Missions Catalyst 07.25.07 – Resource Reviews

In This Issue: Prayer Initiatives, Articles, and More

  • Prayer Initiative – 30 Days Muslim Prayer Focus
  • Prayer Initiative – Declare God’s Purposes for Central Asia
  • Web Site – Mobilizing Prayer for Iran
  • Event – Interchange 2007 Conference
  • More Articles on Recent Themes – Business as Mission, Human Trafficking
  • Book – Nexus: The World House Church Movement Reader
  • Looking for Missions Video Clips?
  • Seeking Your Experience – Missions Books Clubs?

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.

Prayer Initiative – 30 Days Muslim Prayer Focus

Source: World Christian

The 30 Days Muslim Prayer Focus is the largest ongoing international call to Christians to pray for the Muslim world. Millions participate annually in this God-given strategy to raise awareness, call Christians to concerted prayer, mobilize new support and workers, and encourage informed and loving involvement with unreached peoples.

September 13 to October 12, 2007 is the 16th annual campaign. Order the newest materials for yourself, your prayer group, Sunday school, ministry, staff, or congregation. The North America edition of the newest prayer-guide booklet and a special ‘just for kids’ edition are available online from the link above or can be ordered from:

WorldChristian
PO Box 9208
Colorado Springs, CO 80932 USA
Tel:1.719.380.0507
Fax: 1.719.380.0936
Email: [email protected]

For additional international editions, languages, and distribution points click here. Each day of Ramadan the text of the North America edition will also be posted online. To receive an English-language abbreviated email edition (produced for the UK), click here.

Prayer Initiative – Declare God’s Purposes for Central Asia

Source: Central Asian Prayer Network – July 18, 2007

Here’s another Ramadan prayer initiative. From a gathering of Christian leaders from across Central Asia in December comes this invitation:

“We decided to launch a prayer initiative during Ramadan 2007 to declare God’s purposes across the Silk Road nations. We have written 30 declarations (all based on scripture) and we are calling for believers around the world to join in unity proclaiming one scripture each day for the 30 days of Ramadan over the Central Asian nations.

“Would you consider setting this time aside to pray and fast with us for God’s purposes to be established in this strategic part of the world? Would you pass this information along to as many people as possible? Thousands of believers in the countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Northwest China will be partnering with you as you pray for their nations!”

Download a PDF with the list of declarations here. [Note: link removed July 2009]

Web Site – Mobilizing Prayer for Iran

Source: Pray for Iran

Prayforiran.org is a web site dedicated to encouraging prayer for the nation and people of Iran. This site was launched by Elam Ministries in May 2006 [when more than] 120 Iranian church leaders pledged to 40 days of prayer and fasting for Iran’s salvation. They also issued a call to the global Church to join in praying for the strategic country of Iran. Many thousands across the world responded and joined in praying for Iran, and the site became available in nine languages.

The site provides 40 subjects for prayer to help you and your church pray intelligently for Iran. Simply click on one of the 40 links to take you to a page which will help you learn about the subject and guide you in praying. Each page has a slide show with images from Iran accompanied by Persian worship music to help you intercede.

Editor’s Note: Ooh, we like this one – and want to do the same thing for our favorite countries and people groups! (Maybe Dr. Ralph Winter is right when he suggests that the kingdom of God goes forth by jealousy.) At any rate, this well-designed web site might serve as a model for others!

Event – Interchange 2007 Conference

Source: Catalyst Services

Catalyst Services is a ministry that assists mission agencies and denominations to collaborate more effectively with local churches to accelerate their global impact. December 5-6, 2007 Catalyst invites church and agencies leaders to the Interchange 2007 Conference at Davisville Church, Southampton, PA (near Philadelphia).

For all conference details and registration information, click here, send an email, or call 1.215.579.4346.

More Articles on Recent Themes – Business-as-Mission, Human Trafficking

Our May 30 edition of Missions Catalyst recommended the Business as Mission Network‘s blog and ezine. Several recent articles seem particularly useful for our readers. See:

7 Things Every Mission Agency Leader Should Know about BAM
Top 10 Job Opportunities with Kingdom Companies
Business = Poverty’s Long-term Solution

See also several helpful articles about BAM in Momentum Magazine. Scroll down on the right and look under “May 2007.”

Our April 11 edition recommended a variety of resources to help Christians respond to the problem of human trafficking. The summer edition of Mission Frontiers includes more. Click here for a page where you can download PDFs of the following articles, or a single PDF with the whole edition:

– A Cause for Our Time, from International Justice Mission
– Finding Slavery in My Own Backyard, by David Batstone
– The Age of Wilberforce, by Kim Moreland
– The Wilberforce Legacy, by Kristin Wright

Book – Nexus: The World House Church Movement Reader

Source: Rad Zdero

Nexus: The World House Church Movement Reader, edited by Rad Zdero, author of The Global House Church Movement. 2007, 528 pages, paperback. Price: US$23.09 from William Carey Library (Tel: 1.800.MISSION).

Nexus: The World House Church Movement Reader is a collaborative work by almost 40 house-church movement leaders and academics from around the world. It includes stories from house-church networks taking root in Cambodia, Canada, China, Cuba, Ecuador, India, Russia, the USA, and beyond. Nexus unfolds the New Testament basis for house church networks and how church history is filled with house-church movements and provides simple, inexpensive, and reproducible models you can use for pioneering your own network of house churches no matter where you live.

More details here.

Looking for Missions Video Clips?

Source: Pat Noble, Missions Catalyst News Brief Editor

I have used video clips from YouTube for our “Missions Moment” on Sundays. They are just the right length. A search for “Christian Missions” yields over 5000 hits. You may need to have an Internet connection for showing a clip during a service.

Here are a few examples:
Pioneer Evangelism in Ethiopia
Storyteller
Holy Is the Lord
HistoryMakers
What Is Church Planting?

Thanks, Pat!

Seeking Your Experience – Missions Book Clubs?

Jennifer, in New York, responded to our item about Tom Telford’s book Today’s All-Star Missions Churches to say she’d used this book twice with a ‘missions reading group’ she used to facilitate. My ears perked up. A missions book club? It was developed as a way to follow up with members from Perspectives classes. I thought I’d write or call Jennifer and ask for more information, then pass along the details to you. But maybe someone else could contribute tips or models to this conversation…

Readers, have you ever tried to put together a missions book club? What were your goals? Were they accomplished? What did you learn in the process? Is there anything you wish you had handled differently? Write and tell me about it. I’ll report back my findings in a future edition.

Marti Smith
Managing Editor

Questions? Problems? Submissions? Contact publisher/managing editor Marti Smith.

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