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Missions Catalyst 7.24.13 – Resource Reviews

In This Issue: J.D. Payne’s 12 Global Pressure Points

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! Want more? Follow us on Twitter.

Marti Wade is a writer, speaker, and project manager for the Church Partnerships Team at Pioneers. As a mission mobilizer, she has also trained and sent out many short-term teams to do relationship-based research to serve among the world’s least-reached peoples.

Marti has managed and published Missions Catalyst since 2004 and is the author of Through Her Eyes, a book about the lives of women serving cross-culturally in the Muslim world. She and her husband Chris live in Oregon.

BOOK: Twelve Global Pressure Points

Source: Thomas Nelson

Pressure Points: Twelve Global Issues Shaping the Face of the Church, by J.D. Payne. Thomas Nelson: 2013. 194 pages.

Pastor, professor, and author J.D. Payne’s new book explores twelve of the most significant global issues facing the church in our day. “This message is not intended to cause fear or fill the Church with a sense of depression and gloom,” says Payne. “While each of today’s critical issues poses numerous challenges to the advancement of the gospel, I write this work with a positive tone, believing that some of the greatest days for Kingdom advancement are still to come.”

Get a good taste of how he sees the issues by following the links below to a series on Payne’s blog, Missiologically Thinking.

The Church and the Pressures of the Age

Pressure Point #1 Unreached Peoples

Pressure Point #2 The West as a Mission Field

Pressure Point #3 Growth of the Majority World Church

Pressure Point #4 Pluralism and the Plurality of Faiths

Pressure Point #5 International Migration

Pressure Point #6 Globalization

Pressure Point #7 Poverty

Pressure Point #8 Growth of Cities

Pressure Point #9 Children and Youth

Pressure Point #10 Health Care

Pressure Point #11 Oral Learners

Pressure Point #12 Pornification of Societies

Global Engagement in a World of Pressure Points

» Buy the book for US$14.94 from Amazon (or elsewhere); US$9.99 for the Kindle edition.

VIDEO: The Good Neighbor

Source: GemStone Media

Brad is carjacked, beaten, and left for dead on a lonely stretch of highway. Late at night, in the middle of nowhere, who will drive by? Will anyone stop to help?

The Good Neighbor is a modern retelling of Luke 10:25-37 (“The Good Samaritan”). The free, 20-minute video raises questions about what our obligation is to strangers in need. Use it as a resource with your church or Bible study group.

» Watch The Good Neighbor (or the one-minute trailer).

ARTICLES: Mission Frontiers

Source: Mission Frontiers

“The work God is doing today among Muslims is so historic and unprecedented that I wonder if any of us can truly comprehend it. Never before in the 1,400 years since the death of Muhammad have we seen so many Muslims coming to faith in Jesus as their Savior and Lord.” So writes editor Rick Wood in his introduction to the latest edition of Mission Frontiers.

The lead article, David Garrison’s God Is Doing Something Historic, reports that in the first thirteen centuries of Islam’s expansion, only one voluntary movement of 1,000 or more Muslims to Christ took place. In the last two decades of the twentieth century, there were eight. But as of 2012, there are at least 64 documented movements to Christ taking place among Muslims, each with more than 1,000 baptized believers and 100 churches. You’ll have to wait for Garrison’s new book to get the full scoop, but the excerpt in Mission Frontiers will whet your appetite.

For related articles, read Welcoming Muslim Neighbors into God’s Kingdom in East Africa, by Ben Naja, Why Are Muslims Coming to Jesus Like Never Before? by Robby Butler, and A Novice’s Guide to Fielding Common Muslim Objections, by our own Shane Bennett.

Readers might also be interested in several other articles, including a good piece on generosity and dependency by Jean Johnson, What Should We Do With All Our Money?

WEB SERVICE: AskaMissionary.com

Source: AskaMissionary.com

What do would-be missionaries want to know? What would you tell them? The following are among the most popular questions on AskaMissionary.com, where you’ll find more than 150 questions with 500+ answers.

How can I know if God is leading me to become a missionary?
What is the first step toward becoming a missionary?
What types of training should I consider?
Should I skip a degree and go into missions now?
What can I do in missions with my professional skills or college major?
Why do many missionaries join agencies? How do I select an agency?
Why do some missionaries serve independent from an agency?
How much money should a missionary raise, and how long should it take?
Is there any way other than begging for support?
How can I raise prayer and financial support?
Should I, as a single person, go overseas now or get married first?
Can a couple with small children make it to the field?
What unexpected obstacles or doubts did you experience in becoming a missionary?
What do missionaries wish they had known before they first went?
What does day-to-day life look like on the field? What is a typical day for a missionary?

» Visit AskaMissionary.com. Maybe you have a good question or helpful answer to contribute. (Disclosure, I’m one of the editors!)

» Readers might also be interested in the 2010 “best of” book, Ask a Missionary: Time-Tested Answers From Those Who’ve Been There, edited by John McVay.

EVENTS: Upcoming Training, Retreats, and Conferences

Source: Missions Catalyst Calendar

August 2013

August 1-3, Connext Conference (Chicago, IL, USA). National Leadership Conference For South Asian Christian leaders.

August 1-3, All-Africa Tentmaking Conference (Dar Es Salam, Tanzania). Provided by Global Opportunities.

August 4-10, Perspectives on the World Christian Movement Leader’s Intensive Class (Pittsburgh, PA, USA).

August 5-13, MK/TCK Re-Entry Retreat (Gaston, SC, USA). Retreat designed for teens transitioning to college from missionary families.

August 8-10, 7th Annual Christian Storytelling Conference (Peoria, IL, USA). Provided by the Christian Storytelling Network.

August 20-21, Personal Support Raising Bootcamp (Albany, NY, USA). Provided by Support Raising Solutions.

September 2013

September 5-7, Missions Fest South Africa (Pretoria, South Africa). Free, community-based missions conference in the Missions Fest tradition.

September 7, Bridges Seminar (Santa Barbara, CA, USA). A training event to help Christians connect with Muslims, provided by Crescent Project (similar events listed below and on website.)

September 9 to November 25, Encountering the World of Islam (online). Twelve-week course will help you discover God’s heart for Muslims.

September 14, Bridges Seminar (Fort Wayne, IN, USA).

September 16-19, Annual Conference for Oral Communicators (St. Louis, MO, USA). From the International Orality Network.

September 18-19, International Society for Frontier Missiology Annual Meeting (Dallas, TX, USA). This year’s theme: Global peoples: gates, bridges, and connections across the frontiers.

September 19-21, North America Mission Leaders Conference (Dallas, TX, USA). Provided by MissioNexus.

September 21-27, Traction Conference for Men (Wilderswil, Switzerland). For men who serve in cross-cultural settings.

September 22 – Bridges Seminar (West Lafayette, IN, USA).

» View the complete calendar and/or submit an item.

Missions Catalyst 7.17.13 – World News Briefs

In This Issue: Lesotho’s shepherds, Nigeria’s extremism, and momentous days in Egypt

For additional news stories, follow us on Twitter.

Greetings!

Some in our world are striving to make huge changes, while other people follow ways of life that have changed little in thousands of years. This edition of Missions Catalyst includes stories from both ends of that spectrum. May the good news be available to all; may God’s revolution of love transform the lives of shepherds and revolutionaries alike!

Until All Hear,

Pat

Pat Noble has been the “news sleuth” for Missions Catalyst since 2004. In addition to churning out the news, she is working to create a SWARM (Serving World A Regional Mobilizers) in Northern New York using the NorthernChristian.org website. You can connect with her at www.whatsoeverthings.com.

LESOTHO: Reaching the Shepherds

Source: Mission Network News, July 4, 2013

Lesotho’s shepherds spend weeks at a time in difficult conditions in the highlands, tending their employer’s flocks of sheep and goats and spending their nights in simple rock shelters. It’s a job that keeps them isolated and marginalized.

Africa Inland Mission (AIM) is trusting God to bring together a team of eight single young men to live among these least-reached shepherds and introduce them to Christ. The project is part of AIM’s Training in Ministry Outreach program.

“I believe that the shepherd community of Lesotho offers extraordinary opportunities for incarnational witness,” says AIM missionary John Barry, who has served among them. “While conditions are difficult, and the population density very low, relationships [among shepherds] are intense. I think this offers the perfect opportunity for genuine discipleship.”

» Read the full story, and watch the beautiful five-minute video Set Apart. See also two previous AIM reports, The Shepherds of Lesotho and The Shepherd Evangelists.

NIGERIA: Extremists Retaliate

Source: Baptist Press, July 3, 2013

Thousands have fled their homes in northern Nigeria amid Islamic extremist attacks on Christians, partly in retaliation for the government’s state of emergency and the destruction of extremist bases.

The violence was attributed to ethnic Fulani Muslims and to the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram, indicating the latter has regrouped and retaliated against Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan’s state of emergency and corresponding destruction in May of Boko Haram bases in the Sambisa Games Reserve in Borno.

Boko Haram is blamed for killing pastor Jacob Kwiza and attacking five Christian communities in Borno’s Mandara Hills area, Morning Star News reported. Fulani Muslims are blamed for killing Toma Vongjen, a Christian in the Wase area of Plateau State, and destroying church buildings in four villages there, the persecution monitor reported.

The thousands who fled their homes had been warned by Boko Haram to flee within a week or face death, area Christians said, the Associated Press reported.

Dinfa Lambda, a pastor in Jos, told Morning Star News whole villages have been displaced in northern Nigeria and that Christian fellowship and evangelistic outreach efforts are no longer possible.

“There are Christian villages that have been completely wiped out by these Muslim terrorists,” Lambda was quoted as saying.

» Read full story, as well as another Baptist Press story making the case that Nigerian Islamic Terrorism Transcends Religion.

» See also, Boko Haram Begs for Forgiveness, Signs Ceasefire Deal (Vanguard News) and Why Nigeria Matters (Julian Linnell, Anglican Frontier Missions).

EGYPT: Momentous Days

Source: United Bible Societies, July 5, 2013

Ramez Atallah, General Secretary of the Bible Society of Egypt, asks for prayer during “these momentous days.”

“The real picture of what happened during the demonstrations is radically different from what you imagine. More than 17 million people across the country participated (the largest turnout in our history and possibly a world record, too), but it was mostly peaceful, despite the numbers involved. As I and my family walked through the crowds of people – old, young, men, and women – we felt proud to be Egyptians and to be united with so many of our countrymen – both Christians and Muslims. It was exhilarating to see people’s enthusiasm and love for our great nation.

“It was when Egyptians realized that they could not depend on foreign powers to resolve their crisis that a small group of young people started this grassroots movement designed to force the president’s resignation. The fact that this is truly a movement by and for the people was reflected in the sheer numbers who took part in the protests.

“So rejoice with us for the remarkable events taking place in our country. Pray that the unprecedented unity expressed between all Egyptians who reject the forceful imposition of political Islam will result in a new Egypt where people with different persuasions can live alongside one another in harmony. This is the Egypt I remember from my youth and the Egypt most people yearn for.”

» Read full story.

» See also: Christians and Muslims Come Together to Share Ramadan Meal in Egypt (Christian Post).