In This Issue: Be an Ethnographer, Musicologist, or Strategy Coordinator
- BOOK – The City, a Global History
- EVENT – Ethnography Training
- EVENT – Train To Be A Strategic Coordinator
- BOOK & CD – All the World Is Singing
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.
BOOK – The City, a Global History
From: Urbana.org
“The City: A Global History” By Joel Kotkin
Reviewed by Paul Grant
Cities, Kotkin argues, require three main impulses to grow and survive: sacredness, safety, and wealth. Since urban dwellers don’t grow their own food, trade is necessary for a city to emerge in the first place. Without basic security, including infrastructure and sanitation, cities will empty out in a few short generations.
In the contemporary West, especially in North America, cities develop themselves almost exclusively along these two threads alone – commerce and security. But Kotkin believes sacredness is every bit as important. Without a spiritual center (“spiritual” in the general sense of the word), cities become mere marketplaces, not worth a person’s life.
A great primer on urban life. It can be read in a few evenings.
New York, New York: The Modern Library, 2005, 214 pages. Available from Amazon.com, or from Orion Books in the U.K.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The InterVarsity Missions Department, self-described as “a rather bookish set,” recently discussed, “If you can only read one book this fall, what should it be?” To see their picks (which, like the above, are not necessarily “missions” books), click here.
EVENT – Ethnography Training
From: Caleb Project
Dates: January 20-27, 2007
Location: Littleton, Colorado, USA
Pioneering a new ministry or seeking deeper insights into the culture where you live? Caleb Project knows that cultural understanding is a valuable tool for church planting. If church planting is in your future, we can help you become a skilled cultural learner.
Participants will explore the techniques documented in “Exploring the Land,” which Caleb Project has been using since 1988 to train ethnographic research teams for projects across the world. Experienced trainers will pass on practical tips you can use to find cultural helpers, build bridges of trust, ask engaging questions, analyze findings, work with a partner, and explore questions of significance as to how churches grow in society. Sessions include lots of stories and examples as well as simulations and opportunities for practice and personal application.
Attend the training alone or bring a team – for the entire eight-day training or for the modules you need. Find more information here. We are also recruiting now for ethnography projects in the Balkans, Western Europe, and India.
EDITOR’S NOTE: For other ACMC and Caleb Project events, click here. Check our Missions Catalyst Events Calendar for additional items of interest. [Note – links removed July 2007]
EVENT – Train To Be A Strategic Coordinator
From: Youth With A Mission, Perth
When: February 19 – March 9, 2007
Where: Perth, Australia
The Strategic Coordinator Seminar is an intense, three-week training led by veteran missionaries experienced in implementing strategies that transform people and cities. Participants will create a working plan for the evangelization of their focus population, be it gothic youth in London, indigenous peoples of Australia, an unreached people group in Africa, or a mega-city in Asia. Are you a missionary who desires to see more prayer, people, and resources directed towards your focus group? Or do you want to see your church take a more active role in evangelizing your focus people through prayer, going, and sending out missionaries? This seminar may be for you.
Get more info and an application form. You can also contact the registrar by e-mail or telephone +61 8 9328 5321. Tell them you read about it in “Missions Catalyst”!
EDITOR’S NOTE: If you aren’t familiar with the role of Strategy Coordinator (as it is usually called), here are a few of the places you can read about it, get training, or find a supportive environment to fulfill this important (but challenging) calling:
OMF International
Vision4China
International Mission Board
Strategy Leader Resource Kit [Note: links removed July 2009]
BOOK & CD – All the World Is Singing
From: WorldChristian.com
“All the World Is Singing”
By Frank Fortunato, Paul Neeley, and Carol Brinneman
This first-of-its-kind collection of stories documents the power of music within the global Body of Christ. Agencies and churches around the world show how music has made as much impact in reaching the unreached as other methods of evangelism. Many of the stories come from far-off, exotic places where missionaries and musicians quietly fulfill their calling to encourage people groups to offer their indigenous songs to the Lord.
These worship stories remind us that day by day, year by year, melody by melody, rhythm by rhythm, the great rehearsal is underway, awaiting the time when we join our voices with people from every tribal group and language in a continuous praise gathering, proclaiming endless worship to God.
A CD of indigenous worship music is included.
Waynesboro, Georgia, USA: Authentic Media, 2006, 256 pages, plus CD. Price: $11.04 from WorldChristian.com.
Questions? Problems? Submissions? Contact publisher/managing editor Marti Smith.