Month: May 2022

Mission in Motion & Recipes from Refugee Kitchens

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

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Video Series with Study Guide: Mission in Motion

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.

John Chau’s Legacy & the Day of the Christian Martyr

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).

Recipes from the Kitchens of the World’s Refugees

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.

Resource Roundup: Research and Articles of Interest

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.

Events: Informative Conferences, Classes, and Webinars

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.

Libya: Church Growing Again After 1,200 Years

Source: Mission Network News, May 9, 2022

Libyan authorities have arrested several young men this year. Their crime? defying Muslim values. Authorities released videos of the young men being forced to confess conspiring with “feminists” and “agnostics.” Others have gone into hiding after facing death threats.

Once a heartland for Christianity, Libya has also become a country known for the persecution of Christians. Sammy, a Libyan Christian, says, “It was a very rich and important part of the first centuries of the Church. But when Islam conquered North Africa, the Church was eradicated from Libya. That was 1,200 years ago now.

“All of that time, there has basically been no indigenous Christian testimony in Libya, with very few known believers.”

He says these believers need support because the persecution is fierce. “It comes from the top of the government, from the ministers from the security apparatus, down to the extreme Muslims that operate in Libya: al-Qaeda and the Salafist movements.”

But a lot of persecution also comes from families, who seek to preserve their honor. Sammy says, “Recently, we had a young kid who was stabbed by his uncle, and only saved by a friend. He was then forced to be a practicing Muslim afterward.”

But now, Christianity has begun to spread again.

Read the full story.

You might also appreciate a recent story about women in a North African refugee camp who discovered God’s care for them (Frontiers USA).

From another part of Africa, read about a disciple-making movement in a Zambian prison (Movements blog).

Australia: Tears of Joy as Gumatj People Receive New Bibles

Source: Eternity News, April 29, 2022

“The church filled up with standing room only and there were many more sitting outside under the shade of the trees on blankets as children ran around,” says Louise Sherman, Bible Society Australia’s Production Coordinator [for] Remote & Indigenous Ministry Support who had brought in boxes of freshly printed Bibles for the event.

Just before 4:30pm, a large contingent of local elders carried in the boxes of Bibles to traditional chanting and clapsticks. Women and children danced and did Bible readings as a fire was lighted near the entrance as a symbol of the importance of fire to the Gumatj clan as well as representing the Holy Spirit.

“When it came time for me to open the box and hand out the Bibles, all the translators and their families came down to the front,” Louise says. “As I gave each person the Bible, their faces lit up, and tears of joy could be seen from many—and there was a wonderful sense of unity.”

After the service everyone moved outside for dinner, followed by a rally with preaching and worship music continuing late into the night.

Read the full story, which comes to us from Yirrkala, a community in Australia’s Northern Territory. A beautiful picture of how we might receive the Word of God.

Also from Eternity News, read the testimony of Hadija, a Muslim woman from the Caucasus in Southern Russia who experienced the grace of Jesus, in part through the witness of a Ukrainian Christian.

Iran: Ten Years in Prison for Running a House Church

Source: The Christian Post, May 9, 2022

The Revolutionary Court of Tehran has sentenced an Iranian-Armenian Christian man to ten years in prison for establishing a house church, which the judge called “propaganda contrary to and disturbing to the holy religion of Islam,” according to reports.

[The] Revolutionary Court of Tehran sentenced Anooshavan Avedian, 60, to 10 years of imprisonment, alongside two others who are members of his house church—Abbas Soori, 45, and Maryam Mohammadi, 46—both of whom are converts to Christianity, Human Rights Activists News Agency reported.

Article 18 reported that Soori and Mohammadi received a range of non-custodial punishments, including a fine of about US$2,000 and a ten-year ban from membership in social and political groups as well as a two-year exile outside Tehran. In addition, they must regularly report to the offices of the Ministry of Intelligence. Avedian was also given ten years of “deprivation of social rights.”

They were first arrested in August 2020 when about 30 intelligence agents raided a private gathering at Avedian’s home in Narmak are in northeastern Tehran, but their case came to light only recently. In Tehran’s Evin Prison, the three were subjected to psychological torture during several intense interrogation sessions.

Read the full story.

See also No Place For Converts: Iran’s Persecuted Christians Struggle to Keep The Faith (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) and, from neighboring Afghanistan, read about a Christian schoolteacher who fled the country after a ban on educating girls. She brought her students with her (Open Doors).