Category: News Briefs

Source: International Mission Board, October 9, 2017

Idol worship is alive and well in Germany, the land of the Reformation, as well as in cities across Western Europe. Often idol worship isn’t as obvious as it would be in a Buddhist temple in Thailand or Hindu temple in Kuala Lumpur, but it’s no less enslaving.

The apostle Paul described those who worship idols as having “exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and [having] worshiped and served something created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever” (Romans 1:25).

Take a walk through Frankfurt, Germany, and discover some of the idols tempting people here.

» Read full story. Unfortunately, you might recognized some of these idols. They are worshipped in many other contexts as well.

» You might appreciate the new documentary, A Return to Grace: Luther’s Life and Legacy. Or read how Africa’s “reverse missionaries” are bringing Christianity back to the United Kingdom (Quartz Africa).

Source: Operation Mobilization, October 7, 2017

Islam is considered part of one’s cultural identity in much of Central Asia. However, many people leave religious practice to the elderly. Often, when people turn 50, they begin searching for forgiveness of sins. For Muslims, that means going to the mosque.

Aslan’s mother was no exception. An older woman looking for spiritual peace, she had started attending a mosque and reciting Islamic prayers. But she wanted a translation of the Arabic prayers. “I am [Central Asian], and I want to know what I am saying to God,” she told a Muslim religious leader.

During that time, some relatives living in a nearby city approached Aslan’s mother. “We found a group of people who are reading, worshipping, and praying in our language. Can we go and see these people?”

The discovery of that Central Asian church transformed Aslan’s family. His mother, touched by prayer and teaching she could understand, became a believer. Over the next seven years, the rest of the family followed.

» Full story illustrates how Scripture and related literature distribution is making a difference in Central Asia.

» You might also appreciate and want to share the following articles about helping people discover God’s Word for themselves: Frontiers workers involved in a Bible discussion group explain Why We Stopped Leading; a Pioneers worker in West Africa often asks, Can I Tell You a Story?

Source: Mission Network News, October 13, 2017

JESUS Film Project has a new strategy to help share the gospel—gift cards. While there are many ways to share the JESUS Film, a whole new door has opened for it.

“The gift card allows you to give this to someone. One of my favorite ways of doing that is somebody who’s helped me, an attendant at a gas station, a waitress, a waiter, somebody who’s given me some service,” JESUS Film Project’s Ray Rohland shares.

“I say, ‘You were very kind to me, can I give you a gift?’ And, 99.9% of the time they’ll say yes. When they get the card, the card has a QR code on it or a URL, and they can follow those links, put in a promotion code, and they’re left on a page that says to them, ‘What language do you speak?’”

From here, individuals have to opportunity to download or stream the JESUS Film in their heart language. The JESUS Film (classic version) is currently in 1,542 languages. The JESUS Film gift cards are meant to help reach the non-English speakers living in the United States and Canada.

» Read full story.

Source: Email from Missions Catalyst reader, October 2017

For the past 14 months or so, we have been having weekly meetings at our house, very small meetings, and almost every week we get an update from an elderly gentleman (he is 86), who has been holding Skype meetings with a congregation in a remote area of South Asia. He preaches, the pastor translates, and exciting things are happening. These happen once or twice every week.

During the past year, all unadvertised (except by the Spirit), the congregation has been reaching up to new villages in that area, and each week many people are healed of all kinds of disease—diabetes, heart issues, blindness, deafness, demonic oppression or possession—and many hundreds are coming to Christ. Over the course of the past year, about 5,000 people have been become Christians, a few at first, then more as the momentum accelerates. This is just the count reached directly by the core church, not those indirectly reached.

Sometimes, God has prepared a person ahead of time—not yet a Christian—who has told the people in the village that a messenger of the truth was coming; in one village where that happened, almost the entire village, about 1,500 people became Christians. Another time is was “only” about 250.

The meetings are not advertised—people would be arrested and killed in that case—but, like those Brother Andrew discusses in God’s Smuggler, arranged as seeking people get together, being led by the Spirit.

I am very encouraged by these ongoing reports, and felt led to spread the encouragement. After all, Peter does the same: “…encourage one another with these words.” Indeed, the Lord’s coming is nigh, when the word of God is being preached to all the nations, even remote villages in difficult-to-reach countries.

» Note: As Christians commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation of Christianity in northwest Europe, says Steve Bell of Interserve, let’s not airbrush the supernatural out of the biblical narrative.

Missions Catalyst News Briefs 10.04.17

1. MYANMAR: Update on Rohingya Persecution
2. BAHRAIN: Arab State Declares Religious Tolerance
3. MIDDLE EAST: How Ministry Has Changed
4. SOUTH ASIA: God Uses Ordinary Women to Grow Churches
5. TURKEY: Andrew Brunson, Political Hostage

Greetings,

This past week the Kurds of Iraq and the Catalonians of Spain voted for independence. The Myanmar government clearly wants the Rohingya people gone. Racism persists in America, and Europeans (and others) fear the influx of refugees. Is peaceful pluralism even possible in our fallen world?

Those who worship tolerance believe we can all learn to get along, but the evidence suggests otherwise. Listen to Tim Keller’s take on why the Church is uniquely equipped to live and thrive in a pluralistic society. For a good example, watch a Palestinian and a Jew share the stage at Lausanne (six-minute video).

Wonder how diverse your own neighborhood is? This USA interactive map can help. (Thanks to the Space Informatics Lab of the University of Cincinnati.)

One more thing: If you have not ordered a copy of the 15-Day Hindu World Prayer Guide, consider getting the 32-page downloadable PDF for just US$2.50 and using it to pray for the world’s more than one billion Hindus October 8-22. The Hindu festival of lights, Diwali, takes place during this period.

blessings,
Pat

“Diversity may be the hardest thing for a society to live with, and perhaps the most dangerous thing for a society to be without.”
— William Sloane Coffin Jr.

Source: Open Doors, September 19, 2017

A few weeks ago, we reported about the most persecuted minority in the world—the Rohingya Muslims. This group is continually denied basic rights and treated as illegal.

The word “genocide” has been attached to the situation as the situation worsens with Rohingyas fleeing to Bangladesh.

For generations, Rohingya Muslims have called Myanmar home, but now, their government seems to be systematically purging them.

Since our last report, the estimated number of Rohingyas that have fled to Bangladesh has risen from at least 123,000 to more than 400,000.

» Read full story.

» Also see an article explaining local history and including a good map of Burma’s ethnic groups (Al Jazeera), a 36-minute documentary (Channel 4 News), a moving photo essay (CNN), an article about the also-persecuted Rohingya Hindus (Foreign Policy Magazine), and, finally, a Christian website dedicated to praying for the Rohingya (Pray 4 Ro).

Source: World Watch Monitor, September 21, 2017

The King of Bahrain has sought to promote his country as a global champion of religious tolerance, with a declaration that advocates freedom of religion for all and rejects extremism.

In the Bahrain Declaration, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa “unequivocally reject[s] compelled observance.”

The one-page pledge, which was co-sponsored by the Jewish US-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, also calls for the condemnation of terrorism, of stirring up extremism, of suicide bombing, and of sexual slavery.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the Center’s associate dean and social action head, told World Watch Monitor that Muslim, Christian, and Jewish scholars had looked over the king’s text before it was published. He added that it was the first such declaration by the head of an Arab state. “We hope to take this text and get sign-offs from leaders around the world of all faiths,” he said, adding that the king had also pledged to build a center akin to the Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance.

» Full story points out that this declaration stops short of specifically stating that Muslims can leave Islam for another religion.

» Also read Saudi Arabia Agrees to Let Women Drive (New York Times).

Source: Arab World Media, October 1, 2017

Charles has been in ministry to Muslims for thirty years, many of those with Arab World Media. As he approaches retirement, we asked him to reflect on how things have changed in that time.

“Today a Muslim enquirer in the Arab world can find a phone number on a Christian website or a satellite TV programme, make a call at minimal or no cost (if they have an internet connection), and speak to an Arab believer. This is a truly amazing development!

“When I first visited Morocco in the early 1980s, there was only one TV channel and the news focused mainly on the king’s activities. In order to make an international phone call, I had to go to the main post office, and it was quite expensive. If Moroccans were interested in the gospel, their best chance of hearing it would probably have been on the radio—one or two hours of broadcasting each evening on Trans World Radio. After that they could correspond with a media organization and do a simple Bible correspondence course. Later, it might be possible to arrange for them to meet with a believer—often an expatriate visitor.

“Today our response workers are able to send an electronic copy of the Bible to their contacts via WhatsApp. It is true that many also ask for a hard copy, because reading from a phone screen is tiresome. Nevertheless, the opportunity to find out about the gospel has mushroomed through satellite TV, the internet and, most recently, social media. What will come next?”

» Full story also goes into the ways ministry in these contexts hasn’t changed: the challenges have not gone away. Hope you’ll read it.

Source: Beyond, September 15, 2017

“One day, busy with housework at home, I heard a loud voice come through the open window. It seemed to come from my neighbor’s house. The person was telling a story. I stopped to listen. It was an amazing story about how the world came to be. Back at the beginning, God made this world a beautiful place. Amazing! I had to give my full attention to that voice.

“Once the story was finished, I went to find out more. Rini, my neighbor, told me that three months ago, she became a follower of Jesus. A man named Raj gave her an audio speaker with God’s stories on it so she could learn what it means to follow Jesus. Rini now meets with 47 other people in her home each week to study the stories. They listen to a story, and then discuss questions about it. That creation story was so beautiful. I began to attend the meetings and soon decided to also follow the God of those stories.

“One month later, I met Raj. He gave me a speaker, too, and now we have two groups meeting in our village! Just like the group at Rini’s house, we listen to a story, discuss what it teaches about God, and then try to apply it to our lives that week. We are all learning about God. I am very thankful to Raj for providing us with a speaker. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to know this amazing and lovely God. I am an illiterate woman. I cannot read or write, but the stories on this speaker have changed my life.”

» Full story includes several other examples of God working through ordinary women to spread his Word and build his Church.

» See also Reaching Beyond One (Frontiers) and pray for the woman it describes to introduce her friends and family to Jesus in such a way that men and women say, “tell us more!”

Source: World Watch Monitor, September 29, 2017

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has for the first time confirmed publicly that a U.S. pastor jailed in Turkey for the past 12 months is being held by his government as a political hostage.

In a speech at his presidential palace [on September 28], Erdoğan openly called on the United States to exchange Pastor Andrew Brunson for Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish citizen living in exile in the U.S. since 1999, who is accused of masterminding last year’s failed coup.

“[The U.S.] says, ‘Give us the pastor back,’” Erdoğan said. “You have one pastor [of ours] as well. The pastor we have [Brunson] is on trial. Yours [Gülen] is not—he is living in Pennsylvania. Give him to us. You can easily give him to us. You can give him right away. Then we will try him [Brunson] and give him to you.’”

Turkey has launched a massive internal crackdown over the past 15 months to identify and punish the FETO (Fethullah Terror Organisation) network accused of infiltrating Turkey’s armed forces and government. More than 50,000 “suspected” judges, prosecutors, soldiers, academics, journalists, human rights activists, and police officers have been jailed, held for months in pre-trial detention.

Since October 7, 2016, Andrew Brunson has been one of these prisoners.

» Read full article (or a related story from Reuters) to better understand the dynamics at play. Please pray for Brunson and his family as the anniversary of his imprisonment approaches.

» Check out the latest edition of EMQ Online for an article about a movement that bears Gülen’s name. This group has been quite active in the U.S., running a network of charter schools, interfaith dialogue groups, and cultural centers. The article focuses on ways to engage followers with the gospel (subscription required).