In This Issue:
Today we welcome a bunch of new subscribers who signed up through Perspectives classes in several cities. Glad you could join us!
Sources: Deidox, Moving Works, and Prayercast
While many of the resources we feature here are designed to inspire and equip you (and those you might mobilize) for global service, today I want to share some great videos about showing love closer to home.
Turns out the principles are much the same. We still have internal resistance, issues with our priorities, and other barriers to overcome if we want to be obedient and make a difference in the lives of others.
Jay has been challenged to love his neighbors, but he can’t do it if he doesn’t know them. Watch as this Austin, Texas man and his wife wrestle with finding the time and then take a small but simple step. Love Your Neighbors—A Simple Step is part one in a series of three short videos from Deidox. The others will be out within the next two weeks. This first video, at just over four minutes long, might easily be folded into a presentation.
Moving Works has also released a new short video (5.5 minutes) about someone who has a conversation with God that leads her to reach out to love and serve a neglected population close to home. Watch Bettie Goes to Jail. Download a simple discussion guide for small groups.
Finally, our friends at Prayercast are part of an interesting campaign to raise up prayer for a city. They’re mobilizing praying for every one of Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods. Each day between September 8 and November 23, a prayer video for another neighborhood will be released. Check out Chicago77.
What would it look like to pray systematically for every inch of your city?
Source: SAT-7
Working with people who speak other languages? SAT-7 has free apps available for Apple and Android devices with streaming gospel content from each of their broadcast channels. These could be a great resource for anyone who knows a refugee or immigrant speaker of Arabic, Farsi, Dari, or Turkish. Use them as a witnessing tool, conversation starter, or resource for discipleship.
» Also check out TWR360, the multi-lingual media resources from TWR, accessible via the web or a free mobile app.
Source: GMI and Grow2Serve
The book Crossing Cultures with Ruth: Lessons on Thriving in Mission offers Kingdom workers encouragement and inspiration as they discern and work out God’s call in their lives. The book also provides practical insights based on James Nelson’s years of Fruitful Practice research into the best means and methods of missionary outreach.
Now available is a six-week online course that will enhance your learning and growth through purposeful interaction in a community with the book, author, a course facilitation team, and other learners.
Included in your course fee is a download of Crossing Cultures with Ruth and Crossing Cultures with Ruth: Study Guide for Christian Workers.
(Ring a bell? We highlighted the book and study guide when they were published earlier, and I, Marti, co-authored the study guide).
» Learn more or register for the course.
» See also an affordable, 25-hour online course called Evangelism: Abundantly Sowing the Seed (with World Team) and an 8-10-hour course in Animism and Folk Religion (with SEND International).
Source: The Jesus Accounts
Several years back we published a review of The Jesus Accounts: Fact or Fiction?, a high-quality, half-hour documentary designed to explain the reliability of the Bible and answer the most common objections or misunderstandings in a positive and respectful way. You can watch or share it online in Arabic, Russian, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Tajik, Turkmen, Uzbek, Bengali, Turkish, Chinese (several versions), and Urdu, as well as English, or get it on DVD for a reasonable price.
Now, a second documentary of the same length addresses and attempts to clarify what it means when we say Jesus is the son of God. Jesus, Son of God? was filmed in Turkey and the UK and has been dubbed into Arabic, Russian, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Uzbek, and Bengali; there’s also an English version with simplified Chinese subtitles.
Though these videos are designed primarily with a Muslim audience in mind, Islam is not mentioned in either one. I think you will find them useful with secular or Christian friends as well. A third video dealing with the historicity of the crucifixion is currently in production.
» Preview both films and their trailers in English on YouTube or go to each film’s website to learn much more about these projects or buy DVDs.
Source: Missions Catalyst Events Calendar
October 3 to February 12, Perspectives on the World Christian Movement Course (online). Provided on a regular basis by the Perspectives Study Program.
October 5 to November 30, Mobilizer Equipping School (Chiang Mai, Thailand). Provided by Student Volunteer Movement 2.
October 7-8, Missions Fest Seattle (Bellevue, WA, USA). Free, annual community-wide event.
October 8, Costly Call: Following Jesus in a Hostile World (Lynnfield, MA, USA). One-day event sponsored by New England Perspectives Study Program and the J. Christy Wilson, Jr. Center for World Missions.
October 10-11, Support Raising Bootcamp (Tulsa, OK, USA). Provided by Support Raising Solutions.
October 11-14, Support Raising Leaders Conference (Tulsa, OK, USA). Provided by Support Raising Solutions (and partners).
October 11 to November 8, Expand Your Mission Through Media (for Women) (online). Mission Media U course to develop a media project plan.
October 13, Protecting Your Ministry from Sexual Identity and Gender Issues (online). Webinar provided by Missio Nexus.
October 13-15, Open B4T Expo (Chicago, IL, USA). Transforming nations through business.
October 14-15, People Raising Conference (Oak Brook, IL, USA). Be equipped for raising personal support.
October 14-16, Evangelical Missiological Society (Dallas, TX, USA). Annual meeting, this time focused on “Missions and the Local Church.”
October 16-19 and 20-23, Thrive Retreats (Cape Town, South Africa). For North American women serving cross-culturally.
October 16-21, ABIDE (Joplin, MO, USA). Re-entry and debriefing for singles, couples, and families provided by TRAIN International.
October 17-19, Excellerate Conference (Alpharetta, GA, USA). A mission conference for church leaders. Hosted by North Point Ministries.
October 19, Set Apart: Connecting the Local Church to God’s Work (online). Free webinar from Sixteen:Fifteen.
» View the calendar, with some big events coming up in November as well. Planning a mission event for December (or any other time down the road)? Please let me know!
In This Issue: When following Jesus doesn’t make sense
Greetings,
Some months we have more books to review than you can possibly read (sorry… kind of!) This month, though, it’s films. One of the two documentaries mentioned in this edition is only in US theaters, and just for a one-night showing (so far), and the other one is only available for purchase on DVD, though you can watch an extended trailer online.
We also came across a few more videos you might be able to use, all of them new offerings from media ministries we’ve featured previously. They are online and include additional material you can use for group discussions. Take a look at these (and other films from these groups).
Blessings,
Marti
The film The Insanity of God, based on the book of the same name, is showing in theaters around the US in a special one-night event on Tuesday, August 30. Live in the US? Find a showing near you.
Source: LifeWay Films
The Insanity of God is the true story of missionaries Nik and Ruth Ripken [who served in the Horn of Africa and beyond]. After the death of their son, this ordinary couple journeys into the depths of the persecuted church, asking the question: Is Jesus worth it?
How does faith survive, let alone flourish in the places of the world that are overcome with the darkness of sin, despair, and hopelessness? Join the Ripkens as they tell the story of being taught by believers in persecution “how to follow Jesus, how to love Jesus, and how to walk with him day by day even when it doesn’t make sense.”
The film is based on the best-selling book The Insanity of God and is released in association with the [Southern Baptist] International Mission Board. The movie will be the first theatrical release from LifeWay Films when it opens in theaters across the United States on August 30 as a one-night event.
» Learn more or buy tickets. You might also want to check out the book and its sequel as well as a related six-session small group study. At this writing, the Kindle edition of The Insanity of God is just US$.99.
Source: The Sentinel Group
The vast majority of American Christians will go their entire lives without ever setting foot in a genuinely transformed community, says The Sentinel Group: They are able to apprehend revival intellectually, but they have never felt it.
It’s Only Cookie Dough focuses on the previously depressed town of Lynch, Kentucky and what happened there when people began to really pray. Like the other Transformations documentary-style videos, it tells an encouraging story about what God can do to change hearts, meet desperate needs, and even heal the land itself.
» Watch the trailer, learn more, or purchase the DVD from The Sentinel Group for US$19.99. It’s 85 minutes long. For another look at this region see their previous documentary, An Appalachian Dawn.
Source: American Bible Society
Healing the Wounds of Trauma: How the Church Can Help, Expanded Edition 2016, by Harriet Hill, Margaret Hill, Dick Baggé, and Pat Miersma. American Bible Society, 2016. 144 pages.
This book was first published in 2004, adapted from a workbook developed by four members of Wycliffe Bible Translators and used in trauma healing seminars offered to African leaders (now all over the world). Revised several times since then, it offers a practical and field-tested approach to engaging the Bible and mental health principles to find God’s healing for wounds of the heart.
Leaders in churches and ministries caring for people who have suffered horrific events like war, civil unrest, ethnic conflict, rape, and natural disasters may find this a helpful resource. It can be used to help individuals struggling with suffering.
» Learn more or purchase for US$6.99 from the American Bible Society (or elsewhere). See also a related work, Healing Children’s Wounds of Trauma.
» Here’s another tried-and-true tool that may be useful for cross-cultural workers in over their heads: Where There Is No Doctor is now available in Haitian Kreyol in addition to English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Urdu.