In this issue…

  1. $4000 RAISED, $11,530 TO GO
  2. 8th ANNUAL GLOBAL MISSIONS HEALTH CONFERENCE
  3. HIV/AIDS PRECONFERENCE
  4. WORSHIP, INTERCESSION, AND MORE AT YWAM LAS VEGAS
  5. GREAT! A PLAXO-LOOK-ALIKE! THEY’RE MULTIPLYING!
  6. PARADIGMS OF THE FUTURE, NOV 20-21, ATLANTA
  7. CHURCH PLANTING CONFERENCE IN JAPAN
  8. YET ANOTHER SPAM SOLUTION
  9. WE GET MAIL
  10. FRIENDS OF BIHAR HOST A STRATEGY COORDINATOR’S CONFERENCE
  11. CLOSING STUFF

  1. $4000 RAISED, $11,530 TO GO — Our goal for 2003 was to figure out how to raise $15,600, enough to hire a Brigada Secretary for a full year. Thus far in 2003, we’ve raised just over $4000. And that’s great. I guess… we’ve still got a ways to go though. If you can help put us over the top by Dec. 31st, just click here to log on to PayPal and send a sponsorship gift of $25, $50, $100, or $1000… or more. Be sure to note how we can express our gratitude to you or your agency/church on our Sponsors page: https://brigada.org/sponsor.html Of course, checks are great too, made payable to: Team Expansion (Brigada secretary), 13711 Willow Reed Dr., Louisville, KY 40299. The really cool part is… according to our plan, once we reach our goal for any particular calendar year, we’ll not mention another word about sponsorships for the remainder of the whole calendar year! Yahooo! :-)

  2. 8th ANNUAL GLOBAL MISSIONS HEALTH CONFERENCE — This annual conference (first promoted right here via Brigada Today) has now become the largest medical mission conference in the nation and will draw over 1400-1500 medical professionals, students, and others to Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Ky., Nov. 6-8 to learn more about impacting the world through the healing of Jesus Christ. More than 80 speakers and 100 exhibitors will be available at the conference. Opportunities for short-term medical trips as well as continuing education credit will be offered. Topics will be presented that include interests for all medical professions. A free housing option is available on the web site and tuition is nominal. The nine professional organizations that cosponsor the conference intend for this conference to change careers, to change lives, and to impact the world for Christ. For more information and for all the details on plenary and workshop speakers and their specific topics, check the Web site: http://www.medicalmissions.com or call 502-253-8069.

  3. HIV/AIDS PRECONFERENCE — The Global Missions Health Conference will host a preconference: The Church and the HIV/AIDS Crisis: Providing Leadership and Hope, to be held Thurs., Nov. 6, 2003. Two plenary sessions will be conducted: Dr. Dan Fountain, MD, MPH, will speak on “World View Problems Underlying the HIV/AIDS Epidemic”. Dr. Randall Hoag, PhD, will speak on “How to Increase Public Awareness for the Prevention of HIV/AIDS.” Participants will choose to attend two of three interactive workshops: “The Pervasive Consequences of the HIV/AIDS Crisis”; “The Biblically Based Resources on Sexuality and Marriage for the Prevention of HIV/AIDS”; and “The Christian Approach to Treating HIV/AIDS Patients”. Ken Casey, special representative to the President, will close the conference. The preconference will be held at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Ky. Registration for the preconference ONLY is limited to the first 400 people who register. For more information, check the Web site: http://www.medicalmissions.com or call 502-253-8069.

  4. WORSHIP, INTERCESSION, AND MORE AT YWAM LAS VEGAS — Get started on January 11, 2004. If you desire to sharpen your ministry skills in the areas of worship, intercession, spiritual warfare and evangelism in an urban setting with a focus on creative arts and you’ve completed a DTS then the WISE school will be a great opportunity for you! A three month, hands-on school plus optional outreach. Contact for details: info@ywamlasvegas.org, or log on at http://www.ywamlasvegas.org or call (702)658-5450 and ask for Sam Waddell.

  5. GREAT! A PLAXO-LOOK-ALIKE! THEY’RE MULTIPLYING! — Just when I think I’m starting to control my “urge to click” on a Plaxo email, along comes http://www.goodcontacts.com Now Gordon, a faithful Brigada participant, wrote to encourage us to promote this plan (Thanks Gordon, but please pardon my dense-ness.) If I understand the purpose correctly, “GoodContacts” purports to help you stay in touch by sending out an email to everybody in your Outlook or “Act” database. If a particular friend is still out there somewhere, he/she can just hit reply, and back comes the confirmation email into your Outlook or Act database. Instantly, you know the address is still good. And if they’re not there, back comes the bounce-a-gram to flag the bad contact. (Can’t *wait* to send bounce-a-grams to all these GoodContact emails! :-) ) Well… aside from helping arm people to do massive direct-email spam campaigns, I can’t figure for the life of me why this program matters. If they’re not there any more, then next time you write them, you’ll find that out anyway. If they’re still there, duh… you’ll learn that too — ’cause they’ll answer your *real* email, the one you could have sent that might have saved them from having one more additional “ping” in their email inbox. So what good is another bandwidth-waster to ping them crazy. Yikes. To me, this is over the top… out of control. Just what we need… another product to use up bandwidth, waste my eyeball time, and confirm that … I’m still here at the same address. I’ve got 15,442 people in my address book. The last thing I want to do is wake them all up, just to find out if they would have answered me if I were to have written them in the first place! Here I go to write up another spam filter. :-)

  6. PARADIGMS OF THE FUTURE, NOV 20-21, ATLANTA — Does world missions have any “theology of the future” other than pragmatism? Join the Christian Futures Network as its members explore paradigm change in theology, and how to shape a more biblical and forward view of ministry, accommodating change and complexity. Speakers include missions specialist Jay Gary, millennial historian Dr. Robert Clouse and futures theologian Dr. Ted Peters. To register call 719-636-2000, email <info@christianfutures.com> or go online, http://www.christianfutures.com

  7. CHURCH PLANTING CONFERENCE IN JAPAN — Last year the CPI Conference in Japan was the largest church planting conference in the history of Japan. Sponsored by the Japan Evangelical Missionary Association this movement includes over 90 mission agencies and denominations. This year the Japan 2003 CPI Conference will be held November 18-21 at Fuji- Hakone Land (about 3 hours from Tokyo). Featured speakers are Steven Childers (US Center for Church Planting), Dwight Smith (Saturation Church Planting International). Other Japanese speakers include Dr. Akira Izuta chairman of KDK a national church planting agency. There are 5 separate training tracks including a new one on Church Planting Movements in Japan. Again there will be over 40 electives on practically everything from evangelism, family ministry and leadership development. There is a Children’s Ministry Program and a Youth Ministry Program for children of participants. For more information: http://jcpi.net/main/main.htm or write JMehn@compuserve.com

  8. YET ANOTHER SPAM SOLUTION — You can always tell a growing problem by the number of new software that emerges to combat it. Here’s another spam-killer, one which apparently recently won the Consumer Reports review. http://www.bloomba.com/ Looks like it works with Outlook, Eudora, and Netscape. The public beta version is free. (Thanks Ken!)

  9. WE GET MAIL — Thanks to David, from a short term missions organization, who recently wrote directly to one of our administrators at Team Expansion (the agency for which I’m employed) to say, “I just want to thank Doug Lucas for his vision for the whole Body of Christ and helping all mission groups and missions minded churches in staying current with missions resources! Few are the mission agencies that are capable of allowing a broad Kingdom vision to flourish beside the more limited agency vision. I left the agency I was with for 20 years because they couldn’t visualize helping ALL agencies get the word out about their short term mission opportunities. I have been reading Brigada Today for several years and knew your name but never realized you are part of a missionary sending agency until I was on your website today. May the good Lord multiply your tribe!” Thanks for the encouragement, David, and … true… thanks to Team Expansion for giving me the flexibility to be President there… and Editor of Brigada Today here! :-)

  10. FRIENDS OF BIHAR HOST A STRATEGY COORDINATOR’S CONFERENCE — The Friends of Bihar will be hosting Strategy Coordinator’s Conference from December 1-5 in Houston, Texas. Anyone interested is invited to attend. There will be 4 primary focuses for this conference:

    *** Teach the principles of Strategy Coordination
    *** Coordinate efforts and strategies for initiating Church Planting Movements
    *** Build a Network of Churches, Pastors, and Lay people committed to the evangelization of Bihar
    *** Focus on Un-reached peoples in Bihar and take definitive steps towards their evangelization

    For more info, contact Chad chadnangela@cs.com or visit http://www.friendsofbihar.org or call 713-498-7278 for more information.