In This Issue: A Mobilizer’s Christmas List: Great Gifts to Give and Receive
- Introduction
- List #1: Gifts that Mobilize
- List #2: Gifts for Mobilizers
- Conclusion: Bonus List and a Word about Advent
- Mission Events
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!
Practical Mobilization, by Shane Bennett, is published monthly.
Introduction
It’s time for the annual Practical Mobilization Christmas Gift List Extravaganza! In the year since our 2008 edition we seem to have dodged the worst results of the global economic meltdown bullet. It may, though, have tempered any passion we may have to buy wildly at Christmas.
If the economic crisis hasn’t gutted your gift giving, maybe guilt has done the trick. After all, how can you spend money on someone who has their basic needs met, when so many have so much less?
Just this weekend our pastor took up this dilemma, looking at the life of Jesus to see what direction we might find. His conclusion was that while you could hardly pry Jesus away from the poor, he was also given to extravagant celebrating. His first miracle was making wine for his mom and her friends (John 2:1-11). He got in trouble for partying with the bad guys (Mark 2:13-16). And he famously endorsed an extravagant gift he himself received when Mary broke open her dowry perfume and poured it on his feet (John 12:1-8).
Conclusion?
1. We shouldn’t judge others.
2. We should care for the poor.
3. It’s okay from time to time to give extravagant gifts.
As a side point, he noted by a show of hands that most of us (at least those of us at Common Way) feel more awkward receiving gifts than giving them. Perhaps, he posited, we’d prefer to be like God, the giver of all things, rather than his child, receiving all things from his hand.
So I present these lists to you as one who has received much from God, and who is also invited by Jesus to give generously. Because it’s less awkward to give than to receive (and more blessed – Acts 20:35), we’ll start with our list of gifts that a mobilizer might bestow to bless a friend or family member and encourage a vision for the world in the bargain.
List #1: Gifts that Mobilize
1. Missionary Biographies
The covers may change, but the stories never go out of style. If you can’t actually ask a missionary in person to tell you their story (see item 2), read it in a book! If your gift is for an adult, you might try Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret. If you’re giving to a child, you can’t go wrong with these.
2. Off the Page and across the Dinner Table
Even better than reading a missionary’s story is hearing it in person. You might get closer to someone like J.O. Fraser through OMF’s new film, Breakthrough, but there’s nothing like the real thing. How about dinner for a friend of yours and a visiting missionary? You set it up, pick up the tab via a gift certificate, and ask God to do the rest.
3. The Food of Heaven
If you have no missionaries at hand, consider a gift of food at a local ethnic restaurant. This is a gift best given in person! I’m thinking less, “Here’s a gift certificate,” and more, “My gift is to take to you dinner at a nice restaurant.” Can we agree that it’s a good idea to choose a food that, while representing a different culture, is also palatable to your friend? You don’t want to tempt him to lie when you ask with your mouth full of “freaky food au gratin,” “Hey, great eats, eh?”
4. Registration for a Great Conference
What if your gift to a friend you love (and would love to mobilize) was to spring for their registration at a great conference? It could be a life-changing experience for them. You may have a conference in mind. If you hustle, it might not be too late for Urbana, but you can’t really go wrong with an ACMC training event. These guys are pros.
5. Cool Flash Drive Loaded with Mob Material
Everyone can use another flash drive. These mini-wonders are great to back up, store, and shuttle around your digital world. Grab a goofy one and load it up with great info from Network for Strategic Missions, Joshua Project, and (shameless plug alert!) Missions Catalyst archives. Be sure to leave some room for your friend’s files, and it wouldn’t hurt to add some funny movie clips while you’re at it. Keep it virus free, and you’re going to score some points with this one.
6. Scholarship to a Great Class
If you want to go beyond scoring points to changing lives, give someone a scholarship to something like a Perspectives on the World Christian Movement or Pathways to Global Understanding course. Be forewarned; this is sort of like giving someone a kitten! It’s a big commitment in time, effort, and risk of life change. You may not be thanked right away. But the long-term effects might be, as they say: priceless.
7. A Christmas Goat
For $50, you can help a young woman recently rescued from a human-trafficking situation get a fresh start on life at Goats for Christmas. Be sure to watch the cool, throwback flannelgraph-type video.
List #2: Gifts for Mobilizers
Here’s a list of gifts that just might help a mobilizer do their job better. If you’ve got a relative who simply must know what’s on your Christmas list, maybe you’ll find a couple of items here to suggest.
1. Frequent Flyer Miles
Does anything say “I love you” to a mobilizer like a plane ticket to Faroffistan that she doesn’t have to pay for? If you’ve really racked up the mileage this year, this might be a good and cost-effective gift.
2. Prayer
Nothing says “I’ve got your back” to a mobilizer like an honest commitment to pray both regularly and fervently. And it’s free. Can you fathom that? I’m afraid I can’t. The God who created the heavens and the earth says, “Talk to me. I like the sound of your voice. And I delight to answer your prayers.” Wow. An amazing gift on many levels.
3. Haircut
You know sometimes it’s the simple things in life that matter: friends, family, a hairstyle from this century. If you can pull this off without offense, a gift certificate to Great Clips or even a session under your own scissors might be of more help to the mobilizer in your life than either of you will ever be able to discuss without some awkwardness.
4. Kindle
Oh, sure, no mobilizer wants to jump on the bandwagon of our culture, but really, wouldn’t a Kindle be cool? Mobilization hall-of-famer Doug Lucas thinks so. Two quick quotes: “It’s expensive – but so is/was your library,” and, “You can enjoy all your books in your briefcase, instead of at home on the shelf.”
5. iPhone/MacBook combo
While we’re talking tech, let me just say, if the recession hasn’t clobbered you and you have some cash with which to bless a friend, hook them up with quality. They’ll soon be creating content that crackles and connects. So they don’t lose that content, check out item number six.
6. External Hard Drive
“In my day, a hard drive was the size of a bus and cost as much as an NFL franchise. You don’t know how good you’ve got it!” That’s right, we don’t know. A terabyte of space (enough to hold the information in over five miles of books on a shelf) costs just over US$100. Help a friend not be that guy who’s emailing around for phone numbers and drafts of presentations because his unbacked-up hard drive died.
7. Wheels
A mobilizer needs to get around. What about hooking her up with a US$1500 beater car? Or better yet, spring for something decent so she’s spending her time praying for the nations, not praying that her car will make it to the next exit!
8. Gym Membership
On the whole, mobilizers aren’t as fat as United Methodist pastors. (I’m both a mobilizer and a UMC guy and therefore feel the freedom to make this comment.) Even so, we need to take care of ourselves. A YMCA membership (or some equivalent) could contribute to long-term, healthy ministry.
9. Speed-reading Course
Give the gift of time. Help a friend crunch through the stacks of books, papers, and correspondence that make up her life.
10. Virtual Assistant
Once they’re reading at a good pace, maybe it’s time to offload some administrative tasks that anyone anywhere could do for them. A local volunteer can sometimes do the trick. Personally, I’ve been hugely blessed by a friend who regularly does some routine, but important, tasks for me.
In the absence of a local volunteer, try out an idea from the Tim Ferriss book, The 4-Hour Workweek: “AskSunday is the personal outsourcing service I’ve used most in the last two years. Speed-dial a New York 212 number and get connected to someone in India or the Philippines who speaks English well and can do just about anything. For everything from fact-checking to travel on the run, it makes life infinitely easier.”
11. Guitar Lessons
No one is ever sad they learned the guitar. Sometimes it’s good to take a break from winning the world for Jesus and just kick back and play some tunes. Give a gift of a few lessons and you just might strategically lower a mobilizer’s blood pressure.
Conclusion: Bonus List, and a Word about Advent
Finally, here are three global-themed gifts that might not actually contribute to global vision …
1. Jeweled Globe
Like this one? Nope, not worth it, even if you count the free paper weight!
2. George Verwer’s Map Jacket
This look belongs to George. Merely mortal mobilizers just can’t pull it off. Don’t try!
3. Tattoo of Your Favorite Unreached People Group
Just a bad idea – because someday your group will be reached!
Advent: Season of Waiting
Although we’ve made it a season of buying, Advent, leading up to Christmas, is a season of waiting. Good mobilizers are good waiters. We wait for the fulfillment of God’s promised blessing for all peoples. May the God worth waiting for fill you with hope and courage this Advent, and give you a heart that longs for the redemption of all things through the blood of Christ.
MISSION EVENTS
Recently added:
April 14-16 – Crisis Management Seminar (Waxhaw, NC, USA). Provided by Crisis Consulting International.
April 19-21 – Field Security Seminar (Waxhaw, NC, USA). Provided by Crisis Consulting International.
June 5-12 – Sahara Challenge (Atlanta, GA, USA). One-week intensive training for ministry to Muslims. Provided by Crescent Project.
June 13-17 – International Literacy Training Institute (Tulsa, OK, USA). Sponsored by Literacy & Evangelism International.
Questions, comments, submissions? Contact managing editor and publisher Marti Smith.