of zeal for God.
From a spirit of love and humility and with the ring of authenticity Yun shares principles the Lord has taught him in order to provide readers with a fresh inspirational perspective and encouragement for the road ahead.
Available from Asia Harvest for US$18, which includes shipping worldwide. Significant bulk discounts available. The book is also available on audio CD.
Editor’s note: I found this book – which is more of a devotional book than a biography – excellent and helpful. It’s not often that I get to read the scriptures looking over the shoulder of a Chinese believer.
See also: The Heavenly Man (recently also made available on audio CD), Yun: The Illustrated Story of the Heavenly Man, and Back to Jerusalem. You can get any of these, worldwide, from Asia Harvest.
EVENT – African American Mission Conference
Source: Columbia International University
January 22 to 24, 2009 – Missions Strategy Seminar (Columbia, SC, USA). Mobilizing the African American church into the global mission field.
The African American missions movement has a valuable voice in the realm of reconciliation, justice, and outreach to the oppressed of the world. [African Americans’] experience in the North American context has uniquely prepared them to take the message of the joy of salvation and the reconciliation ministry both to the unreached of Africa, and to Asia, Latin America, and beyond.
The Missions Strategy Seminar is a vehicle to educate, encourage, and motivate African Americans to the mission field, seeing an increase in short term, long-term, and career missionaries. This conference is designed to provide resource and direction to individuals, churches or agencies as they answer the call to missionary service.
See also: These two books – The African American Church, African-American Experience in World Mission and this website – Reconciliation Ministries Network
Editor’s note: Planning a mission event, prayer campaign, or conference for 2009 that might interest our readers? Let me know so I can add it to our events calendar.
PRAYER GUIDE – The Esimbi of Cameroon
Source: Caleb Resources
The Esimbi: Nuggets of Gold. Littleton, CO: Caleb Resources. 32 pages, 2008.
Tucked away from the eyes of the world but not hidden from God lie hundreds of unreached African tribal peoples. The Esimbi: Nuggets of Gold offers you an invitation to be used as God’s instrument to change their eternal destiny. The Esimbi are an animistic people group in Cameroon, central Africa. This colorful booklet provides an overview of their culture and prayer needs as well as the significant features of animism.
Available from Caleb Resources for US$5 plus shipping and handling. Order on the web or contact customer service.
See also: Another prayer guide from Caleb Resources, The Vaishya Banias – India’s Rising Business Class, recently made available as a download (1 Mb PDF).
FREE ARTICLES – Mission Issues
Source: Marti Smith
As the unofficial keeper of the tribal lore from our days with Caleb Project, I want to let you know about an old resource you might find helpful. This collection of articles was first developed as a resource for mobilizers serving American college students.
The world has changed a lot since these were written. We’ve made a few updates but tried to preserve the parts that seem fairly timeless. Please republish or distribute them freely!
An Exploration of the Missionary Call – By Robertson McQuilkin
Biblical Foundations: The Basis for Missions – Exploring God’s purposes in the Bible and the world
Debt – Can it hinder you from being obedient?
Distraction – The great disqualifier
Distractions – Persevere through the obstacles
Dysfunctional Families – Going into missions from a wounded background
Goer or Sender? – Find your role in God’s plan
Hatch or Go Bad – On being a world Christian (David Bryant)
Language Learning – Are you one of the millions afraid of language learning?
Lost – Are those who haven’t heard really lost? (Robertson McQuilkin)
Mission Agencies – How do I choose one?
Motivations for Missions – Why missions?
Parents – When God says, “Go!” and parents say, “No!”
Seeing It God’s Way – The world from God’s viewpoint (Robertson McQuilkin)
Sending – It’s more than sending money
Support Raising – I don’t want to raise support! (Steve Shadrach)
The Best Years of Your Life – Making the most of your college years
The Church Factor – How crucial is it?
The Local Church – Failure, foe, or friend in the Great Commission? (Paul Borthwick)
The Missionary Call – How to be sure you don’t have one
World Christian Love Life – Dating and missions (Roberta Winter)
Editor’s note: Think some of these should be removed, replaced, or rewritten? (We dropped one on “tentmaking” as too dated, but could use something fresh from the business-as-mission world!) We’d love to hear what you think. Thanks!
BOOK – Perspectives Study Program Releases Fourth Edition
Source: Perspectives Study Program, December 15, 2008 press release
Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, ed. Ralph D. Winter and Steven C. Hawthorne, Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 2009. 800 pages. Available now from William Carey Library for US$31.99 with bulk discounts available.
Perspectives on the World Christian Movement is a collection of readings exploring the biblical, historical, cultural, and strategic dimensions of world evangelization. Writings from mission scholars and practitioners introduce lay people and students to the global Christian movement, offering practical wisdom to help Christians to labor together in bold, biblical hope and finish the task of seeing Christ named and followed among all the peoples of the earth.
Completion of the fourth edition follows a two-year period of gathering input from coordinators, instructors, missions faculty, leaders, and mobilizers from around the country and the world. Many articles from the previous edition have been retained, some greatly revised, and others have been added. The number of non-Western authors included increased from 9 to 21, and the number of women authors nearly doubled from 9 to 17. The book now includes 172 articles from 152 authors.
Among the additions are new material recounting how the gospel moved to the east, the shift of the Christian movement to the global south, and the encouraging reality that mature non-western mission movements are now sending more missionaries than are being sent from the West.
The culture section includes new material about oral learning strategies and the complexity of ethnicity in a globalized, urbanized world in which many feel themselves to be part of multiple people groups.
Several new case studies describe the dramatic and costly work of God among the unreached. A new section about world Christian discipleship is designed to help every believer move beyond filling roles and integrate their lives with others to fulfill God’s greater global purpose.
Editor’s note: We’re pleased to see this program that has changed so many of our lives continue to grow and and develop. If you teach, why not pick up a copy of the new edition? If you have been through the class before, consider taking it again and recruiting a friend. Details for upcoming classes are available here.
Questions? Problems? Submissions? Contact publisher/managing editor Marti Smith.