20040718 Brigada Today

GREAT SPONSORS MAKE FOR INFORMATIVE BRIGADA TODAYS — Thanks much to our sponsors, who help us get Brigada out the door and on your screen, chalked full of “all the news that’s fit to email!” By helping sponsor our Brigada secretary, you can enable thousands of Brigada participants to hear the latest, whether it’s about your own ministry or that of another global servant or clearinghouse. It’s easy to sponsor Brigada. Just log on to: https://brigada.org then click “sponsor” in the top menu, or just send a check payable to Team Expansion to: Team Expansion (Brigada secretary), 13711 Willow Reed Dr., Louisville, KY 40299. Thanks! 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 by anonymous.

BRIGADA BY RSS? — One Brigada participant recently wrote that perhaps we should consider distributing Brigada by RSS. (The initials apparently originally stood for “Really Simple Syndication.”) For now, we’ll probably just stick with email and web, but if a volunteer wanted to set up an RSS feed for the Brigada info, we’d be glad to publish the instructions on how to receive it. Thanks for the idea, Joel!

NEED COUNTRY-TO-COUNTRY CALLING? — Try an international calling service that reportedly has the cheapest country-to-country phone rates. Learn more at https://brigada.org/phone.html You’ll see on the “Sponsors” page how your gifts are adding up to help sponsor the Brigada secretary!

USE MS Office? CUSTOMIZE YOUR FAVORITES — Brigada’s kind of an eclectic mix of things, don’t you think? :-) I mean… one minutes we’ll be talking about unreached peoples, then we’ll suddenly present an item on backing up. It’s just been part of our history, you know? Well here’s a cool item that deserved a hearing. Do you use Microsoft Word? (Seems like just about everyone does these days.) Do you notice yourself going “File|Open” then clicking through a hierarchy of folders these days, trying to click through to the folder you want? Well why not add that favorite folder to the “My Places” list on the left side of the “file|open” dialogue box! In Office XP, it’s easy. While in the “File|Open” dialogue box of any Office application, highlight the folder you want to put on the “My Places” bar, click on “Tools” in the toolbar at the top of the dialog, and choose “Add to ‘My Places'” from the drop-down menu. You can also choose “Small icons” to add even more shortcuts there. For information on how to accomplish the same thing in other versions of Office, click to: http://www.pcmag.com/usertouser (Thanks to PC Magazine for featuring this great little time-saver.)

VISITED YOUR LOCAL PANERA BREAD STORE LATELY? — Whoever imagined working on one’s doctoral dissertation from the local Panera Bread store? But now it’s possible — with Panera Bread Stores making Wireless Internet access available to their customers for free. These and hundreds of other hot-spots are cropping up all over the world. Pick up an 83-cent bagel, and belly on up to the bar! :-) Log on to your favorite website for free… use your webmail interface to send and receive messages (but don’t plan on using an outside SMTP server; apparently they’ve blocked access to that to prevent spammers from using their services). You can stay for 1 hour… or 6… or as long as you like. All this for 83 cents… What’s not to like about that? No Panera Bread Store in your village? Just stand by. It won’t be long ’til *some* enterprising entrepreneur figures out how to make money at a café near you. In a study by the Yankee Group (July 2003), hot spots were found to be multiplying at an astounding rate — like by a factor of 24 times as many hot spots over the next 5 years. So keep that wireless card handy and save up your pennies for that bagel.

STRATEGY COORDINATOR TRAINING IN SINGAPORE — Asia Pacific Mission, together with Singapore Centre for Evangelism and Missions (SCEM), is conducting a month-long full-time training course for Strategy Co- ordinators in missions. The course deals with research, planning and strategising and developing a Master-plan to nurture Church-planting Movements (CPM) among UPGs. For more information, contact Frank Teo of APM SCANet(at)writeme(dot)com [replace (at) with @ and (dot) with .]. Include your Name, Birthdate, Passport No, Date/Place of Issue and Expiry Date for a Letter of Invitation for this training.

MESHING AN OUTREACH WEBSITE WITH A LOCAL OUTREACH TEAM — The Web can be used to multiply the effectiveness of an on-the-spot outreach team. Here’s an outline of a strategy that could be highly effective: http://www.gospelcom.net/guide/locality-teams.php

AFFORDABLE SHORT-TERM GROUP COVERAGE — Are you taking a team overseas sometime soon? If so make sure you have adequate medical and evacuation coverage. You might want to check out the “International Provider” plan from Insurance Services of America. This plan features a low daily rate for medical and medical evacuation. For details, a free quote and to apply for coverage go to http://www.MissionaryHealth.Com , email them health@missionaryhealth.com , or call them at 1-800-647-4589 (1-480- 821-9052). Insurance Services of America is a Christian organization that specializes in helping missionaries and mission organizations find affordable healthcare.

WHO IS JAY? — He or she is the typical unchurched person, in the West or beyond. What do the Jays of this world think about? What are their needs. Get inside Jay’s head here: http://www.gospelcom.net/guide/resources/notchristian.php

0 Shares