{"id":10167,"date":"2021-06-02T08:44:45","date_gmt":"2021-06-02T12:44:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/?p=10167"},"modified":"2021-06-02T08:44:45","modified_gmt":"2021-06-02T12:44:45","slug":"mass-gatherings-and-world-evangelization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/?p=10167","title":{"rendered":"Mass Gatherings and World Evangelization"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Greetings,<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As I write, it is Memorial Day in the US and many are getting together with others as vaccination rates rise and infection rates fall. I expect our upcoming Independence Day will bring more and larger gatherings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The World Health Organization defines a mass gathering as \u201ca planned or spontaneous event where the number of people attending could strain the planning and response resources of the community or country hosting the event.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By this definition, an exodus of refugees could be a \u201cmass gathering,\u201d if an involuntary one. But many are music or sporting events, political rallies, or religious festivals. Check out the <a href=\"https:\/\/largest.org\/people\/gatherings-of-people\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">top 10 human gatherings in the world<\/a>, only half of which are religious (Largest.org). A few in the US include the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gatheringofnations.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Gathering of Nations<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britthobodays.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Hobo Days<\/a>, and the <a href=\"https:\/\/burningman.org\/event\/brc\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Burning Man Festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What do these have to do with evangelism? Everything. These events are expressions of identity or belonging. Even the extreme introverts will watch from a distance and say, \u201cThat\u2019s my people, team, or group. This is where my loyalty lies!\u201d Remind you of anything?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAfter this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, \u2018Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!\u2019\u201d (Revelation 7:9-10).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Blessings,<br>Pat<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Greetings, As I write, it is Memorial Day in the US and many are getting together with others as vaccination rates rise and infection rates fall. I expect our upcoming Independence Day will bring more and larger gatherings. The World Health Organization defines a mass gathering as \u201ca planned or spontaneous event where the number &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/?p=10167\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Mass Gatherings and World Evangelization<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10167"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10168,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10167\/revisions\/10168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}