In This Issue: Dinner Clubs, International Student Ministry, and More
- WEB SITE – Help for Hosting Dinner Parties with International Flavor
- EVENTS – 2008 Year of Prayer for Bosnia
- BOOK REVIEWS – Let David Mays Be Your Guide!
- EVENT – Conference on International Student Ministry in May
- PERIODICAL – Have You Subscribed to Catalyst Services’ Postings?
- ARTICLE – Mobilization: The Key to World Evangelization?
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.
WEB SITE – Help for Hosting Dinner Parties with International Flavor
Source: MyHatt
The gathering of family and friends around the table to share a meal is common the world over. MyHATT (“hands across the table”) uses this custom to spread greater understanding and appreciation for the world’s diversity.
Each month, MyHATT features a different country from around the globe, providing recipes for a traditional meal that introduces people to new flavors and interesting foods that they just might not try otherwise.
MyHATT does research on the culture, the history, the tradition, the language … and presents the material in such a way to encourage everyone that is participating to read about the country and play a role in the process by cooking a portion of the meal, participating in the evenings activities, learning some common terms of the language and even getting involved with the children through games, coloring, and cooking. And just maybe with a little more understanding we will all find ways to make this world just a little bit better.
More information here.
Editor’s Note: We learned about this from this ministry from its founder after January’s Missions Catalyst special edition focused on Kenya. Kenya is MyHATT’s featured country for February! Check the web site for full information about hosting a dinner focused on Guatemala (January’s featured country). March 1, everything you need for a “France” night will be posted there. Check it out!
EVENT – 2008 Year of Prayer for Bosnia
Source: OM Headlines, February 19, 2008
Join the believers of Bosnia Hercegovina in a concerted effort to pray for their nation throughout 2008. Regular prayer updates are available here.
BOOK REVIEWS – Let David Mays Be Your Guide!
We don’t have time or money to read all the missions books that come along, but our friend and colleague David Mays is a big help picking our next “read.” His Book Notes usually come out once or twice a month and help us keep up with what’s being published about management, leadership, change, missions, and other topics of interest. You might be interested in a sneak inside these resources, covered in recent editions of Book Notes.
Serving with Eyes Wide Open: Doing Short-Term Missions with Cultural Intelligence by David A. Livermore
Developing a Missions Strategy that Fits Your Church by David Mays
The New Friars: The Emerging Movement Serving the World’s Poor by Scott A. Bessenecker
Thanks for sharing your reading with us, David!
EVENT – Conference on International Student Ministry in May
Source: Association of Christians Ministering among International
The Association of Christians Ministering among Internationals (ACMI) is hosting its annual, national equipping conference for ministries and volunteers reaching out to international students in the US and Canada. The conference will be May 29-31, near Washington DC. More information is available here.
PERIODICAL – Have You Subscribed to Catalyst Services’ Postings?
Source: Catalyst Services, February 11, 2008
Postings is a free, on-line newsletter from Catalyst Services chock full of practical ideas for mobilizers and church mission leaders on how to help churches discover and fulfill their global mandate. Subscribe and review past issues here.
The January issue (PDF version here) focuses on “rapid-response teams,” including the story of how one church has prepared to serve disaster victims in many places, along with information on training, free resources, and more. Other recent issues have featured articles on the essentials of successful international partnerships, new ways to structure the church missions team, and the church/agency/missionary sending triangle. Some issues of Postings specifically address ways missionaries and mission agencies can better collaborate with churches.
Are there others inside or outside your organization who could benefit from Postings? Why not forward this email to them and encourage them to subscribe?
ARTICLE – Mobilization: The Key to World Evangelization?
Source: Steve Shadrach, US Center for World Mission
Estimates are that from the moment someone first gains a World Christian conviction until the time that person finally ends up on the mission field is, on the average, seven years. If ongoing encouragement and practical World Christian discipleship are not incorporated into people’s lives during those seven years, they usually lose their vision and passion for the world.
This is why the late Donald McGavran, founder of Fuller School of World Mission, said in his book A Giant Step, “Let us furiously organize frontier mission societies in every congregation of every denomination.” He was trying to tell us of the absolute necessity of people banding together to create, maintain, and follow through on their mission commitments.
Within the Body of Christ, the mobilizer is the one who can help orchestrate it all.
Dr. Ralph Winter, General Director of the Frontier Mission Fellowship, comments: “Here is a tragic fact: Only about one out of a hundred ‘missionary decisions’ results in actual career mission service. Why? Mainly because parents, friends, even pastors rarely encourage anyone to follow through on that kind of a decision. But what if that number could double to two out of a hundred? The effect would be explosive!”
Each year, no less than 200,000 sincere, dedicated people contact one of the hundreds of excellent mission agencies in this country asking for information about possible service with that ministry. But the heartbreaking news is that less than 1,000 of those will ever make it to the field. Why? There is no one to nurture and guide and equip them to complete the process. In other words, the workers are plentiful, but the mobilizers are few!
Phil Parshall, missionary and author, described mobilizers this way: “Someone must sound the rallying call. Those who desire to see others trained, prepared and released to ministry are known as mobilizers. Mobilizers stir other Christians to active concern for reaching the world. They coordinate efforts between senders, the local churches, sending agencies, and missionaries on the field. Mobilizers are essential.”
Full, newly revised article (and others) on the web site of The Traveling Team, here.
Questions? Problems? Submissions? Contact publisher/managing editor Marti Smith.