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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.
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.
Source: Global Frontier Missions
What if we simply obeyed the Great Commission to make disciples Jesus gave in Matthew 28? What if missionaries didn’t feel the burden to “reach” an entire people group but were faithful to find one or maybe a small handful of available and teachable disciples that they can equip to go out and make disciples as well?
Watch the video below and read a related article. It’s the latest addition to their GFM 101 series, which also addresses topics like the state of the world, God’s heart for the foreigner, who the unreached are, and the biblical basis for missions. The videos are short enough to easily include in a newsletter, message, or presentation.
Also from GFM: Read The Most Promising Attributes of New Missionaries, with reflections on resilience from a panel of mission veterans.
For a deeper dive on multiplication, see A Theology of Multiplying Disciples: Addressing the Seedless Grape Phenomenon (by Warrick Farrah from Arab Baptist Theological Seminary, via Circumpolar).
Source: Culture Bound
Culture Learning: The Art of Understanding What No One Can Teach You, by Mark Hedinger. Culture Bound, 2021. 168 pages.
Cultures are hard to pin down and always changing; no one can teach you all you need to know or tell you specifically how you should live and work in an unfamiliar culture. But you can learn how to learn, and that will take you further than any expert. At the core is developing active learning skills and attitudes like being intentional, paying attention, asking good questions, taking notes, and withholding judgement. The author provides examples and builds his case on a number of helpful models and metaphors.
This book is directed toward people, and cross-cultural workers in particular, who are living and working within the context of another culture (or who soon will be). It could also be helpful for those whose ministry is geared toward welcoming migrants. Note that the book has a strong Christian perspective. It uses scripture and focuses on ministry applications.
Since such things seem better caught than taught, reading a book is less helpful than going through a training course, but the book is based on tried-and-true training methods and will whet your appetite for more.
You can get it on Amazon for US$15.99 or $9.99 for the Kindle edition. Learn more or find other resources on the Culture Bound website. Mark Hedinger is the president of this ministry based in Portland, Oregon.
Have you experienced the challenges of culture stress and acquisition for yourself? Here are a few recent articles you may appreciate:
Source: Missions Catalyst Events Calendar
May 2-3, People Raising Conference (online). Be equipped for raising personal support.
May 2 to July 31, Encountering the World of Islam (online). New online classes start several times a year; also available in other formats and languages. *Cost reduced from $249 to $99 for this class only.*
May 2 to September 4, Perspectives on the World Christian Movement (online). New online classes begin regularly.
May 3-4, The Mobilized Church (Kansas City, MO, USA). Provided by Sixteen:Fifteen in partnership with Avant Ministries.
May 3-5, CEO Peer2Peer Retreat (Scottsdale, AZ, USA). Event for mission organization CEOs provided by Missio Nexus.
May 5, Stay Connected: On-going Coaching Circles (online). Part of a series of Nugget trainings from Beyond.
May 11, Caring for Missionaries from the Local Church (online). Webinar from Missio Nexus and Sixteen:Fifteen.
May 12, Results of Mobilization Research (online). Webinar from Missio Nexus and the Center for Mission Mobilization.
May 12 to June 9, Foundations of Media to Movements (online). Develop a social media outreach strategy; from Media Missions U.
May 14, The Send (Kansas City, MO, USA). Collaborative stadium gathering activating believers to live a missional lifestyle, reaching real mission fields at home and abroad.
May 16-19, Standards Introductory Workshop (online). Training in the Standards of Excellence in Short-Term Mission; offered regularly.
May 16-20, ABIDE re-entry debriefing (Savannah, GA, USA). Provided by TRAIN International.
May 17, Contend: Monthly Day of Prayer For Mission Mobilization (global). Coordinated by GMMI and held the third Tuesday of each month.
May 17-18, Support Raising Bootcamp (St. Paul, MN, USA). Provided by Support Raising Solutions.
May 18, Thought Leader Briefing: Woke Driving Conditions: Navigating the New Political Environment (online). Webinar from Missio Nexus.
May 20-22, Evangelical Views on Women in Ministry & Marriage: Differences in Interpretation, Not Inspiration (Post Falls, ID, USA). From the Women’s Track of Missio Nexus.
May 26, Webinar: An Introduction to the Theology and Practice of Cross-Cultural Risk (online). A webinar from Missio Nexus.
May 30 to June 25, COMPASS (Palmer Lake, CO, USA). Language and culture acquisition provided by Missionary Training International.
May 31 to June 3, EMDC gathering (The Netherlands). An international gathering for practitioners of digital evangelism and media ministry.
View complete calendar. Submissions welcome. Note that the calendar has been moved to a Google doc. Our website is still down.
In this issue:
The pandemic slowed many data-gathering efforts, but the fog seems to be clearing to reveal more of the great things happening in the global Church these last few years. The 24:14 Network has revised its estimate for the number of rapidly multiplying disciple-making movements from 1,491 to more than 1,850, including about 100 million believers in millions of small churches. See the story below.
Source: Justin Long for Beyond, April 12, 2022
Since the mid-1990s, we have witnessed the remarkable and explosive of disciple-making movements globally, with much of that growth happening in the past 10 years. From a very small handful of known movements in 1995, the number has grown to over 1,850 movements globally, encompassing over 99.9 million believers in 6.8 million churches (typically small, house-church type gatherings). This means over 1% of the world’s total population are Christ-followers in rapidly growing movements!
These numbers are the tip of the iceberg—the “floor” and not the “ceiling.” Certainly, the numbers are higher than this. These movements can be found in every [region] though their largest numbers are in Africa and parts of Asia (mostly Southern Asia). Growth is especially significant in the world’s least-reached places. Movements are touching every religious block, growing markedly among Muslim and Hindu peoples, with progress also among some Buddhist peoples.
However, in many places, this remarkable growth is still a just drop in the bucket among the much larger populations. Much work still remains to be done.
The full article also summarizes several ways to look at how close we are to seeing every people group and place engaged with the gospel and points out the remaining gaps. See a data dashboard on the 24:14 Network’s website (under “Global Movement Statistics”).
See also the March/April edition of Mission Frontiers, which takes a fresh look at the essential elements of such movements, or pick up a copy of the 2021 book Motus Dei: The Movement of God to Disciple the Nations (William Carey Publishing).
Source: Operation Mobilization, March 20, 2022
Omair [waited] for the judge to pronounce the verdict of his latest appeal. Several years prior, his business had been shut down when he’d been accused—and acquitted—of printing and distributing Christian literature. Last year, he had discovered the renewed charge via a paper slipped under the door of the church he pastored, a few months before it, too, was closed by the Algerian government.
When the judge announced a one-year suspended sentence and a fine, Omair sighed, thankful to be heading home to his wife and two teenage children rather than to prison. With brothers and sisters around the world lifting him up in prayer, Omair will continue to appeal the accusation, but it’s not the first time he’s been in court. Bold in the face of losing his freedom, he understands the cost of actively sharing God’s love in his country: spiritual opposition manifested in physical persecution.
“I have been in courts before the judge more than 14 times with all kinds of accusations,” Omair explained. “God has kept me free to continue the ministry and proclaim His love to many others. Reading the Word of God, fasting and praying, memorizing Bible verses about fear, and seeing many lives changed and transformed—this how I kept being bold for the sake of Jesus.”
Read the full story.
Two more stories about Africans sharing their faith caught our eyes this week. Both are from Uganda. See Head of Islamic School Burned, Fired for Becoming Christian (Morning Star News) and This Ugandan Dentist Shares the Gospel (Haggai International).
Source: The Christian Post, April 7, 2022
There has been an “unprecedented drop” in the number of Bible users in the United States since last year, according to a report released by the American Bible Society.
The 2022 State of the Bible report based its findings on responses collected from a survey of 2,598 US adults conducted in January. The twelfth annual report asked Americans a variety of questions about their Bible use and their thoughts on its role in society.
The American Bible Society defines Bible users as “those who use the Bible at least 3-4 times each year on their own, outside of a church setting.” After reaching a high of 53% in 2014, the share of Bible users among the US adult population consistently remained between 48% and 51%. Just last year, 50% of Americans were Bible users. However, in 2022, Bible users in the US accounted for just 39% of the adult population, the lowest in more than a decade.
Read the full story.
Also learn about a new report on what American Christians believe when it comes to missions. It includes an update and some nuance on the widely circulated Barna finding that most American Christians don’t know what the Great Commission is (Mission India and Barna, via Mission Network News).