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Source: Prayercast and others
It’s Ramadan, and for many Christians, that means it’s time to pray for Muslims. Need a video for your church or small group? Prayercast has got you covered. Their “Love Muslims” collection has more than 130 videos. For the next month, they are sending out daily prayer emails featuring various videos and ways to pray.
Sign up now to join Prayercast’s Ramadan prayer challenge.
You can also browse the collection to find the video you want.
See also Encountering Jesus, a new Ramadan prayer guide from Frontiers (delivered by email), or consider using materials from pray30days.org or 30daysprayer.com. I’m also seeing prayer networks and mission teams set up their own prayer campaigns for this season. Pray4Movements lists more than 70 campaigns seeking 24-hour prayer coverage. Take a look.
Source: International Turkey Network
Turkey—or Türkiye if you prefer—is no longer dominating news headlines. But the people of this country and neighboring Syria have suffered much and could use our prayers as they recover from the massive earthquakes in February.
In 2022, the International Turkey Network published an in-depth, 154-page, 30-day guide to praying for the nation’s seven regions. It’s available both digitally (US$1.99) and in paperback (US$4.99) with bulk discounts available.
Learn more or purchase. See also a related YouTube playlist of Turkish Christian worship songs with subtitles in many languages—a great chance to worship with the Church in Turkey.
Source: Liturgies for a Life Abroad
Liturgies and Laments for the Sojourner, Volume 1, by Alicia Boyce, Heather Fallis, and Tamika Rybinski. Vinehouse Publishing, 2023. 106 pages.
Just last month we told you about the social-media-based Liturgies for a Life Abroad, only to learn days later that the author was collaborating with two others on a book of prayers like these.
Liturgy seems to be on the upswing. You may be a fan of Douglas Kaine McKelvey’s Every Moment Holy or Tish Harrison Warren’s Liturgy of the Ordinary. Here, though, you will find prayers about situations common to cross-cultural life, like moving (again), language learning, closed borders, and culture fatigue.
Admittedly, the book may feel a bit whiny to the uninitiated. But if you know, you know. And the Lord meets us where we are. This could be a great resource for mission workers to use for team meetings and retreats.
Purchase the Kindle edition for US$9.99; also available in paperback.
Sources: Various
Downsizing to Move Overseas (Go.Serve.Love)
Could simplifying now help prepare you to go wherever, whenever God calls? A professional organizer and MK offers practical strategies.
Contextualization Meets Burnout (A Life Overseas)
As we adapt and change our ways, we expect our efforts will open doors for the gospel. Unfortunately, the results do not always meet those expectations, and this is where contextualization meets burnout.
The Importance of Families in Global Missions (Lausanne Movement)
How do you sustain a prayer movement for 100 years? The answer may surprise you: by including children. How would our churches be different if every family believed they were part of God blessing the nations?
Who Needs Missionaries? It’s Not Just the “Unreached” (The Gospel Coalition)
Consider three additional categories of peoples and places that may warrant missionary labors: the mis-reached, the once-reached, and the under-reached.
Want more? These are all pretty quick reads, but if you have some time on your hands, browse and/or subscribe to Mission Hits from Chris Howles, a British seminary professor in Uganda. It’s monthly and more extensive than Mission Catalyst. He even does a quarterly roundup of articles from mission journals. Good stuff.
Source: Civil Righteousness
The booklet Stories From the Field, created for the recent George Liele Missions Summit, celebrates and honors historical and present-day African American missionaries.
“We created it with the intention of offering the booklet as a tool to encourage those who are considering world missions as a vocation. Our prayer is that the words found in this booklet become a holy seed in the hearts of young readers of all ages for God’s end-time harvest.”
May it be so. Download the 20-page booklet. It’s free, with no registration required.
Source: Missions Catalyst Events Calendar
April 5, When Helping Hurts: Myths and Realities (online). Webinar from Missio Nexus.
April 6 to May 4, Strategic Storytelling for Movements (online). Course from Media Mission U.
April 11-14, Unbound: Support Raising Leaders Conference (Colorado Springs, CO, USA). Provided by Via/Support Raising Solutions.
April 12-13, The Mobilized Church Workshop (Huntsville, AL, USA). From Sixteen:Fifteen.
April 13, Equipping Gen Z: A God-Designed Generation for a God-Given Task (online). A virtual event from Missio Nexus.
April 17, How to Engage With Muslims Where You Are (online). Hour-long webinar from Frontiers USA; join live or watch the replay a week later.
April 17-20, Mission Information Workers Conference (online). Accelerate the development of mission information and the mission information community. Sponsored by the Community of Mission Information Workers, Lausanne Research & Strategic Information Network, and Harvest Information Standards.
April 18, Call to Prayer (online). Virtual prayer gathering from Missio Nexus, this month coinciding with Islam’s Night of Power.
April 24-26, CEO Peer 2 Peer Retreat (Post Falls, ID, USA). An annual event for mission organization CEOs and their spouses, this time focused on internationalization.
April 24 to May 7, Orient Pre-field Training (Joplin, MO, USA). Provided by TRAIN International and offered regularly.
April 25-27, Support Raising Bootcamp (online for Southeast Asia). Provided by Via/Support Raising Solutions.
April 26-27, The Mobilized Church (St. Louis, MO, USA). A workshop for local churches provided by Sixteen:Fifteen.
April 27, BAM Global Summit (online). An annual connecting point for the global business-as-mission movement.
April 27, Honoring and Caring for Missionary Seniors (online). A webinar from Missio Nexus.
April 27-30, Christian Medical and Dental Association National Conference (Covington, KY, USA). An annual event.
April 29, Building Friendships With Hindus (Philadelphia, PA, USA). A one-day equipping seminar sponsored by the Philadelphia Regional Diaspora Network.
View the complete calendar, updated regularly. Submissions welcome.
In this edition:
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Source: Mission Network News, March 7, 2023
The city of Abbottabad, Pakistan has gone from a breeding ground for terrorism to fertile ground for the gospel.
Notorious terrorist Osama bin Laden hid in his Abbottabad compound until U.S. Navy Seals killed him in 2011. A year ago, Mission Cry started handing out Bibles in the area near bin Laden’s old compound.
Since then, people have accepted Christ and now they’re being discipled with Mission Cry’s G300 program. Through military language [memorizing general orders and a code of conduct], G300 disciples learn to pursue Christ and live by God’s Word. The program has been translated into several languages including Farsi and Urdu, major languages in Pakistan. Whole families are being reached with the gospel, including one unlikely family tree.
“Osama bin Laden had four main wives,” says Woolford. “We have had intel that… one of those wives’ grandsons received the Word of God.”
Read the full story. Surprised to hear about a mission effort modeled on a military one? Looks like the ministry was founded by a former U.S. Marine.
Source: Christian Aid Mission, March 9, 2023
The COVID-19 outbreak has accelerated a shift in ministry in the Philippines, quickening kingdom growth. Native Christian workers in the island country are taking a more holistic approach than they did five years ago, making gospel outreach even more effective, a ministry leader said. The coronavirus outbreak in 2020 accelerated the new emphasis as workers were compelled to meet more physical needs.
Those coming to Christ saw that the church was interested not only in sharing the gospel but also cared for them and their needs, he said. The COVID-19 crisis brought holistic ministry to the forefront and intensified response.
Ministering to the whole person has also meant helping them escape the snare of poverty [and] transform entire communities, the leader said.
The full story includes lots of examples. Have you seen or heard of the same thing happening in other places?
