Perspectives Virtual Class to Start in January

Source: Perspectives Study Program

Due to COVID-19, the folks who organize Perspectives on the World Christian Movement courses are conducting a National Virtual Class in English this spring via Zoom. Anyone in the US is welcome, but the goal is to provide a class for people who don’t have one in their area or don’t feel safe attending a class in person.

The class starts Sunday, January 17 with registration and orientation and concludes May 23. Will you help spread the word? They would love to have 200-300 people in the class. Alumni get a discount. They’re also looking for some alums to volunteer as mentors and graders.

Perspectives also offers the class in a flexible, pre-recorded online format which may work better for some. New classes start about once a month. In 2021, a number of groups plan to host traditional 15-week, in-person Perspectives classes for their cities, while others will take to the internet.

» Learn about or register for the National Virtual Perspectives Class. Perspectives Canada is also offering a virtual course for Canadians. Don’t forget to download activity sheets to include your kiddos!

» You should also check out Pathways to Global Understanding and the Kairos course, independent incarnations of much the same sort. Need something shorter? Consider the six-week class MomentumYes.

Mission Events Online in December

Source: Missions Catalyst Events Calendar

See our online calendar for a handful of in-person events as well as some events planned for 2021. Got submissions? Send them my way!

December 2, Conversations on When Everything Is Missions: Rediscovering the Mission of the Church. Webinar from Missio Nexus.

December 3, Counting the Cost of Movements. Part of a training series from Beyond, but each can stand alone.

December 3, Fertilizing the Soil: Define Missions. Part of The Greenhouse, a free series for church mission leaders from Pioneers USA.

December 8, Mission Trips, COVID, and 2021. Webinar from Standards of Excellence in Short-Term Mission.

December 8-10, Support Raising Bootcamp. Provided by Support Raising Solutions. Similar events offered throughout the year (live or virtual).

December 10, The Five Directions to Guide Investing Your Leadership. Webinar from Missio Nexus.

December 28-30, CMC Global 2020. Chinese Mission Convention, organized by Ambassadors for Christ. Completely new format with multiple events.

December 29-30, Cross Conference. Student missions conference. Previously scheduled for Louisville, KY; now moved online.

» View complete calendar. Corrections and submissions welcome.

WORLD: Discovering a Country’s Digital and Spiritual Landscape

Source: Mobile Ministry Forum, November 10, 2020

Mobile Ministry Forum has published a Digital Atlas for several years, providing a detailed overview of the digital landscape for the 40 least-reached countries [and have now] launched the new Digital World Atlas at digitalworldatlas.com. On this website, you can search for a specific country and view its spiritual and digital data. For example, you can view India’s rich religious make up or the total number of mobile subscriptions in Malaysia.

» Read more or contribute data.

» WorldVenture is publishing a series of blogs and videos to help your ministry or church thrive in the digital age and make disciples locally and internationally. Here’s part 1. See also Digital Media to Launch Movements (Pioneers).

MEXICO: The Cult of Santa Muerte

Source: International Mission Board, October 29, 2020

Casting a long shadow across one of Mexico City’s poorest and most crime-ridden neighborhoods stands a seven-story tall image of Santa Muerte—the Saint of Death. She takes the form of a human skeleton clad in black plastic sheeting with arms outstretched, inviting residents in from the streets to make offerings of flowers, fruit, burned cigarettes, and alcoholic drinks.

Even in a country known for its fascination with death (which is celebrated every November during the Day of the Dead festivities), Santa Muerte seems macabre and gruesome.

The cult of Santa Muerte was popularized by Jonathan Legaría, the ambitious son of a middle-class family in Mexico City, his father a politician and his mother a karaoke bar owner. He had always been fascinated by magic and the occult and convinced many that he had healing powers.

After his violent death in a hail of bullets in 2008, at just 26 years of age, the cult grew rapidly under the organization of his now-deceased mother, Enriqueta Vargas. Indeed, there are now estimated to be more than 10 million followers, not just in Mexico, but across the Americas, with altars to the saint in various cities in the US.

IMB Mexico City missionary, Carlos Llambes, explains the mindset behind the worship of death.

“They think that the only thing in life that is sure is death, so we better be on good terms with her,” Llambe says.

» Read full story with pictures and prayer points.You might also be interested in another article from the IMB, Refugees in Southeast Asia Find Home in Christian Community.

USA: The World’s Least Reached Are on Our Streets

Source: Lausanne Global Analysis, November 2020

On a bustling street corner in a central Queens neighborhood stands a building adorned with Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags, an active Tibetan Buddhist temple. The founder is an immigrant from the Himalayan villages of Nepal who works as a taxi driver. He has American-born grandchildren, and they are just as comfortable catching a subway in New York as they are a motorcycle taxi in Kathmandu. They are residents of this new world, global gateway citizens who have access in one world and influence in another.

Imagine if Christ living in one of us were to meet him here, in his taxi, on a routine drive in the midst our busy schedules. Can one not breathlessly wonder how the Holy Spirit might take hold of not just one heart, but also an entire people group? On behalf of this man, and the unreached people groups, one of which he represents, may I urge you not to sit idly by in a time when the harvest has come to us.

» Full article describes opportunities and challenges for ministry in global gateway cities. Read the overview of LGA’s November Issue.

EGYPT & BEYOND: November 18 Is MBB Global Prayer Day

Source: Mission Network News, October 23, 2020

Egyptian Christians continue to face persecution, and the pressure highlights the need to pray for those suffering.

Oppression has worsened with the pandemic, with believers suffering from everything from unemployment to lack of medical care. Persecution can even become violent. On October 5, Coptic Christians were attacked after an incident at a wedding. Tom Doyle of Uncharted Ministries says incidents like these are tragically normal.

“Christians have to brace themselves for these kinds of attacks, especially when there are public services, spiritual holidays, weddings, or even funerals,” he says.

This persecution makes life even more difficult for people who convert from Islam to Christianity, as those in the Church often don’t know who to trust.

[Doyle] encourages the Church to remember November 18, which will be the first MBB Global Prayer Day. “On November 18, be praying for Muslim background believers who have risked it all—family, jobs, security—to come to faith in Christ.”

» Read full story. Also from Mission Network News, read Religious Persecution Increases Worldwide. It describes how Wycliffe Associates provides communities of believers with printing equipment to print their own Bibles.

INDONESIA: Five Radically Saved

Source: Partners International, November 4, 2020

It was a disappointing day. Nita and Martha had not been able to share the gospel with anyone, and they considered returning home as they saw storm clouds approaching, but the Lord had other plans. They decided to visit a village that has embraced Islam for generations. As they were talking with two girls at a food stall, the rain started pouring down.

They ran to find the nearest shelter and ended up on the terrace of the village chief’s house. There they met a woman they had seen earlier before the storm. This woman, Puja, listened intently to the gospel and said she wanted to believe in Jesus, but they were unable to pray at the terrace because other people were around.

By then, the rain had stopped, so they went to Puja’s house where Nita and Martha continued explaining the gospel. They led her to pray, baptized Puja in the river, and then continued teaching her. In the middle of a story from the Book of Acts, one of Puja’s friends, Ratih, arrived at the house and also wanted to hear the gospel, so Nita and Martha started over from the beginning. A little later, one of Puja’s daughters, Ana, a teenager, entered the house and was also interested in hearing the story. They then started the story over again so that Ana could hear the whole redemption story. Both Ratih and Ana believed in the gospel and prayed to accept Jesus. Ana was baptized, and then Nita and Martha continued their story from Acts.

During the story, this time, one of Puja’s relatives, Ade, an 18-year-old, joined them. Nita and Martha then had to pause their story again and share from the beginning so that Ade could hear about salvation through Jesus. Ade believed in the gospel and had to go back to his house to get a change of clothes before being baptized. While he was gone Ana’s younger sister, Kemala, came and listened to the gospel. She too believed and wanted to be baptized as well. Puja, Ratih, Ana, Ade, and Kemala continued to listen to Nita and Marta teach about being one with Jesus, prayed together, and promised to meet together again.

» Read full story.

Reasons to Be Happy & Startling Invitations | Practical Mobilization

Missions-Catalyst-no-tagline_largeReasons to Be Happy & Startling Invitations

By Shane Bennett

What a world we live in. What a time we inhabit. I feel sad for fiction writers: They’re going to struggle to come up with fantastic story lines in the future! Even so, I hope your passion for the Great Commission and your conviction in God’s coming kingdom have grown stronger and even burn brighter through these crazy days.

In this edition of Practical Mobilization, I want to give you two things to be happy about, two invitations, and one cheeky gift. (You can jump to the bottom for the gift, but I hope you won’t!) Just a warning, this edition gets a bit political. Not to take sides, but we don’t want to let opportunities pass without consideration, either.

1. The Holidays Are Coming

Neither election, pandemic, nor squirrelly school schedule can alter the calendar facts: November 26 (American Thanksgiving this year) and December 25 will happen.

Now what happens on those and other special days may not look like it normally does. I’m praying for you as I write this that God will meet you where you are this Thanksgiving and Christmas. I have no idea the stress, trauma, relief, or joy you may be feeling. God’s grace, peace, and hope to you. May you abound with thanks and resonate with hope in this holiday season.

What is pretty sure is this: Isolating in their homes in your neighborhood or passing six feet away from you as you move through life are people who are holding on by a thread.

Our neighbor on one side passed away from COVID this past week. The pain and fear our neighbor on the other side felt as he added this death to the list of others he’s recently faced was plain and palpable. Whatever foundation he’s built for his life is currently taking blows like he’s never experienced before. He doesn’t know if that foundation will prove to be sand or stone.

He’s not alone.

As I think about what our church will do for Advent and Christmas this year, I wonder how many windows of how many souls are cracked open a bit this year? How many in my community who’ve stood firm against the advances of well-meaning Christians and Jesus himself might be ready to hear someone say, “Come to my church. You might like it.”

Of course, COVID continues to confound the best-laid plans. But let’s not despair. The God who made the platypus is the one who grants us creativity. The one who conceived the survive-anything cockroach will see the Church through these present days.

2. More Refuge for Refugees

It seems likely that a Biden White House means more refugees. Heaven forbid this doesn’t mean more refugees created but instead more people who are already refugees finding new life in places like the US.

Mr. Biden has written that he will “set the annual global refugee admissions cap to 125,000 and seek to raise it over time commensurate with our responsibility, our values, and the unprecedented global need.” Whether he can or will keep that promise remains to be seen, of course.

Believing that more refugees allowed to come to the US is biblical, moral, and good for the country, I’m happy about this possibility.

This is not a sweeping endorsement of Mr. Biden, nor a wholesale dismissal of President Trump. It is a glimmer of hope for a 100 thousand people. I think of the Syrian widow sitting with her two little kids in a soon-to-be freezing tent on the fringes of a refugee camp in eastern Turkey. Maybe God is answering her prayers.

Combining an anticipated increase of refugees and decrease of COVID, I’m on the hunt for a handful of youth groups who’d like to engage refugees in the US next summer. Do you lead one? Know of one? Let’s talk.

If celebrating anything about a Biden administration feels ill-advised or maybe stupid to you, please read a few more of my thoughts on the refugee situation here.

Also check out the invitation in the next paragraph!

Invitation #1: Offer Life to a Child

If you’re mourning these days, if you’re crushed as it looks like the pro-life effort will be set back, I hear you. You voted, prayed, and maybe advocated, but now you fear more babies will be aborted.

Can I offer this invitation? Adopt a child who’s waiting for a family. If that’s impossible, consider foster care. There are over 400 thousand kids in the US foster system alone. I can imagine situations in which that can’t work either. What about giving some money to people who are trying to adopt. My niece is bringing over a precious girl from China. My friends Nick and Amber are adopting in the US and likely raising their child among the unreached.

And pray for hope and help for poor women, the only demographic among whom abortion has not diminished in recent years.

Invitation #2: Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing

I imagine many of our readers, both in and out of the US, look at the pandemic and the election and say, “You’re not gonna stop my global outreach efforts!” I love the spirit, innovation, and plain hard work that rises up in many of you as adversity increases. Good on you. May the rest of us see and heed your example. Methods may need to change. Timetables may need adjusting. But may God’s work go forward.

If these days have refined your focus and you’re ready for new challenges, here you go: Experts believe there are around 500 Muslim people groups among whom no one is on the ground, speaking local languages, working in a way they hope will result in multiplying disciples.

I’m more and more convinced that God is asking me to do two things in response to this: One, work to see 20 of those groups engaged myself. That is, find people or churches or groups who will receive grace from God to go and be the first on the ground. Two, find 24 others who will do that with me. No matter the amount of prayer, texting, cajoling, or bribing it takes. (Well, maybe not bribing!) I want to see those groups engaged. Sound like you? Let’s talk.

Subversive Mobilization: The Promised Cheeky Gift

In any election, there are some constituents who declare, “If that other guy gets elected, I’m leaving the country.” I don’t know if anyone ever actually does this, but Redfin says 16% of survey respondents last month said they’d consider it. That’s up from 9% in 2016.

The mobilizer in me can’t help but go, “Hey! A new recruiting pool!” If you’re like me (though I don’t wish that on you), here you go: A ready-to-customize brochure for post-election emigres/mission candidates! You can thank me later.