In This Issue: What Is God’s Mission?
- SMALL GROUP STUDY – Until the Whole World Knows
- NEWSLETTER – DualReach Launches Synergy Newsletter
- SMALL GROUP STUDY – Until the Whole World Knows
- BOOK – Long Wandering Prayer
- EVENT – Global Day of Prayer Planned for May 15, 2005
- ARTICLE – A Model for Determining the Most Needy Unreached Peoples
- PRAYER CAMPAIGN – Hope Tajikistan
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.
SMALL GROUP STUDY – Until the Whole World Knows
From: David Mays, ACMC (Advancing Churches in Missions Commitment) – December 13, 2004
Until the Whole World Knows: Discovering Our Part in the Plan Near God’s Heart, By Alicia Britt Chole
This book is an informal but surprisingly intense eight-week small-group journey toward centralizing God and his mission. Purposefully interactive, the author designed this book for cell groups, Christian education, personal devotions, and mentoring relationships.
It is designed to fill eight 90-minute meetings with substance, discovery, interaction, and application. Each chapter contains a selected reading, interactive warm-up, teaching guide, discovery questions, application section, and “further study” suggestions. It includes excellent graphic design (by Keyart) and global web links and resources for missions and children.
The study chapters focus on:
From Chaos to Choreography (God is weaving our lives into his larger purpose).
Tracing His Steps (A biblical review of God’s plan to bless the nations).
A Two Thousand Year Sprint (Brief historical overview of the spread of Christianity).
Faces, Tools, and Dreams (The world situation based on researching some web resources).
All for Him (Our role if the Great Commission is to be completed).
Standing in the Gap (Intercession).
Go? (Going for a season).
And Now? (What next?).
A creative mother of two in rural Missouri, USA, Chole is also a speaker and author. Her mission statement is: “Mobilizing a generation to make disciples of all nations.”
Rogersville, Missouri: OneWholeWorld, 2000, 120 pages.
NEWSLETTER – DualReach Launches Synergy Newsletter
From: DualReach
Synergy Newsletter is a new missions mobilization e-zine published on the Internet by DualReach. The newsletter is a free monthly communication featuring stories and ideas from churches who are successfully involving their people, particularly younger generations, in cross-cultural ministry. Recent topics include: how to maximize benefits from a short-term mission program, building a great missions web site, and focusing on the persecuted church.
DualReach assists churches and agencies with global and local outreach. Bruce Camp is the CEO.
To subscribe to the newsletter or read back issues, see DualReach.
BOOK – Long Wandering Prayer
From: David Mays, ACMC (Advancing Churches in Missions Commitment – December 18, 2004
Long Wandering Prayer: An Invitation to Walk with God, By David Hansen
This book covers the potential of, and barriers to, long praying – like the role of physical and mental wandering, the connecting of previously unconnected thoughts and events, importunity in prayer, guilt and excuses, dryness, and wonderful experiences with God.
Here is a short excerpt:
“What kind of prayer changes the world? … We sense the need to roll up our sleeves and get to work. But we don’t know where or how …. If Jesus needed to leave and pray long to keep his ministry on track and powered up, is it possible that we require less?”
Hansen’s helpful, insightful, and encouraging book will cause you to take a fresh look at your prayer habits. As you practice long wandering prayer, turning your “weaknesses” into strengths, you will find refreshment, peace, and joy. And along the way, you will deepen and strengthen your relationship with God.
David Hansen is pastor of Kenwood Baptist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.
Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2001, 168 pages. Order here.
EVENT – Global Day of Prayer Planned for May 15, 2005
From: ASSIST News Service – November 26, 2004
By Jeremy Reynalds
On May 15, 2005 an estimated 200 million Christians will join together for a Global Day of Prayer. Participants plan to start praying as the sun rises in the east (New Zealand), in different time zones until the sun sets in the west (USA). Planning for the Global Day of Prayer (GDP) event involves leaders from all six continents and includes more than 240 countries around the globe working under the direction of the International Prayer Council.
According to GDP officials, “Christians all over the world will pray for an outpouring of God’s Spirit, the healing of the nations, the salvation of the lost, and that the glory of the Lord will fill the earth.”
Event organizers write, “Some communities will see their way open to get involved only in the day of prayer on 15 May, others will pray for ten days and be involved in the day of prayer … Do what is possible in your own community.”
Organizers are asking people to get involved in a number of ways. For additional information, go to Global Day of Prayer.
ARTICLE – A Model for Determining the Most Needy Unreached Peoples
From: Mission Frontiers – November-December 2004
A Model for Determining the Most Needy Unreached or Least-Reached Peoples
By Dan Scribner, Joshua Project
The current Joshua Project list shows approximately 6,900 unreached peoples. The model presented here attempts to assign a “score” or priority ranking to each of these people groups. A scoring system from 0 to 100 is used, with 100 indicating the least Christian presence and influence.
Scoring points are set in four general areas:
1) Progress of, or response to the gospel (35% weighting, lower Christian presence = higher score). This scale is primarily based on % Evangelical and several church-planting progress indicators.
2) Population (25% weighting, larger people group = higher score).
3) Country location (25% weighting, greater persecution level and less human development and lower national percent evangelical levels = higher score).
4) Ministry tool availability (15% weighting, fewer tools = higher score).
Within the criteria areas are various measures, each with value ranges that are assigned point scores. An overall score is generated for each people group by summing the points from all the criteria. People groups with the highest scores are suggested as the highest priority.
Complete data is available at the Joshua Project web site.
PRAYER CAMPAIGN – Hope Tajikistan
From: Brigada Today – November 12, 2004
2005 is slated to be an international year of prayer for the country of Tajikistan. The Tajik Partnership has begun a grassroots movement to see 10,000 intercessors raised up to pray for Tajikistan. Located in Central Asia, this Muslim country has many spiritual strongholds and needs the focused prayers of Christians worldwide for spiritual breakthrough! Fear, hopelessness, Islam, superstition, and a thirst for money and power keep people from the truth of Jesus Christ. If you are interested in praying with or helping this movement, e-mail Hope Tajikistan.
Editor’s note: Subscribe or visit Brigada on the web at www.brigada.org.
Questions? Problems? Submissions? Contact publisher/managing editor Marti Smith.