In This Issue: Prayerwalking, Project Pearl, House Churches and More
- TEACHING MATERIALS – Prayerwalking
- EVENT – Story ’08: Discover Your Role in God’s Global Drama
- BOOK – How One Million Bibles Changed China
- DVD – The Call to Business (as Mission)
- ARTICLE – Connecting the House Church to the Unreached
- EVENTS – New Items on the Missions Catalyst Calendar
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.
TEACHING MATERIALS – Prayerwalking
Dear Readers,
Last month I asked for your help putting identifying resources to use in training short-term teams for “prayerwalking.” Thanks to those who responded!
In addition to the resources I was using from WayMakers (including Hawthorne and Kendrick’s Prayerwalking: Praying On-site with Insight) a subscriber recommended Follow Me: Becoming a Lifestyle Prayerwalker by Randy Sprinkle. He said, “This book is especially good because it gets people prayerwalking before they come overseas. They don’t just learn about it, they have to do it and journal about it.”
Another subscriber pointed out that the resource CD that comes with the integrated short-term mission program, The Next Mile includes a nine-page handout on prayerwalking to use in equipping short-term teams. It’s part of The Next Mile Leader Kit.
EVENT – Story ’08: Discover Your Role in God’s Global Drama
Source: PIONEERS USA
PIONEERS is planning its first-ever large-scale mission conference, to be held in Orlando, Florida December 28-31. PIONEERS missionaries will be flying in from some of the hardest places around the world to meet and share with up to hundreds of attendees about what God’s doing among the unreached. Seminars will cover everything from business as mission and education to sex trafficking and spiritual warfare. They will also be talking about the world’s major religious groups and how to reach them.
This event is for all ages: A children’s program for kids up to age 12 will teach about missions while teens through retirees are welcome in the main sessions. (It’s like an Urbana for the whole family.)
Would you help spread the word about this event? Invite your small group, college ministry, or church as a whole to attend. Contact PIONEERS for posters, DVDs, and flyers. Cost for the first 250 people to register for the event is $100; the next 250, $150, after that, $200.
Find more information or register here.
BOOK – How One Million Bibles Changed China
Source: Asia Harvest
Project Pearl: The 1 Million Smuggled Bibles that Changed China by Brother David with Paul Hattaway (London: Monarch Books, 2008). 313 pages. Price: USD$17 includes shipping worldwide (also available from Amazon).
On June 18, 1981, a huge barge containing one million Chinese Bibles slipped through Communist border patrols and anchored off a beach in south China. Two hours later its precious cargo had been successfully delivered into the hands of Chinese Christians who had been starved of access to God’s Word since the 1950s.
Time magazine described Project Pearl as “A remarkable mission…the largest operation of its kind in the history of China.” A quarter of a century later reports are still being received from China of the tremendous impact those Bibles had on entire communities.
“Project Pearl is the story of an impossible mission made possible through an ordinary man filled with the heart and power of Jesus. Brother David is a warrior who wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak. Yet it also tells of the man I have known for decades who was gentle, kind, and used the weapons of faith and prayer and wisdom to bring about a miracle for the sake of his beloved China and his wonderful Savior.” (Jackie Pullinger, pastor and author of Chasing the Dragon.
DVD – The Call to Business (as Mission)
Source: Business as Mission Network
The Call to Business DVD is a new resource from the group A Call to Business. Their recent email newsletter says,
“The DVD continues to make a strong impact in many nations, from personal testimonies of radical life changes to whole businesses being given away. It has now been translated into Russian, ready for distribution in a number of locations. Most recently it has been aired by satellite to a potential 50 million homes! This wake-up call is inspiring many people to understand their ‘ordinary everyday lives’ in a different light!
“Our ethos is to give away this resource – we believe God loves us to practice generosity. This has included a number of bulk shipments to various nations. We’re grateful to those who have added a donation to their postage and packing. Donations may be made via the website at any point, or directly to our office. In particular if you would like to sponsor bulk shipments, contact us.”
Editor’s note: More information, including a free, downloadable study guide on marketplace ministry which looks quite useful even apart from the DVD, are available here.
ARTICLE – Connecting the House Church to the Unreached
Source: Ted Esler
According to statistic compiled by pollster George Barna the house church movement in American numbers anywhere from 5 million to 20 million people. This wide range indicates that we don’t have a firm grasp on the size and scope of this movement.
When the lens is widened past the United States to include the global church, a vastly different picture comes into focus. House churches dominate many Asian Christian movements, notably in China.
From my travels to various missionary teams around the world, [I have observed that] house churches are [a] much more common goal for missionaries than the traditional model. Could it be that the house church movement holds the best hope for raising up a generation of church planters? Some think so.
Certainly in areas where persecution has forced the church underground, a “house” model of church makes a great deal of sense. Unfortunately, many house churches do not recognize their own potential to impact Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and tribal societies.
Read full article, “Who’s A Better Missionary?” here.
See also: Why Home Churches Are Filling Up
EVENTS – New Items on the Missions Catalyst Calendar
Source: Missions Catalyst Calendar
Frontiers ‘247 to Go’ Events – Dialog with others about the un-begun task of bringing the hope of Jesus to unengaged Muslim peoples and find out how you can be involved. Find more info here write to the event coordinator here or call 1.800.462.8436. Eight events have been added to the list:
Columbia, SC – January 30-31, 2009
Louisville, KY – February 6-7, 2009
San Jose, CA – February 20-21, 2009
Philadelphia, PA – February 27-28, 2009
Houston, TX – March 27-28, 2009
Phoenix, AZ – April 10-11, 2009
Portland, OR – May 15-16, 2009
Denver, CO – June 5-6, 2009
Women of Compassion is offering two international retreats where missionary women can go to be pampered and encouraged. This one is designed for women working in Central Asia and the Middle East. If this sounds like something you or a woman in your life needs, contact them. There are two retreats, back to back, in the same location:
Antalya, Turkey – October 19-22, 2008
Antalya, Turkey – October 23-26, 2008
Questions? Problems? Submissions? Contact publisher/managing editor Marti Smith.