Category: Resource Reviews

Source: Missions Catalyst Events Calendar

July 4 to November 6, Perspectives on the World Christian Movement (online). New online classes begin regularly.

July 10-15, Debrief Retreat (Union Mills, NC, USA). Provided regularly by the Center for Intercultural Training. Also check out their missionary training programs.

July 11-15, ABIDE re-entry debriefing for global workers (Joplin, MO, USA). Provided regularly by TRAIN International. They do pre-field training and debriefing events throughout the year.

July 14, IN SYNC Storytelling (online). Practice asking questions and sharing stories like Jesus did. Provided by All Nations.

July 15-17, The Journey Deepens (online). A retreat for discerning your next step in mission, provided by Mission Next. Now online for the first time. A similar event will be held August 12-14.

July 16-22, New Wilmington Mission Conference (Western Pennsylvania, USA). Annual, week-long multi-generational mission conference; a tradition for more than 100 years.

July 18 to August 13, COMPASS (Palmer Lake, CO, USA). Language and culture acquisition provided regularly by Missionary Training International.

July 19, Contend: Monthly Day of Prayer For Mission Mobilization (global). Coordinated by GMMI and held the third Tuesday of each month.

July 20-21, Support Raising Bootcamp (Fayetteville, AR, USA). Provided by Support Raising Solutions; offered regularly in various locations.

July 21, Hostile Interrogation Management Workshop (Auburn, AL, USA). Provided by Crisis Consulting International. Check out their security trainings offered throughout the year.

July 23, How in the World Can a Woman Lead for the Kingdom of God(online). Three-hour workshop from All Nations.

July 28-30, Empower Portland Conference (Portland, OR, USA). Empowering Christians to engage the people of North Korea. Provided by Reah International.

View complete calendar. Submissions welcome.

Food is an essential part of everyone’s life; we will not survive without it. And behind every meal are stories of culture, survival, and celebration. This month, consider making recipes from refugee kitchens. See below.

1. Video Series with Study Guide: Mission in Motion
2. John Chau’s Legacy & the Day of the Christian Martyr
3. Recipes from the Kitchens of the World’s Refugees
4. Resource Roundup: Research and Articles of Interest
5. Events: Informative Conferences, Classes, and Webinars

Read or share the email edition or scroll down for more.

Source: The Traveling Team and RightNow Media

God has called all believers to go and make disciples of all nations, yet there remain thousands of people groups around the world who have never heard the name of Jesus Christ. The harvest is plentiful, so why are the laborers so few?

Living on mission isn’t just for “missionaries”—we all have a role in sharing Christ to the ends of the earth. In a new video series, Claude Hickman and Todd Ahrend of The Traveling Team speak to ordinary believers to help them rediscover their God-given purpose in life and examine ways that each of us can be involved in God’s great mission.

Four lessons look at our purpose, God’s mission, the world, and getting involved. They were just recorded this year, so the information is up to date. The production values are high, the content is compelling, and each lesson includes points and illustrations you can share with others.

I reached out to Claude, who said, “We developed these for the RightNow audience which is very broad, adults or young adults, something a small group could go through or an individual. [The videos are] only about 15 minutes, so super simplified for someone new to world missions ideas, and the discussion guide helps people process each topic more.

“Also, the study has a link to fill out a profile and our staff personally follow up and connect people with a mission org that’s a good fit for them.”

Learn more or watch the trailer (also below). You’ll need a RightNow account to watch/show the videos, but you may already have access or be able to get it through your church or ministry organization. You can also request an account if you are a member of Missio Nexus.

You may know about The Traveling Team’s work to mobilize college students for mission. They also work with local churches now. Check out Mission Revolution. It’s a build-your-own weekend mission conference and they have been doing it with hundreds of churches.

Source: Voice of the Martyrs and The Missionary Mobilization Podcast

According to church tradition, June 29 marks the martyrdom of the Apostle Paul. In recent years, Voice of the Martyrs has been encouraging Christians to take time on this day to honor the legacy of those who have sacrificed their lives for the advance of the gospel.

This year they are telling the story of John Chau, killed by the Sentinelese people, who had little or no previous contact with outsiders and had responded to previous attempts with violence. Watch and share a short video, below, about why he went, and get other free resources from Voice of the Martyrs (registration required).

You might also want to listen to The Life & Legacy of John Chau, a recent podcast interview with Mary Ho of All Nations, John’s sending agency, from the Missionary Mobilization Podcast (The Center for Missionary Mobilization and Retention).

Source: Philoi Global and the Refugee Highway Partnership

“Bless, O Lord, this food we are about to eat; and we pray You, O God, that it may be good for our body and soul; and if there be any poor creature hungry or thirsty walking along the road, send them into us that we can share the food with them, just as You share your gifts with all of us.” (Irish Blessing)

Churches, prayer groups, and families are invited to pray this prayer and remember the millions of people who are poor and hungry by sharing one of their recipes with our churches, friends, and families.

Explore a collection of recipes from people displaced from Afghanistan, Ukraine, Congo, and other nations. This is just one of numerous resources curated by a variety of organizations for World Refugee Sunday.

If this is new to you, note that World Refugee Day, established by the United Nations, is observed every year on June 20. Many churches have held a World Refugee Sunday either the weekend before or the weekend after (this year, June 19 and 26). Seldom have we been as aware of the world’s refugees as we are this year.

Explore resources for World Refugee Sunday.

See also You’re Sitting on a Gold Mine, stories of three refugee-housing efforts that illustrate how to engage churches’ untapped gifts for local ministry (Catalyst Services). Great to see two topics we care about—serving refugees and mobilizing the local church—brought together.

Sources: Various

I thought you might appreciate the following articles I came across in recent weeks. Each is a bit of a cautionary tale, but interesting and helpful.
Short-Term Missions That Avoid Long-Term Harm

As short-term trips ramp up again, it’s important to remember some best practices to protect and encourage the missionaries and local ministries short-term teams want to support. The Chalmers Center has applied “Helping Without Hurting” principles to short-term missions in a book and video series. But how about a few short articles to get a taste, first?

See Short-Term Missions That Avoid Long Term Harm, Part 1 and Part 2.Expect and Train for Persecution

How do you train disciples to expect, endure, and grow through persecution? In a recent article for Mission Frontiers, movement catalyst C. Anderson includes some practical and transferable tips, including a discovery Bible study plan.

We need to set expectations early on, she says: “On a visit to Africa this past year I trained a group of disciple-makers to share their three-minute testimony. In their first attempts, it often went like this. ‘Before Jesus my life was hard. After Jesus my life is easy.’ This is not the gospel. It is not even true!” (Had to smile at that.)

Read Expect and Train for Persecution.The Pandemic’s Impact on the World’s Poor

From 1990 until 2015 we saw a consistent downward trend of global poverty rates, from nearly 36% to just 10% of people at the extreme poverty level living on just $1.90 a day. COVID-19 changed everything, and today 97 million more people were pushed into poverty as a result of COVID-19. Globally, three to four years of progress toward ending extreme poverty are estimated to have been lost.

A March 2022 report lays out the devastating effects and how we can respond with compassionate, thoughtful action.

Read Pandemic & Poverty: COVID-19’s Impact on the World’s Poor.Mobilizer Training Report

In November 2021, Missio Nexus and the Center for Missionary Mobilization and Retention launched a research project to look at how mission agencies train their staff to mobilize missionaries. The results are in.

One notable finding: organizations that intentionally train their mobilizers also meet their mobilization goals most of the time, while organizations that don’t provide such training rarely meet their goals. Yet appropriate and robust training resources are a bit elusive. What would you recommend?

Read the report; skip to the end if you just want to get the key points.

Source: Missions Catalyst Events Calendar

June 1, Pocket Guide to Being a Mission Pastor: Five Things Every Mission Pastor Needs to Know (online). Webinar for church mission leaders from Sixteen:Fifteen and Missio Nexus.

June 3-5, ACMI Virtual Conference (online). Conference for people ministering among international students. Theme: ISM @ The Crossroads: Thriving in Troubled Times. From the Association of Christians Ministering among Internationals.

June 5-6, World Weekend of Prayer for Children at Risk (international). Coordinated by the Viva Network.

June 5, International Day for the Unreached.

June 6-9, Field Security Seminar (Lake George, CO, USA). Prepare to live, work, and travel in high-risk environments. Offered by Crisis Consulting International.

June 6 to October 9, Perspectives on the World Christian Movement (online). New online classes begin regularly. Note that a summer online intensive class will also begin June 6 and go through August 14.

June 8-11, Legacy Conference (Grand Rapids, MI, USA). An annual event from Horizons International for Christians who engage with Muslims.

June 13-17, ABIDE re-entry debriefing for global workers (Joplin, MO, USA). Provided regularly by TRAIN International.

June 14-15, Support Raising Bootcamp (St. Paul, MN, USA). Provided regularly and in different locations by Support Raising Solutions.

June 16, Women in Missions Mobilization (online). Webinar from Sixteen:Fifteen.

June 20, World Refugee Day (international). Many churches observe this with prayer on the Sunday before or after (June 19 or 26).

June 20-24, National African American Mission Council Conference (Vienna, VA, USA and online). An annual conference. The virtual event is June 20-22, while the in-person event is June 22-24.

June 21, Contend: Monthly Day of Prayer For Mission Mobilization (global). Coordinated by GMMI and held on the third Tuesday of each month.

June 21-22, The Mobilized Church (Billings, MT, USA). Provided by Sixteen:Fifteen.

July 22-24, Rethinking Forum (Dallas, TX, USA). Hosted by the MARG network for people who share both a love for Jesus and a love for Hindu people. This one’s been going for 20 years now.

June 24-25, Together ’22 (Dallas, TX, USA). “A modern-day Jesus movement uniting, equipping, and unleashing a generation to make Jesus known.” Also commemorating the 50-year anniversary of Explo ’72.

June 28 to July 1, Thrive Retreat (Beaver Creek, CO, USA). For cross-cultural workers from the US and Canada who serve overseas. Coming up, an October retreat in Prague and a February 2023 retreat in Rome.

June 28 to July 24, Equipping for Cross-Cultural Life and Ministry (Union Mills, NC, USA). Provided regularly by the Center for Intercultural Training.

June 29, Day of the Christian Martyr (online). An annual event. Video and other materials available from Voice of the Martyrs.

View complete calendar. Submissions welcome.

Read or share the email edition or scroll down for stories.

1. Article: Break Out of Your Missions Silos
2. Book: Re-imagining Short-Term Missions
3. Video: The Power of Multiplication
4. Book: Culture Learning, The Art of Understanding What No One Can Teach You
5. Events: Informative Conferences, Classes, and Webinars

Source: Postings, Catalyst Services

Does the Great Commission belong to your whole church or just a select few members?

Congregations large and small often create silos when they divide up the task of making disciples in the body of Christ. Responsibilities are assigned to various departments, then each stewards their own workers, programing, budget, and facilities.

There is a place for specialization in the Kingdom of God. However, in a departmentalized culture, many spiritual disciplines, including the Great Commission, can be outsourced willingly or unwittingly to one department. Instead, Missions Pastor Doug Gamble explains that churches need a new infusion of vision that uses departmental efforts to develop everyone in all the core disciplines.

Doug explains the journey his church took to “un-silo” and how it is creating a climate in which the Great Commission really is becoming every person’s job. (Note that this goes both ways. The author found himself teaching third-graders for the children’s department.)

Read the article.

Catalyst Services also shared a list of some of their Postings most popular with church leaders. Maybe you would find these useful, too.

• A Supporting-Sending-Partnering Continuum: Measuring your church’s missions ownership
• Missions Essentials: Do you have a core missions message for your church?
• Is This the Team for Me? Questions to help you help your missionary candidate find the right field team for them

Source: Wipf and Stock

Re-Imagining Short-Term Missions, edited Angel Burns and Forrest Inslee, Wipf and Stock, 2022. 301 pages.

Given the diversity of endeavors under the term short-term missions umbrella, it’s hard to find an easier target in the mission world to critique. But many of us have some horror stories to tell from our own experience or that of those we know.

What about you? Ready to think deeply as you relaunch efforts halted by the pandemic? This hard-hitting but ultimately constructive book may be for you. It includes almost two dozen essays written by 40 global contributors. Chapters are grouped around core values they promote: mutuality and unity, humility and repentance, curiosity and teachability, and creativity and contextualization. It includes lots of stories of mission done well.

Here’s how the publisher describes the book:

“This book is for those who suspect that current practices of short-term missions are in need of serious reform. It is a book for those who recognize that, in this decade of global upheaval—and in light of the cultural, political, and demographic shifts affecting churches everywhere—now is the time for change. The essays here are intended to equip and inspire any who want to advocate for change but may not yet know what change looks like.”

Visit the publisher’s website. The book’s a bit pricey but you can get the Kindle edition for US$9.99 from Amazon.

Need help making your mission trips better? Friends at Standards of Excellence in Short-Term Mission offer a ten-hour seminar and many other resources you may find useful.