Now with 5104 participants!!!
News and Notes about Brigada, Your Gateway to Missions Networking!
Visit Brigada on WorldWide Web: https://brigada.org (Note the new domain! Please be sure to edit your bookmarks file in your browser!)
[Pass this issue to a friend! To subscribe, see instructions at end.]
——————-
In this issue….
* HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRIGADA!!!
* GARLIC AND GARDENIAS FOR BRIGADA
* THIS IS THE EVENT TO FOCUS ON HOW TO FINISH AN ADOPT-A-PEOPLE PROJECT
* YOU WAITED FOR THEM FOR YEARS!!
* LOOKING FOR SOMEONE TO INSURE YOUR MISSIONARY OVERSEAS?
* SO HOW DO YOU SPELL CHURCH-PLANTING?
* 11,000 AND COUNTING . . . AND PRAYING!
* WEB-WATCH
* GLOBAL GLIMPSE FROM ADDIS ABABA
* BRIGADA SUBSCRIBERS TO PICK FIELD FOR MISSION COUPLE
* TO SUBSCRIBE TO BRIGADA TODAY
————————————–
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRIGADA!!!
Join us as we celebrate 2 years of focus on mobilization for the final frontiers! The first “edition” of Brigada Today was a simple test letter between two individuals, Jonathan Marsden and Doug Lucas. Within a month, there were 38 participants and with the Feb. 18th issue, the idea of Brigada Today and the Brigada family of networks began to take shape in a more concrete way. March 21st was set as the official “public opening” and by that day, there were more than 100 involved. Interestingly enough, by August 23rd, just when we were about to celebrate topping the 800 mark and introducing something called the “People Group Consultant,” we ran this item:
“FROM THE “LET’S GET SERIOUS ABOUT VISION” DEPARTMENT
Ya know, I always thought that if a person was highly technical, highly skilled, highly process oriented, then they would probably be pretty scared about bulging growth. Not so with Jonathan Marsden, who manages the technical end of CrossConnect and, as such, helps with Brigada technical projects. When I asked him this past week about how he felt about Brigada growing past the 800 mark, I was surprised to hear him say he wasn’t satisfied. “I won’t be happy until we have 10,000 people on board, with hundreds of conferences about least reached people groups and cities all over the world.” Wow. When I grow up, I want to be like that. :-) ” [end of quote]
And now, with well over 5000 people involved, we’re halfway to Jonathan’s goal… but we’ve got a long way to go to really make a dent in the task. Most recently, we’ve been coming to grips with the fact that there’s not as much intentional networking for specific people groups as we originally hoped to spawn. But even that might be changing.
————————————–
GARLIC AND GARDENIAS FOR BRIGADA
So how do we answer when people ask, “What are the five greatest strides forward and the five greatest “missed opportunities” so far with Brigada? Here’s our “garlic and gardenias” grasscatcher list:
* Gardenias to the sheer numbers of people who have jumped on board
* Garlic to the fact that those numbers haven’t translated into “action forums” for unreached groups
* Gardenias to the number of “connections” all of us now enjoy to virtually any subject in practically any part of the world! (If Brigada Today carries a query about just about anything, people tell us they get anywhere from 7 to 70+ responses giving answers and resources.)
* Garlic to the continuing questions about security for “open” conferences and the ongoing “wait” for everyone to start using PGP (until it’s built into the email client that we use [like it is in Pegasus], it’s unlikely that we’ll take it seriously)
* Gardenias to the volunteerism we see that makes the Brigada concept possible! (E.g., to Revis Ann Massey, who faithfully handles questions and problems for a 5000+ mailing list [some magazines have 10 people to handle that same work load and Rev’ does it as a labor of love while participating on a cross-cultural church planting team in Miamia]! … and to Bob Mayhew for amazingly consistent web-mastery, transferring everything to HTML on a weekly basis, again as a labor of love! And join us as we celebrate our two-year anniversary with a new brigada domain… https://brigada.org ! … and to contributors like John Hanna and Mark Kelly who go on week after week, month after month, writing their columns, gathering their resources/info., AGAIN, as a labor of love. You get the idea!]
* Garlic to our inability to figure out how to recruit volunteers to moderate proactive information-sharing conferences for the least reached people groups on the JP2000 list.
* Gardenias to the folks at MAFxc (like Jonathan, Rex, Bob, and early on, for Cathleen Sward) who have managed somehow to put together a bunch of wildly fun tools with incredible potential that we can all use for an insanely reasonable cost! … and to MAF (the mother ship) for believing in electronic communication enough to make the investment and buy CrossConnect from it’s original holding organization back when CrossConnect was still more of an idea than it was a producer of any funding at all.
* Garlic to the ideas that have never really become full reality, like the full implementation of the People Group Consultant and brigada-travel-bids (which has too many customers asking for business and not enough travel agents on board to handle all the requests!).
* Gardenias to my wife and two boys, and to the board to which I am responsible at Team Expansion for giving me up to this labor of love for an additional 10-20 hours per week to handle the extra workload to lead the Brigada family of networks and compile Brigada Today each week.
* Garlic to the fact that I wish we could do more promotion, more marketing, more intentional growth planning, more experimentation, more recruitment, more information packets, more cutting edge stuff!
So . . . on this 2-year anniversary, we say thanks to all Brigada participants and make a very simple birthday wish: that God would enable us to make some small contribution to the global growth of His kingdom. We don’t wish for big numbers if they aren’t effective at bringing change; we don’t long for new technology if it doesn’t put us better in touch with people worldwide; we don’t yearn for publicity, a “name” or anything earthly… but that You, or Lord, would be exalted through our every word, our every step, our every keystroke. That’s our prayer. That’s the purpose of Brigada.
————————————–
THIS IS THE EVENT TO FOCUS ON HOW TO IMPLEMENT AN ADOPT-A-PEOPLE PROJECT
And it’s coming up fast! April 25-26 in Littleton, Colorado (Greater Denver). The combined forces of Caleb Project, Kingdom Building Ministries, Team Expansion, PACE, Pit-Stops, and real live local church people (who are actually out there doing it!) are coming together to help advance the “edge of the envelope” on fulfillment of adopting a people group. The price is right (you get a full 3-ring notebook, set of diskettes, complete program, food, and great fellowship/training/inspiration for $45!!! Check it out at https://brigada.org/pace to get full details. Featured speakers include Greg Fritz, Director of Caleb Project; Steve Moore, who wrote the script and helped master mind that hot new Amdo prayer video; Doug Lucas (I promise to have tons of fun PC graphics on the data projector); Eric Derry, Missions Minister at Beavercreek Christian Church in greater Dayton, Ohio, who helped bring you Envision ’96; plus representatives from projects in China, Pashtun, and more! So don’t delay! Check out the web site or send email to hub@xc.org with only the following line in the text of the message:
get brigada pit-stop-denver
Send a note to Noelle or Robert at rpeterson@ccu.edu or call (303) 761-6187.
————————————–
YOU WAITED FOR THEM FOR YEARS!!
You were frustrated not to be able to give the body of Christ up to date information on unreached peoples! Your intercession times lacked depth because you just didn’t know enough to pray effectively! You searched the world over for profiles, but came up empty!
Well, your search is over. The PRAYER PROFILES are FINALLY HERE!!! For the past 15 months, Bethany World Prayer Center has been producing Prayer Profiles for each of the 1,739 groups on the current Joshua Project list. These profiles are now coming off the press at a steady pace. For only $0.20 each, you can get the latest information on the unreached, presented in a glossy, easy-to-look format. You won’t find a better or cheaper profile anywhere in the world. And they are available NOW!
If you would like to order a catalog of the currently produced profiles please e-mail us at: upg@bethany-wpc.org or you can write us at: 13855 Plank Rd., Baker, La. 70714 Ph:504-774-2002 Fax:504-774-2001. Also, check them out on the web at http://www.bethany-wpc.org/profiles/home.html. We owe these folks a big round of applause . . . and more for the ton of work they’re doing on behalf of the Kingdom! Thanks Rick, Gabriela, and all at Bethany!
————————————–
LOOKING FOR SOMEONE TO INSURE YOUR MISSIONARY OVERSEAS?
Try Jeff Gulleson at goodnbor@juno.com. He can handle your overseas worker even if he or she can’t come home for a physical! He advertises low rates… Available for both short- and long-term trips!
————————————–
SO HOW DO YOU SPELL CHURCH-PLANTING?
Let’s say you’re successful in mobilizing a team of cross-cultural workers . . . and you field your team . . . and you’re over there ready to go. . . . so… Now what?! How do you plant a new church? If you’ve got a favorite resource or guidebook (we all assume that the Bible is our primary guide, of course), send a note to Wayne Penner wpenner@nutecnet.com.br. The results will be compiled and made available on Brigada. These could include books, videos, training program, email lists, etc.
————————————–
11,000 AND COUNTING . . . AND PRAYING!
As reported last week, the Manna Church of Fayetteville, NC has taken up the task of recruiting prayer “adopters” for all 1739 unreached peoples on the Joshua Project 2000 list. Join them in celebrating the crossing of the 11,000 mark – i.e., 11,000 churches recruited to pray specifically for unreached people. Dick Gaffney, from the office there, writes “If you’d like to report an adoption in your church or group, include a mailing address (US post office) so that we can mail immediately mail out an info packet, explaining the project. A reply by mail postcard is included in that packet which will allow them to request an unreached people group if and when they make the decision to sign on. Due to the large number of responses we have and/or expect, we just will just not have sufficient time to respond to each inquiry on an individual basis.” Dick and his team will keep us informed as time goes on. So watch for continuing adoptions! Send your people group to Dick RGaff13817@aol.com along with mailing instructions for the USA if possible.
————————————–
WEB-WATCH
Have you seen the collection of links at http://www.iinet.net.au/~createit/ResearchLinks.html Wow – a real cross-section of possibilities for research unreached people groups! And don’t forget to see what an absolute amateur can do with a couple of good, inexpensive tools and a few quick hours at http://www.teamexpansion.org. I can say amateur because I’m talking about myself! :-)
————————————–
GLOBAL GLIMPSE FROM ADDIS ABABA
Andrew Meekens, an elder in the International Christian Church in Addis Ababa, was one of the victims of the tragic plane crash last November, when the aircraft ran out of fuel after being hijacked. One of the members of the cabin crew recently reported that following the pilot’s announcement of his intention to attempt an emergency landing, Meekens stood up and spoke to calm the passengers. He explained the gospel of Jesus and invited the people to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. The surviving steward reported that 20 people responded, including one of his colleagues who was killed in the crash.
(Source: Church around the World, PO Box 464, Mt. Morris, IL 61054, USA, via DAWN Friday Fax 97/10)
Global Glimpse is compiled each week by John Hanna, Caleb Project, Littleton, CO.
————————————–
HERE’S YOUR CHANCE: BRIGADA SUBSCRIBERS TO PICK FIELD FOR MISSION COUPLE
Now here’s an interesting twist. Next week, we’ll begin the story of how one mission couple has decided to ask the people of Brigada where they should go as cross-cultural workers! Watch closely for next week’s announcement about how it’ll unfold. Exciting to see God at work!
——————-
TO SUBSCRIBE TO BRIGADA TODAY, send email to hub@xc.org with only the following message:
subscribe brigada
(Sure you can quote from Brigada Today! But please tell your readers where you learned about the item, and if it’s not asking too much, include the 3 lines on how to subscribe – see above.)
TO UNSUBSCRIBE, send email to hub@xc.org with this line in the text:
unsubscribe brigada
——————-
BRIGADA TODAY IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE FOLLOWING TEAM OF REGULAR VOLUNTEERS:
*Global Glimpses: John Hanna, Caleb Project, jhanna@cproject.com
*ADVANCE: Mark A. Kelley, Kainos Press, 70420.1057@compuserve.com
*Brigada Website: Bob Mayhew, Brigada Volunteer, mayhew@xc.org
*Technical Development: Jonathan Marsden, MAFxc jonathan@xc.org
*Brigada Customer Service Manager: Revis Ann Massey, RevisAnnMassey@xc.org
*Brigada Coordinator: Doug Lucas, Team Expansion & Brigada, DLucas@TeamExpansion.org
*and many other occasional contributors too numerous to mention!
But thanks for working together! That’s the dream of Brigada!
Recent Comments