Read or share the email edition or scroll down for more.
Source: Prayercast and others
It’s Ramadan, and for many Christians, that means it’s time to pray for Muslims. Need a video for your church or small group? Prayercast has got you covered. Their “Love Muslims” collection has more than 130 videos. For the next month, they are sending out daily prayer emails featuring various videos and ways to pray.
Sign up now to join Prayercast’s Ramadan prayer challenge.
You can also browse the collection to find the video you want.
See also Encountering Jesus, a new Ramadan prayer guide from Frontiers (delivered by email), or consider using materials from pray30days.org or 30daysprayer.com. I’m also seeing prayer networks and mission teams set up their own prayer campaigns for this season. Pray4Movements lists more than 70 campaigns seeking 24-hour prayer coverage. Take a look.
Source: International Turkey Network
Turkey—or Türkiye if you prefer—is no longer dominating news headlines. But the people of this country and neighboring Syria have suffered much and could use our prayers as they recover from the massive earthquakes in February.
In 2022, the International Turkey Network published an in-depth, 154-page, 30-day guide to praying for the nation’s seven regions. It’s available both digitally (US$1.99) and in paperback (US$4.99) with bulk discounts available.
Learn more or purchase. See also a related YouTube playlist of Turkish Christian worship songs with subtitles in many languages—a great chance to worship with the Church in Turkey.
Source: Liturgies for a Life Abroad
Liturgies and Laments for the Sojourner, Volume 1, by Alicia Boyce, Heather Fallis, and Tamika Rybinski. Vinehouse Publishing, 2023. 106 pages.
Just last month we told you about the social-media-based Liturgies for a Life Abroad, only to learn days later that the author was collaborating with two others on a book of prayers like these.
Liturgy seems to be on the upswing. You may be a fan of Douglas Kaine McKelvey’s Every Moment Holy or Tish Harrison Warren’s Liturgy of the Ordinary. Here, though, you will find prayers about situations common to cross-cultural life, like moving (again), language learning, closed borders, and culture fatigue.
Admittedly, the book may feel a bit whiny to the uninitiated. But if you know, you know. And the Lord meets us where we are. This could be a great resource for mission workers to use for team meetings and retreats.
Purchase the Kindle edition for US$9.99; also available in paperback.
Sources: Various
Downsizing to Move Overseas (Go.Serve.Love)
Could simplifying now help prepare you to go wherever, whenever God calls? A professional organizer and MK offers practical strategies.
Contextualization Meets Burnout (A Life Overseas)
As we adapt and change our ways, we expect our efforts will open doors for the gospel. Unfortunately, the results do not always meet those expectations, and this is where contextualization meets burnout.
The Importance of Families in Global Missions (Lausanne Movement)
How do you sustain a prayer movement for 100 years? The answer may surprise you: by including children. How would our churches be different if every family believed they were part of God blessing the nations?
Who Needs Missionaries? It’s Not Just the “Unreached” (The Gospel Coalition)
Consider three additional categories of peoples and places that may warrant missionary labors: the mis-reached, the once-reached, and the under-reached.
Want more? These are all pretty quick reads, but if you have some time on your hands, browse and/or subscribe to Mission Hits from Chris Howles, a British seminary professor in Uganda. It’s monthly and more extensive than Mission Catalyst. He even does a quarterly roundup of articles from mission journals. Good stuff.
Source: Civil Righteousness
The booklet Stories From the Field, created for the recent George Liele Missions Summit, celebrates and honors historical and present-day African American missionaries.
“We created it with the intention of offering the booklet as a tool to encourage those who are considering world missions as a vocation. Our prayer is that the words found in this booklet become a holy seed in the hearts of young readers of all ages for God’s end-time harvest.”
May it be so. Download the 20-page booklet. It’s free, with no registration required.
Source: Missions Catalyst Events Calendar
April 5, When Helping Hurts: Myths and Realities (online). Webinar from Missio Nexus.
April 6 to May 4, Strategic Storytelling for Movements (online). Course from Media Mission U.
April 11-14, Unbound: Support Raising Leaders Conference (Colorado Springs, CO, USA). Provided by Via/Support Raising Solutions.
April 12-13, The Mobilized Church Workshop (Huntsville, AL, USA). From Sixteen:Fifteen.
April 13, Equipping Gen Z: A God-Designed Generation for a God-Given Task (online). A virtual event from Missio Nexus.
April 17, How to Engage With Muslims Where You Are (online). Hour-long webinar from Frontiers USA; join live or watch the replay a week later.
April 17-20, Mission Information Workers Conference (online). Accelerate the development of mission information and the mission information community. Sponsored by the Community of Mission Information Workers, Lausanne Research & Strategic Information Network, and Harvest Information Standards.
April 18, Call to Prayer (online). Virtual prayer gathering from Missio Nexus, this month coinciding with Islam’s Night of Power.
April 24-26, CEO Peer 2 Peer Retreat (Post Falls, ID, USA). An annual event for mission organization CEOs and their spouses, this time focused on internationalization.
April 24 to May 7, Orient Pre-field Training (Joplin, MO, USA). Provided by TRAIN International and offered regularly.
April 25-27, Support Raising Bootcamp (online for Southeast Asia). Provided by Via/Support Raising Solutions.
April 26-27, The Mobilized Church (St. Louis, MO, USA). A workshop for local churches provided by Sixteen:Fifteen.
April 27, BAM Global Summit (online). An annual connecting point for the global business-as-mission movement.
April 27, Honoring and Caring for Missionary Seniors (online). A webinar from Missio Nexus.
April 27-30, Christian Medical and Dental Association National Conference (Covington, KY, USA). An annual event.
April 29, Building Friendships With Hindus (Philadelphia, PA, USA). A one-day equipping seminar sponsored by the Philadelphia Regional Diaspora Network.
View the complete calendar, updated regularly. Submissions welcome.
Source: Frontier Ventures
The March/April edition of Mission Frontiers is out, and it looks great. The focus is on women in missions, bringing to the forefront voices that represent roughly two-thirds of God’s mission force.
Download the PDF. And to all my sisters, happy International Women’s Day!
Source: Perspectives Study Program
You know about Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, right? Most subscribers to this list have probably taken it. If you paid attention in class, you may also have a sense of how much was going on behind the scenes to make sure it all went smoothly.
If you are ready to bring the class to your church or community, sign up now for a Perspectives Coordinators Workshop. Bring a friend (especially one with a knack for event planning, education, or project management). Looks like 15 workshops are on the calendar for the coming months in cities across the US. There may be one near you.
Perspectives fans should also be aware of another bite-sized Perspectives-related event that happens in various locations throughout the year. “Taste of Perspectives” provides a free sample of what you’d find in the 15-week course, complete with short presentations looking at God’s perspective on the world through biblical, historical, cultural, and strategic lenses. Bring your pastor, a fellow leader, or family and friends.
Unfortunately, there’s no place to find a list of these online. Live in the Pacific Northwest? A Taste of Perspectives will happen in Beaverton, Oregon on Saturday, April 22. I’ll be there and would be happy to send you the info.
Contact a Perspectives leader in your region about events near you.
Looking for a simpler training tool? You have options. Consider The Missions Course, for example.
Source: Missions Catalyst Events Calendar
After we sent out the March events, we found more. Interested, but can’t make it on such short notice? Follow links to find future events from the same groups.
March 10, Interrogation Management Workshop (Albuquerque, NM, USA). Followed by a Security Orientation Workshop March 11 in the same location. Both are provided by Crisis Consulting International.
March 14-16, Support Raising Bootcamp (Curitiba, Parana, Brazil). Provided by Support Raising Solutions. Bootcamps are held in many locations throughout the year. A conference for support-raising leaders is planned for April in Colorado. SRS will also have a new name in April; stay tuned.
March 16 to April 6, How to Prepare Your STM Teams (online). Training for trainers from Touch the World; part of their Mission Academy. This looks like a great course, and TTW has other resources you may want to use.
March 22, Coast to Coast: Covering Ramadan in Prayer (online). Kick off your focus on the Muslim world in this key time by joining Frontiers mobilizers in prayer.
March 23-26, Gather (online). Gather is a four-day, web-based live event specifically for women ministering overseas. Provided by Thrive.
March 28, Women in World Christianity: Facts, Figures, Challenges, and Opportunities (Hamilton, MA, USA and streaming online). From the Center for Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell and featuring Gina Zurlo. Looks like it’s free, too.
View the whole calendar, updated regularly. Submissions welcome.
