In This Issue: All Kinds of Mobilization Tools!
- WEBSITE: How2Video
- ARTICLE: Powerful Praying Churches, Part 2
- BOOKLET: Explore God’s Word, World, and Work
- SERVICE: Career Transition for Returning Missionaries
- WEBSITE: New from the Caravan
- VIDEO: Global Issues Update Focuses on Japan
Missions Catalyst is a free, weekly electronic digest of mission news and resources designed to inspire and equip Christians worldwide for global ministry. Use it to fuel your prayers, find tips and opportunities, and stay in touch with how God is building his kingdom all over the world. Please forward it freely!
Resource Reviews, edited by Marti Smith, are published once a month.
WEBSITE: How2Video
Source: GemStone Media
How2Video is a series of fun and informative online tutorials designed to equip missionaries with the knowledge they need to make simple, compelling videos about their ministries. Get useful tips, participate in a forum, see what others have done and maybe share a video of your own. Topics include:
Ways to set up a video shoot
How to write a video script
Equipment you need to make a video
How to create good audio
Lighting, framing, and composition
Shooting your story
Editing and distributing your story
This site is a project of friends at GemStone Media, a ministry of Greater Europe Mission. “Our prayer is that the How2Video website and series will enable and encourage missionaries around the world to use video story-telling to share what God is doing in their specific areas, which we hope will compel the Church to become more involved in the Great Commission.”
>> Visit the site. Please let your missionary friends know that this helpful tool exists. It’s free. I love these guys and their heart to serve.
ARTICLE: Powerful Praying Churches, Part 2
Source: Catalyst Services
How important is intercessory prayer in a local church’s engagement in global missions? Most of us identify intercession as a key (if not the key) contribution a church can make to the missions enterprise. Yet many seem hard-pressed to name 21st century congregations demonstrating high-impact, church-wide intercession.
Last month’s “Postings” presented two church models and some practical suggestions. This issue features two more models, an illustration of personal mentoring of global intercession, and a list of key resources.
>> Go to the Catalyst website to learn more and download the six-page PDF.
BOOKLET: Explore God’s Word, World, and Work
Source: Every Ethne
XPLORE, by Every Ethne. Fayetteville, AR: Body Builders Press, 2010. 50 pages.
XPLORE is a six lesson small-group discussion resource covering the basics of God’s Word, world, and work, helping students (especially) gain a heart for the nations. It’s designed to help believers take initial steps in gaining a vision and heart for the world. Lessons include:
God’s Word: God’s Heart
God’s World: THUMB
God’s Work: Sending
God’s Work: Welcoming
God’s Work: Going
God’s Work: Mobilizing
The XPLORE study is a resource from Every Ethne, a ministry of the U.S. Center for World Mission.
>> View a sample lesson, learn more, or purchase[C1] from Every Ethne for US$5.99. Bulk discounts available. It’s also available in Chinese, Russian, and soon in Spanish.
SERVICE: Career Transition for Returning Missionaries
Source: Brad Sayers, Set a New Direction
Are you transitioning from cross-cultural or mission work? Returning home after living and working overseas is a major challenge. How do you find meaningful work that has purpose and aligns with your values? Reentering missionaries ask,
“Do I still have a calling?”
“Will I make a difference here?”
“Where will I work?”
“Where do I fit in here?” (“I feel like such a misfit”)
“How will I cope?”
Brad Sayers’ organization Set a New Direction provides resources that can help reentering missionaries (and others) with their specific career transition needs. Brad lives and works in Ontario, Canada, but does workshops and coaching all over. Readers, do you know other career coaches with expertise or experience in helping missionaries transition? Please feel free to leave links on our website.
WEBSITE: New from the Caravan
Source: Caravan Friends
The Caravan Friends website for kids features fun, free missions resources that take kids on a spiritual expedition through the heart of Asia. Along the way, kids learn about the peoples and cultures of Asia and their incredible need for Jesus. The site has been updated and reorganized. Caravan Friends is a project of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.
In a current feature, Zeke and Tai Shan visit Tancho to help rebuild his church after a giant earthquake destroyed it. Tai Shan doesn’t understand why bad things happen even to good people. Story and activities inspired by Japan’s recent earthquake and tsunami.
>> Visit Caravan Friends.
>> See also: Helping Kids Process and Respond to Disasters (Stand4Kids).
VIDEO: Global Issues Update Focuses on Japan
Source: The Mission Exchange
In the April 2011 Global Issues Update, Joe Handley, President of Asian Access, shares about the difficult journey facing the people of Japan and the window of opportunity this natural disaster presents for the global church to demonstrate the compassion of Jesus. Many hours of prayer and years of service for the kingdom in Japan have yielded a meager harvest. But there is a growing sense this dark hour in Japan will be eclipsed by the light of hope evidenced by the resurrection of Jesus and the empty tomb of Easter morning.
Global Issues Update is normally free to members of The Mission Exchange and $19.95 to non-members, but this edition is free to everyone. We encourage you to download this resource and distribute it widely as a source of information that will inspire specific prayer and generous giving.
>> Get the downloadable webinar from The Mission Exchange.
ore or read the first chapter online.
Marti Smith is a writer, speaker, and project manager for Pioneers. Since the mid-90′s she has helped prepare cultural research teams and sent them out to explore unreached communities and mobilize efforts to serve these groups. Marti manages and publishes Missions Catalyst and is the author of Through Her Eyes, a book about the lives of missionary women in the Muslim world.
