Greetings!
My boss’s boss grew up as a missionary kid in a remote jungle. At a recent online staff meeting he told us, “My job is to navigate the canoe as effectively as I can in the currents in which we find ourselves.”
Are you feeling the currents? Trying to stay on mission? Seeking to adapt to crises and calls for change? Or maybe you’re grieving some losses. This month’s resources may help. I hope you know you’re not alone.
Blessings,
Marti
In This Issue:
Practicing Hope: Missions and Global Crises, edited by Jerry Ireland and Michelle Raven. William Carey Publishing and the Evangelical Missiological Society, 2020. 216 pages.
This new book brings together global scholars and practitioners who share and think broadly about the Church’s mission in a world rife with crises. Rather than harmonizing the voices of the contributors to provide general guidelines for generic crisis response, Practicing Hope allows the reader to hear multiple perspectives on complex issues such as sustainability, empowerment, human rights, biblical principles, and the mission of God.
The 12 essays were written for the Evangelical Missiological Society (EMS) before the struggles we’ve faced in 2020, as the introduction acknowledges, but their release now is certainly timely.
» Learn more or purchase the Kindle edition for US$9.99 or less. A paperback edition will come out July 20 and sell for US$14.99.
» Are missiologists your tribe? Consider attending this year’s EMS national conference coming up October 9-10. It will be online and inexpensive. I’m planning to attend.
Are you or someone you know trying to find a mission agency that fits? The Mission App is a new service that allows users to fill out a single initial application and be matched with appropriate agencies based on criteria the user defines. Twenty agencies are participating at this point.
» Learn more. While you’re there, check out their blog with helpful articles for aspiring missionaries.
» Speaking of mission agencies—if you lead one, the publishers of the North American Mission Handbook could use your help. Fill out a questionnaire to have information about your organization included in the next edition.
Source: Global Frontier Missions
Step In is a free, five-week, small-group study designed to provide Christ-centered education and missional exposure to believers of all ages.
Each lesson is pithy, practical, and can be taught via Zoom.
Registration required to access materials. Looks like they’re also trying to build up and equip a network of regional facilitators, so you can indicate your interest in that there, too.
» Learn more. You might also want to look at a new video series from GFM making a case for pre-field ministry training.
Like to learn by listening? Here are two interesting episodes from podcasts we’ve highlighted before, plus two podcasts that are relatively new.
Source: Taking Route Podcast
Alicia Boyce describes her family’s decision to leave Indonesia and evacuate to US, how they came to that decision, and the lessons she’s learning through it. Alicia’s story will help those who stayed abroad to better understand the realities of friends who left and will encourage fellow evacuees facing the ups and downs of repatriating during a pandemic.
» Listen to the episode and others.
Source: Global Missions Podcast
Ted Esler of Missio Nexus shares a high-level view of how COVID-19 is affecting evangelism, discipleship, and church-planting—and how those areas might be affected in the future. Episode also includes discussion of the death of George Floyd and diversity in missions.
» Listen to the episode and others.
Source: The Mission Matters Podcast, Missio Nexus and Sixteen:Fifteen
This new podcast was launched May 1 to engage church and agency mission leaders. The podcast is also available in video format (YouTube). The first episode includes three guests from the worlds of finance and foundations looking at giving patterns in this season.
» Listen to the episode or episode two, in which All Nations’ Pam Arlund shares about martyrdom and risk. Very thought provoking.
Source: Brand New Day Podcast, One Way Ministries
Are you overwhelmed by all that’s happening in the world right now? Are you depressed, immobilized, or fatigued? God promises us we can stay rooted even when the world feels like it’s unraveling. Host Michael Thompson of OneWay Ministries—the creators of PrayerCast—gives us a simple answer in this episode of the (brand new) Brand New Day podcast.
» Listen to the episode (and others).
Source: SEND International
SEND asked all their missionaries to summarize the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of the responses reflected distress: Exhausting, overwhelming, frustrating, stressful, lonely. Can you relate? If so, perhaps it’s time to open your heart before the Lord in lament. Unrecognized grief can come out in many ways, and we don’t realize all our losses until we start to list them out.
» Read Biblical Lament: An Appropriate and Necessary Practice in a Season of Turmoil and Loss.
Source: Missions Catalyst Events Calendar
July 1, Mobilizing the Next Generation: Helping Young People Bend Their Trajectories Towards Missions (online). Webinar from Missio Nexus and Sixteen:Fifteen, with Jeff Lewis.
July 6-25, Beautiful Feet Boot Camp (Choctaw, OK, USA). Missionary training institute (held annually). Note change in dates/length this year.
July 6-17, Summer Institute for Islamic Studies (online). Evangel University. Previously scheduled for Springfield, MO, now a virtual event. A new institute for Buddhist studies has been pushed back a year.
July 6 to November 6, Perspectives on the World Christian Movement (online). New classes start regularly.
July 8, Thought Leader Briefing: Self Care for CEOs (online). Event from Missio Nexus (previously scheduled for June), with Roy King.
July 9-11, The National African-American Mission Conference (online). An annual event; previously scheduled for Virginia in June. Free this year.
July 12-17, ABIDE re-entry debriefing for global workers (Joplin, MO, USA). Held several times a year.
July 13-17, Gather (online). A virtual event for women ministering overseas, provided by Thrive.
July 15, Mobilizing People of Color (online). Webinar from Sixteen:Fifteen.
July 18-24, New Wilmington Mission Conference (online). Annual multi-generational mission conference; a tradition for more than 100 years. Meeting virtually in 2020.
July 20 to August 15, COMPASS (Palmer Lake, CO, USA). Language and culture acquisition provided by Mission Training International. Courses held throughout the year.
July 23, Hostile Interrogation Management Workshop (Auburn, AL, USA). Provided by Crisis Consulting International.
July 26 to August 7, Second Language Acquisition (Union Mills, NC, USA). Provided by the Center for Intercultural Training.
» View complete calendar. Submissions and corrections welcome. We will continue to make updates about canceled and postponed events.
“God does His deepest work in our darkest hours,” said A.W. Tozer. This edition of News Briefs includes glimpses of how people of faith are responding to some of the challenges in today’s world. Image: Nigerian Christians in prayer, via World Watch Monitor.
Source: INcontext, June 17, 2020
On Saturday June 13, in Nigeria’s volatile northeast Borno state, about 20 soldiers and more than 40 civilians were killed, and many injured, in twin Islamist attacks. These attacks overwhelmed the local hospital, forcing some of those injured to lie waiting for assistance outside the facility.
The militants burned down the United Nations humanitarian aid office in the area and set fire to the police station. Jihadist fighters handed out letters to residents, in the local Hausa language, warning them, “not to work with the military, white Christian Westerners or other ‘non-believers’ and humanitarian aid agencies.”
Just a few days earlier, at least 81 people were killed in an attack on another village in Borno state. Around the same time, nine Christians were killed in a gun and machete attack, and seven others were kidnapped in North-central Nigeria. The latest attack follows similar Fulani herdsmen attacks on predominantly Christian communities.
» Read full story with prayer points and another INcontext article, Escalating Jihadist Violence in Africa’s Sahel Region.
» For more about the violence in Nigeria, including a discussion of its sources, read Incessant Killing More Dangerous than Coronavirus (World Watch Monitor).
Source: Preemptive Love, June 4, 2020
Ihsan Ibraheem grew up under the authoritarian rule of Saddam Hussein. He lived through the US invasion of his country, the sectarian war that followed, and the rise of ISIS. He has put his life on the line to serve those of every background. He writes:
“My friends, I’m very sorry to see what is happening in the US. I have been watching and following from my home in Iraq since the beginning of the events that led to this, and I’m really sad and worried.
“Maybe because we are not so far from this. In the last several months, violence hit Iraq really bad. We still haven’t recovered from it. Not to mention all that’s happened in the past 15 years—from the sectarian war to ISIS.
“You may think that what happened in Iraq was because of many things, any of which could be true. But I believe two of the main things that led to this are sectarianism and nationalism.
“Everywhere else, we all know it as racism.”
“It is a virus within our systems, communities, people, and ourselves—more dangerous than any other virus in the world.”
» Read full story and watch three-minute video.
» Also from the Middle East, read about how believers in Yemen are responding to the COVID-19 crisis and “turning fears into prayers” (Open Doors).