- WHAT DO YOU THINK OF POLYGAMY? -- OK... remember my two sons? They're
at it again. Today at lunch they started asking me about polygamy. Well
I knew to tell them that elders and deacons should just have one wife.
But what do I tell them -- scripturally -- about marriages in countries
that *allow* polygamy legally? I know it's a problem, when missionaries
confront new cultures where polygamy is dominant. Christianity arrives,
the missionaries teach monogamy, and -- what does that say to existing
believers who are already married to 4 wives? If you have an answer...
or a good scriptural response (especially one in the New Testament),
please browse to
http://brigada.org/brigade/?p=55
and click on "comments" at the bottom. Thanks for any help you can give.
- MOBILE VERSION OF POWEROFCONNECTING -- On the go? Grab some info on
Partnership!" visionSynergy has created a mobile (or cell phone)
companion to its PowerofConnecting website, which is viewed by people
from over 145 countries. See it at
http://www.powerofconnecting.mobi
To see what it looks like, use Testiphone's simulator at...
http://www.testiphone.com/?scroll=off&url=http://www.powerofconnecting.mobi/
View the growing number of iPhone-optimized mobile sites at the Religion
section of AppsSafari, at
http://www.appsafari.com/category/religion/
PowerofConnecting's main site, a trove of mission partnership and
networking resources and advice, is at
http://www.powerofconnecting.net
(Thanks Dave!)
- NEW MISSIONS TEXTBOOK TEACHES PROPER PERSPECTIVE ON MUSLIMS --
Charles Gailey and Charles Gailey have just released their new work,
"Discovering Missions," an introductory textbook on world evangelism.
The book examines the biblical foundations for global outreach, outlines
the history of world evangelism, and has chapters on the globalization
of the church, the implications of culture, the importance of language
in gospel communication, short-term missions, the missionary call,
mobilizing the local church and a peek at some future trends.
Institutions wanting to look at "Discovering Missions" as a possible
textbook may order a copy for half price by writing on institutional
letterhead to: Teresa Eller, 2923 Troost Ave., Kansas City, MO, USA
64109, or by faxing a request to: 816-531-0923. Upon adoption as a text,
the charge will be canceled. The book is also available at discount
prices on such sites as Amazon.com.
One of the co-authors, Howard Culbertson, is putting together a CD of
teaching/learning resources. Professors that adopt the textbook can get
that CD free by contacting the author through his website:
http://home.snu.edu/~hculbert/
- HELP IN UNDERSTANDING INSURANCE -- If you need help in sorting
through international health insurance visit
http://www.gninsurance.com
and click on "Tips for Understanding International Health Insurance."
You will find over 150 articles dealing with international health
insurance. Also, if you want a short understanding of Medicare coverage
browse
http://www.gninsurance.com/medicare.asp
or email
jeff(at)gninsurance
(dot)com or call 480/813-9100. [As a means of preventing spam for our
contributors, in the preceding email address(es), please replace (at)
with @ and (dot) with . then reassemble the address onto one line.] Call
toll free in the USA, 866/636-9100. Visit
http://www.gninsurance.com
- GET GLOBAL INTEL REPORTS FOR FREE VIA "STRATFOR" -- Have you tried
it? Our Global Security Coordinator and our New Fields guy both glean
resources from it regularly. Browse to:
http://www.stratfor.com
Funny... They've been using it for years, but it wasn't until a friend
reminded me of it that I realized we haven't mentioned it in Brigada
Today for quite some time. (Thanks Steve!!!) Give it a try; if you want
to stay up to date about how global politics are affecting the country
where *you* work, odds are, you'll love Stratfor.
- OUTREACH LITERATURE -- SOON Ministries has spare capacity to add any
of your ministry's not-yet-Christian contacts (e.g. BCC or radio
ministry inquirers) to their mailing list of their easy-English outreach
paper SOON or their similar papers in African French, Swahili and Fulani
dialects. Larger quantities of these papers are available to national
workers and missionaries for outreach:
http://guide.gospelcom.net/resources/free-papers.php
(Thanks Tony!)
- IMPROVE YOUR CHURCH WEBSITE -- Internet Evangelism Day's self-
assessment tool for church websites now provides a free 15-page
evaluation report that can transform the effectiveness of your site:
http://ied.gospelcom.net/church-site-design.php
(Thanks for that referral too, Tony!)
- TRAIN AS A STRATEGY COORDINATOR -- If you intend to design platforms
for ministry and launch new outreaches among unreached peoples, the
upcoming Strategic Coordinator Seminar to be held in Perth, Australia,
18th February to 7th March 2008. Coming from Hong Kong are guest
speakers who will share from their experiences as Strategic
Coordinators. Seasoned trainers, they have many stories of how God has
used them - and others - as facilitators for evangelism, church planting
and community transformation. This one is shaping up to be a
challenging and exciting time. So don't delay. Apply now before time
runs out. Download an application here:
http://www.ywamperth.org.au/applications/sc.pdf
Or email the Registrar to have an application sent to you:
info(at)ywamperth
(dot)org(dot)au [As a means of preventing spam for our contributors, in
the preceding email address(es), please replace (at) with @ and (dot)
with . and reassemble the address onto one line.]
- AMAZING FEELING OF MOTIVATION -- I'll have to admit... it's an
amazing feeling of encouragement and motivation when Brigada receives
gifts such as a $500 push from a member of Arab World Ministries. Isn't
it kind of ironic that the people who work in some of the toughest
places on earth end up with some of the least kudos, partly because they
can't even tell people about their progress? Think about it. When they
start being really successful, that's when they could get in the biggest
trouble! So here's a big prayer of thanks for *all* those who are
working in the dry places on earth... in the spiritually parched
portions of the planet. Please take this opportunity, on behalf of *all*
of them, to offer up a prayer of thanks for those who labor in Jesus-
darkness, with hopes of being able to live as a still small voice on
behalf of a loving savior.
Thanks, too, to Peninsula Bible Church in Cupertino, California! $200
will go a *long* way... a *very* long way, in fact, toward helping us
finish 2007 strong! Thank you!!!
- HELP US FINISH STRONG? -- The gifts above, added to last
edition's total of $9817.90, bring our 2007 total to $10,517.90. That's
*tremendous*, but is there anyone out there that could help us even try to match
2006's outcome of $15,096 ? Would you ask your church, group, family, or your
own bank account to chip in, if not for you, then for someone overseas who
can't? If so, thanks!!! Just click on the "Sponsor/Donate" page. Really, we only need 92 more people, groups, or churches. Would you be
one of those 92??? We have 6 more days left, counting today. If you
*can't* give, would you be willing to ask someone who might? We really
only need *one* person to give $1000. Would you be willing to be that
one person? As we say above, we've made progress, but still need the
following gifts to meet our needs...
1 of 1 more gift of $1000
2 of 5 more gifts of $500
8 of 250 more gifts of $250
5 of 13 more gifts of $100
20 of 27 more gifts of $50
56 of 70 more gifts of $25
You can pull the money from your PayPal account or from any major credit
card. Or if you prefer, send a check payable to Team Expansion to: Team
Expansion (Brigada secretary), 11327 Jefferson Trace Blvd., Louisville,
KY 40291. (Team Expansion is a 501(c)3 incorporation so for USA
citizens, your checks made out to Team Expansion are tax-deductible.) As
always, be sure to let us know if you'd like us to promote any
particular service or ministry, or if you'd prefer your gift be
anonymous. And thank you in advance for helping.
- THE BACKPAGE: LIFE IMPROVED IN 2007; TAKE SPAM FOR INSTANCE --
Throughout the years, we've written quite a lot about spam here in
Brigada. (If you've been visiting your aunt on Mars for the past 15
years, we're using the word, "spam", to describe unsolicited email
messages -- junk email.) Funny that after all these years, our office
finally switched in 2007 to software that allows us to use Outlook. For
the first time in my life, I'm finally seeing what Outlook can *do*! It
has automatically classified 754 messages as spam in just the past few
days. That doesn't even count the spam that was caught before that by
our office's server-side spam-catcher. Shew.
So here's what I'm learning about spam:
*** Ask your office leadership to install a server-side spam removal
tool. Your ISP might be able to give you advice about how to install
that. They might even do it *for* you for a small fee of $50 or so. Well
worth it.
*** Try to position yourself to use Outlook. If possible, upgrade to
Outlook 2007. I'm convinced its spam removal tools are the best in the
industry now.
*** Configure your email client *not* to download images in emails. Sure
you'll miss all the glitz and glamour. But half of those images are
designed to be "bugs" to see if you really open your mail, so the
address is verified. Besides, do you *really* want to see those Victora
Secret ads? (Get Outlook.)
*** Configure your email client to ask you before it sends a receipt
saying you opened the email. If it's a personal friend, you can click
'yes'. If it's a spammer, you don't want to say yes. (Get Outlook.)
*** Whenever a piece of spam *does* get through the gate, tell your
email client that it's spam. With Outlook, that keystroke might be
Alt-A|J|B. That stands for clicking "Actions" in the top-line menu, then
"Junk email", "Add Sender to Blocked Sender's list". (Get Outlook.)
*** Check your Junk email folder sometimes. (Yawn. :-) )
*** Remind your friends that if they send you too many forwarded
messages about someone stealing kidneys from a man in an iced bathtub in
Portland, you might someday become careless and accidentally hit Alt-
A|J|B on one of their emails. (Oops! :-) ) In other words, please be
judicious about what you forward. And please *do* ask your friends
before you subscribe them to newsletters or email lists. Otherwise, we
all become part of the spam problem.
So with Outlook, suddenly, spam just isn't that big of a deal to me any
more. I used to get 100 or 200 messages a day. Now, 100-150 of those are
going in my junk mail folder. Hurray!!!!!!!!!!!!! Life *has* gotten
better in 2007!
Has life improved for *you* in 2007? If so, tell us how. Just log on at:
http://brigada.org/brigade/?p=54
to tell your story about how life improved in 2007... or about your
battle (hopefully victory?) against spam. Thanks!
- CLOSING STUFF --
SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION -- Important! Please don't just hit "reply".
Subscriptions are automated. First, you need to determine the mailing
source of your individual copy of Brigada Today. We're now sending them
from 2 sources. To find out, just look at the "From:" address of your
last edition. The domain will tell the tale. Here's how to do it:
If your Brigadas come via YahooGroups:
To unsubscribe, write to brigada-today-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
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To unsubscribe, write to brigada-today-unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
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To change your address, you must unsubscribe using your old address
then subscribe anew using your new service. If you are receiving this
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alias email address in the "From:" box of your email client
temporarily, then send the unsubscribe message (mentioned above). It'll
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address. Then just change your "From:" box back to your new address.
TO SUBMIT AN ITEM -- We love to feature your news & resources! To find
out how, read our submission guidelines on the web at:
http://www.brigada.org/submissions.html
TO LEARN MORE -- Interested in learning more about Brigada? Read our
site at:
http://www.brigada.org
and you'll learn the who, what, when, why and where of Brigada. By the
way, we no longer provide server-sent files via email-activated
commands. Just read all about us on the web!
NEED SUBSCRIPTION HELP? -- If you're a sponsor, you can now write to
help(at)brigada(dot)org [replace (at) with @ and (dot) with .] and get a
real human response. For information about becoming a sponsor, log on
at:
http://www.brigada.org
and click on "Sponsor" in the top line menu. Note that due to the large
number of subscribers (literally thousands) only sponsors get human
help.
DISCLAIMER -- We can't screen 'em all. Please forgive us if a
particular site contains offensive information -- or no information at
all! We *try* to visit them in advance, but often write "on the road"
so we simply *can't* preview everything.
PLEASE DON'T SUBSCRIBE US TO YOUR LIST -- Sorry -- nothing personal --
but we're already deluged. We'll eventually teach our spam filter to
just delete it anyway, but in the meantime, we'll have a sad face
because of the volume of mass mailings we receive. :-(
WARNING ABOUT FORWARDING EMAILS -- Just say no! :-) Read our thoughts
about forwarding emails at
http://www.brigada.org/articles/opc.html
WHY DO WE SAY, "[replace (at) with @ and (dot) with .]"? -- More and
more shady marketing types ("spammers" and "scammers") are using
computerized searches to harvest email addresses from off the web
without asking permission of the owner. We use this "plain English"
addressing syntax to avert automated harvesting for our contributors.
PRIVACY INFORMATION -- We will never give your information to anybody.
We won't market you, won't hassle you, and won't ever bother you. You
won't be signed up for mailings you didn't request. Your address is safe
and your future is secure. Life is good. :-)
COPYRIGHT -- This issue of _Brigada Today_ is Copyrighted 2007.
However, permission is granted to freely redistribute these materials,
including those available on the Brigada website, provided that
such redistribution is to those who will help the Good News of Jesus
Christ to reach the unreached.* To copy or reproduce _Brigada Today_
for any other reason is illegal and is not permitted.
* When you quote or paraphrase material from Brigada, please include
this phrase:
"For a free subscription to Brigada's weekly missions
publication, write brigada-today-subscribe@googlegroups.com and/or visit
Brigada on the web at www.brigada.org."
Brigada
Website: WebServant@brigada.org
For sponsors only: Brigada Customer Service Manager: Penny Lucas, help@brigada.org
