In This Issue: Focus and Message in a New Day
- Focus on the Unengaged
- Having a Message of Integrity
- Subversive Mobilization: Why Not Hijack Thanksgiving for Turkey?
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Practical Mobilization by Shane Bennett is published once a month.
Dear Readers,
As I write, I’m hanging out with my new tribe, Frontiers for a couple of days. A handful of people who speak for the organization have gathered to get to know each other and chat about how we can do the best possible job of inviting people to love Muslims. Of the dozens of interesting topics that have bounced around the room, I’d like to share two with you.
Read to the bottom of this issue to find the second Subversive Mobilization blurb in which hijacked holidays, international intrigue, and identity confusion conspire to give Ottomans and poultry a happy day!
cheers,
Shane Bennett
Focus on the Unengaged
Since 1982 Frontiers has begun work among 105 Muslim unengaged people groups (MUPGs) of all sizes. At that rate we will engage all of the estimated 2032 MUPGs right around the year 2465! Some of us work out and we all try to eat our vegetables, but nobody’s counting on being around for that finish line. So we’ve ask God to help us focus our efforts. As a result, we’ve teamed up a number of other agencies to focus on a subset of groups that are larger than 100,000 in population. Of the 250 groups on that list, we’ve chosen 50 to begin to engage.
“Engagement” for us has these four criteria:
- Apostolic effort in residence: Some people are living among the chosen people with the hope that God will use them in his purposes.
- Commitment to work in the local language and culture: We aim for honoring and relevant life and ministry.
- Commitment to long-term ministry: We plan to stay as long as it takes.
- Gospel sowing in a manner consistent with the goal of seeing a church-planting movement emerge: Our great hope is to see Muslim groups find God’s way for them to live under Jesus’ lordship. We believe reproducing churches are the clearest and best way for this to happen.
If all four of these criteria are present then we consider that people group to be “engaged.”
As a mobilizer, focus makes sense to me. It seems that the world is so big and the list of needs so long that, without focus, we run the risk of becoming paralyzed. I suspect some people in our churches fail to engage in cross-cultural efforts in the way their hearts are nudging them precisely because they can’t find a bite-sized way to connect.
Of course our focus is not everyone’s focus. This is as it should be. While trusting God use a variety of agencies, churches, and people, we’re going to give our best shot to succeed in the focus he’s given us. As a result of this, I’m now happily and expectantly scouring the country for the several dozen wild-eyed team leaders we’ll need to make this happen. Do you have any in mind, or thoughts on the power of focus? Send them my way!
Having a Message of Integrity
The second idea we’re discussing has to do with shaping our communication so that our message is sensible, accurate, and honoring to our three main potential audiences. This means that what we say on our website for instance communicates well to our constituents, to Muslims, and to the media: that we say one thing, the same thing, to all of them.
I showed up late to this party and I couldn’t be happier. It’s hard to imagine how ponderous, challenging, and frustrating it must be for an organization to try to make this shift. I’m happy though that it’s being worked on. The reality that anonymity has evaporated in the internet’s ubiquity has penetrated even my dull mind. If you speak or write or even pose for an occasional photo in your home country, it’s exceedingly difficult to be a person with one message here, and someone else with another message in another country.
Of course, we must first be people of integrity if we’re going to have a message with integrity. This has given me pause lately: What does what I say and write about Muslims indicate regarding how I think and feel about them?
This leads to wondering: How much of what I’ve said and written would I like to have listened to and read by my Muslim friends? I realize that in some cases I need to change what I say to reflect who I am. In others, I need God to change who I am.
How about you? Let’s say you inadvertently left an envelope filled with a selection of your organization’s brochures or maybe a copy of your mission committee’s latest meeting minutes on a chair in the Istanbul airport or a bus station in Beijing. What emotions would greet the realization of the loss? Or what if your new Pakistani landlord greeted you and inquired about your job with XYZ Mission Agency? (This actually happened to me!)
It’s a challenging issue, or rather set of issues. For me, I have a hard enough time being correctly understood by a group of people quite like me who voluntarily show up to hear what I’m saying. How can I imagine that even with the most thoughtful effort that I won’t offend most Googling Muslims?
I don’t know, but I’m giving it a shot. I’ve probably already blown my chances for a security clearance from my government, a resident visa in Saudi Arabia, and VIP tickets to a Divali celebration in Delhi. But I’m seeking a greater degree of integrity, boldness, and honor. I believe God deserves to be followed by all. I long for life and hope for my Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist friends. And I really want Jesus to be the only stumbling block, not me too.
May God give us grace to have unified souls and messages. Again, if you’d like to weigh in on this issue, I’d love to hear from you.
Subversive Mobilization: Why Not Hijack Thanksgiving for Turkey?
November 22 about 98% of Americans will celebrate a holiday of Thanksgiving by eating turkey. Is it a coincidence that our favorite Thanksgiving food is also the name of a country inhabited by more than 70 million people that God loves a lot? No, I looked it up. It’s no coincidence.
Turks used to bring guinea fowl from Madagascar to Europe. Europeans of the time (apparently hard-pressed for vocabulary?), took to calling the birds Turkeys. Later when a vaguely similar bird was found, cooked, and enjoyed in the new world, it also came to be known as turkey.
In case you’re wondering, the people definitely have first dibs on the name, over the bird. Chinese appeared to have used an early form of “Turk,” meaning “strong,” to identify peoples living in Central Asia as far back as 177 BC!
So, rebel mobilizers, don’t miss the chance to draw attention to the country while enjoying the poultry! Here are some ideas:
- At minimum, when you ask God to bless the bird, ask him to bless the nation. (You may want to recount some of what is in the paragraphs above before you pray. This will lessen, but not eliminate, the snickers of any junior-high-school-aged boys present at the table!)
- Far gutsier: Invite some Turkish students to join your feast. I’ve done this and we had a great time.
- Use this page and this page to give your kids color a picture of a turkey waving a flag of Turkey.
- Avoid the brown-and-serve rolls and bake some yummy Turkish bread.
If you sense that any of these ideas might annoy your family and non-Turkish guests, be sure to offer baklava alongside the pumpkin pie. I’ve found that baklava, like love, can cover a multitude of sins!
Questions? Problems? Submissions? Contact publisher/managing editor Marti Smith.