In This Issue: 101 Ways to Reach Your Community
- BOOK: 101 Ways to Reach Your Community
- MANUAL: Vamos! Missionary Preparation in Spanish
- TRAINING: Communicate God’s Message through the Arts
- EVENTS: June Missions Events
- REVIEWS: And There’s More…
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 share it freely!
BOOK: 101 Ways to Reach Your Community
Source: NavPress
“While only a small percentage of us may picture ourselves as prototypical evangelist types, 100 percent of us have gifts of serving. How do I know that? The Spirit of the Servant dwells inside of us. As we encourage and unleash the gifts of serving present in each believer, and then aim those gifts toward the world, powerful forces for good begin to draw those we serve into a relationship with Christ.”
101 Ways to Reach Your Community, by Steve Sjogren. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2001. 112 pages.
Looking for ways to reach out and bring others along with you? Pastor Steve Sjogren’s 2001 book explains the rationale, addresses pitfalls and objections, and focuses on ideas that are timeless as well as practical and inspiring. 101 Ways to Reach Your Community presents simple, effective ways your church or small group can demonstrate the love of God to your community. The activities in this book can be used during outreach events, missions activities, and evangelism.
>> Purchase from NavPress for US$6.29. Download a free chapter from the website or visit the author’s Servant Evangelism site for lots of ideas and some great articles you could discuss with your small group or ministry team.
>> See also the related title, 101 Ways to Help People in Need.
MANUAL: Vamos! Missionary Preparation in Spanish
Source: SIM
In March 2012, the SIM Spanish Communication team in Lima, Peru, presented the new interactive missionary preparation manual in Spanish called Vamos! (Let’s Go). The 85 international leaders at the SIM Global Leaders Forum gave an overwhelming response.
A month earlier the new training manual was presented at the Latin American Mobilization Conference, and the response was beyond what was expected. Comments included: “Everything is in one place!” and “Some manuals have said that they are interactive, but this one really is!”
More than 350 pages, 23 chapters, and lots of outside resources (PowerPoints, videos, readings) are now available to Latino missionaries from any mission agency (or church).
The SIM Paraguay team plans to make 2,000 copies to help pastors mentor their missionary candidates. A mission agency in Costa Rica will use it in all of their missionary training. A Guatemalan pastor says this is exactly what he was praying for as he starts discipling a group of 40 young people interested in missions.
>> Sorry, no web store where you can buy this directly, but request more information or materials from SIM. To learn or share about it in Spanish, visit Missiones SIM.
TRAINING: Communicate God’s Message Through the Arts
Source: Global Christian Worship
Interested in the role of the arts in worship and ministry? A few months from now Wycliffe/SIL will offer four weeks of training in Oxford, England (August 20 to September 14).
The course content is similar to what is offered through the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics (GIAL) in Dallas, Texas, and is being used by past students all over the world. The focus is learning how to encourage communities around the world to communicate God’s message through their own art forms. Build on any training or experience you may have had in music, dance, drama, storytelling, or visual arts.
>> Learn more or register. If you scramble, you can get to Dallas, Texas, for a taste of this sort of thing at GIAL’s one-week course, Arts for a Better Future (June 17 to 22).
EVENTS: June Missions Events
Source: Missions Catalyst Events Calendar
June 04 to August 26 – CLASS: Encountering the World of Islam (online). Twelve-week course will help you discover God’s heart for Muslims.
June 08 to 15 – CLASS: Perspectives One-week Intensive (Valley Forge, PA, USA). Alternative to the regular semester class. Curriculum workshop (coordinator training) to be held following the class.
June 10 to 20 – RETREAT: Refresh (Grenoble, France). Provided by Heartstream Resources for Cross-cultural Workers.
June 12 to July 02 – CLASS: Perspectives Three-week Intensive (Pasadena, CA, USA). Alternative to the regular semester class.
June 15 to 17 – CONFERENCE: American Society of Missiology (Techny, IL, USA).
June 16 to 24 – RETREAT: Single Vision (Gibraltar). Renewal for single missionaries.
June 17 to 22 – CLASS: Arts for a Better Future (Dallas, TX, USA). Learn to use the arts to minister in various cultural contexts.
June 20 to 30 – RETREAT: Breathe (Wilderswil, Switzerland). Ten days designed to refresh and renew cross-cultural workers. Provided by Catalyst International.
Editor’s note: Readers might also be interested in the list of conferences and events curated by the Medical Mission Exchange.
QUICK REVIEWS: And There’s More…
Sources: various
We don’t have time and space to do justice to all the interesting resources we hear about, but here are some links you can follow if the titles catch your eye:
Christian Personal Finance has recently published three articles for donors (What Is a Charitable Remainder Trust?, What Is a Donor Advised Fund?, and Donating Retirement Assets) and another on How to Raise Support for Short-Term Missions.
William Carey Library has released new editions of two titles with proven effectiveness: Patrick Cate’s missions study guide Through God’s Eyes and Thomas Hale’s book On Being a Missionary.
R. T. Kendell has a new book out: Unashamed to Bear His Name: Embracing the Stigma of Being a Christian is written for Westerners struggling to come to terms with the stigma of being Christian in increasingly secular environments.
Teaching on the topic of social justice (especially for a younger audience)? Stephen Davies’ Introduction to Social Justice PowerPoint presentation is free to download. It includes biblical foundations, examples from history, and suggestions for video clips to complement the presentation.
Finally, Daniel Bays’ A New History of Christianity in China looks well worth the read.
Marti Smith is a writer, speaker, and project manager for the Church Partnerships Team at Pioneers. Since the mid-90s she has helped prepare cultural research teams to explore unreached communities and mobilize efforts to serve them.
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.
Great article, and site, encourage to all missionaries in the world, that the work continue, pray for Marti Smith, and the great site of mission catalyst that is the main site of link over a lot mission´s sites more great than i found since surf in the web, God bless all my bretherns….Grettings from Guatemala!
very nice and wish i had a little more time