20010225 Brigada Today

In this issue….

DO US A FAVOR: ENTER THE DATES OF YOUR CONFERENCE

Hey, could you do us a favor and jot down the dates of your upcoming conference or training course at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/brigada-today/calendar Brigada participants are all the time asking for the dates of upcoming events. If we all just took a moment to post them, then we would be able to manage the tracking of these events much more easily. For an example of what I mean, check out Feb. 7-9, 2002 in the calendar there. You’ll see PACE-Lab 2002 entered, along with a web site for more info. Be sure to note the location of your event — along with the country in which it will occur. Remember — we have an international audience!

A NEW (OLD) SLANT ON PRAYER FOR THE NATIONS

The International House of Prayer is a 24-hour/day, 7-day/week, inter-denominational prayer ministry located in the Kansas City area. It’s a great new concept based on an old model–the Tabernacle of David–with singers and musicians leading corporate intercession and worship 24-hours a day. They have particular sessions to pray for the Kingdom to come to the nations, cities, and college campuses of the world. They even have prayer training and a passion to send pray-ers to the nations. Write for information at info@ihopkc.com, or check out more at http://www.ihopkc.com/new/ihop247.html. (Thanks Mark!)

SEARCH BRIGADA ARCHIVES

There are two ways to search past issues of Brigada Today. Without a doubt, the best way is to go to the Brigada web site: https://brigada.org Our amazingly consistent web-volunteer, Bob, has custom-designed a search engine there especially for Brigada Today. You can specify how many years back you want to search (all the way back to the beginning, if you like), as well as how exacting you want the search. What’s more, when you see the results, you’re looking at the item titles themselves, rather than the issue for that week. So when you click on an item that looks promising, Bob’s search engine takes you precisely to the item, even if it was originally at the very end of the issue in which it occurred. By the way, we’ve been running a couple of sister relationships along the way, and Bob’s listed helps for them as well — for Advance and the Web Evangelism Guide. Find it all by clicking on the “Search” line at the home page of Brigada.

So go ahead… give it a try. Click to: https://brigada.org/sbtas.html and search for “water filters”. You get 9 results, some of which go back as far as August ’98. If you drop the “s” and type in just “water filter”, the search engine finds an additional 5 items, 14 in all. Try it yourself with something you’d like to research. “TESL” finds a dozen items, “TESOL” finds 27. The term “Bush” is mentioned a whopping 75 times! “Yahoo!” is there 7 times throughout the past few years.

By the way, there is another way to search more recent issues. About the only time you’d want to use this alternative approach is when Bob hasn’t quite had a chance to post the most recent issue into the Brigada site. For example, you receive a particular issue of Brigada Today, then you delete it, then you wish you could get it back — about 5 minutes later. Odds are, Bob won’t be quite that fast (although he’s usually fairly quick! ). In that case, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/brigada-today/messages At that site, the particular edition is available within about 30 seconds of posting time. Yahoo Groups has Brigada Editions going back to August of 2000. So you should be covered!

DATE CHANGE ON TESOL SCHOOL IN CHINA

Want to learn to teach English? Why not do it in China! Some 40 teachers will be needed at the SIAS University where a TESOL school will be held from June 18-July 27, 2001 in Henan Province (dates changed from previous announcement). The school will provide you with the tools needed to Teach English and build relationships. Whether you are called to China, or other parts of the world, this professional course will prepare you. There are also opportunities to stay on and Teach English for the 2001-2001 academic year at SIAS University. For more information check out: http://www.tesoltraining.com or email TESOL2001@hotmail.com.

APOLOGIES TO JERRY RANKIN

Oops… contrary to what we reported earlier, Dr. Jerry Rankin is at the helm of the IMB, not Avery Willis (see Feb. 16th edition of Brigada Today, “FROM THE “I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S FREE” DEPT.“). Thanks to those who wrote with that correction. However — it was indeed Avery Willis who announced that the IMB was “opening up the store”, so to speak, at GCOWE ’95. Avery is, however, the Senior VP, not the actual point man.

NEW ANIMATED BIBLE STUDY SITE FOR CHILDREN

The vision behind Charles’ work is to include a dynamic, animated presentation of every major Bible character and theme in this new site http://www.childrensbiblestudy.com Looks to be a powerful tool to reach out to families all over the world. For more info, contact Charles cvalentine@netlifestyles.com.

DON’T FORGET TO ORDER YOUR PATTERSON CD

Remember that the manufactured, revised edition of the George Patterson CD is now available for immediate shipping from Carriage House Bookstore, fax 503-517-1801, email bkstore@westernseminary.edu. The price is US$29.95 plus shipping (volume discount available). While they can accept bank cards, they cannot do billing. [For Windows only.]

ON-LINE REVEILLE SHOFAR IS MOBILIZATION TOOL

The Jan/Feb 2001 edition of the Operation Reveille Shofar is posted at http://www.oprev.org/Shofar.htm. This issue reports about work in northern Iraq, Japan, and the Ukraine as well as ways to study Islam, get map overlays, and help southern Sudan. The web version of the newsletter is cool because it is in color, and one can hyperlink to sites for the opportunities and resources mentioned. For more information on Operation Reveille, a ministry of Mission to Unreached Peoples, write Bruce operationreveille@altavista.net.

SURVEY REVEALS BEST TRAITS FOR TENTMAKERS

Here’s a great little study reported by Tim Parker tparker@teamexpansion.org, the Tentmaking Coordinator for Team Expansion. According to Tim, Don Hamilton (of TMQ Research) recently completed a survey among some 800 people who are serving or have served overseas in a tentmaking capacity. The study revealed that the most effective tentmakers…

had led an evangelistic bible study before going overseas.
went overseas mainly to share the gospel.
believed God called them to be tentmakers.
had experience in actively sharing their faith at home.
had strong relationships with their local home church.
recruited others to be tentmakers.

For further information on the survey, or for a copy of the full report ($10), Tim said we could write directly to Don Hamilton, TMQ Research, 312 Melcanyon Road, Duarte, CA 91010, 626-359-4048. (No email given.) Tim cited the info. with permission from the Canadian Tentmaker Network/Southern Ontario Tentmaker Seminar Workbook). Thanks Tim!

MISSION ADVENTURE NOVELS?

Here’s the latest in literature… a missions “ebook” adventure story. Check it out at: http://www.adventurebooksonline.com. In each AdventureBook novel, you will be exposed to new and informative insights about exotic cultures and places. The goal of these writings is to elevate the enjoyment level of readers to the point that you will learn things about important cultural and missiological truths without even realizing that they are being taught. (Note that we’re mentioning this site because of its cutting-edge approach to distributing missions information; we’re not necessarily endorsing the fact that the profit from the book goes to help a mission effort in the Philippines. As a general rule, we don’t publish fund-raising appeals. But we do highlight useful and innovative resources, practically all of which tend to result in someone making some small amount of money. Anyway… we thought this was a creative way to get the word out.)

COFFEE SHOP: TRY AGAIN

Some who visited The Coffee Shop following the recent announcement ran into a technical glitch. The problem has been fixed, and missionaries, former missionaries, and pre- missionaries are once again invited to join. The Coffee Shop is an email list service to discuss books, articles and ongoing topics related to life and ministry. To join, send a blank email to thecoffeeshop-subscribe@topica.com or send questions to thecoffeeshop@globalcompassion.com. For more information, go to http://www.globalcompassion.com.

THE BACK PAGE: MORE ON HOW GOOD TEAMS BECOME GREAT TEAMS

Michael Jaffarian recently wrote us with a thoughtful evaluation, after having read the “Back Page” editorial from Feb. 16th (…Good Teams…). I remember meeting Michael on a bus once in Seoul, Korea — of all places. I’ve never forgotten his eye for detail, still apparent in this piece of transparent and honest evaluation:

“My interest perked up at something you wrote in Brigada Today. (So what does Anson do? For one thing, he measures everything. His logic is… unless he follows it, no one will focus on improving it. )

“Exactly. In our mission, CBI, we realized that we were keeping excellent statistics on finances, pretty good statistics on personnel, but not as good field statistics. In other words, we could report to our churches how much they were sending to us, but not much about what fruit was coming from all that, in concrete, specific terms. Our old field statistics system, of annually getting a count of churches, baptisms, etc., had sort of fallen into disrepair. For one thing, so much of what happens on the field is done by nationals, not by our missionaries. But there are ways to overcome that. So one of my major projects this year is to renew and upgrade that whole system for our mission. What to count, and why, and how.

“I spent a lot of time in January meeting with and talking to field leaders from many of our fields. Each is sooooooooo different from the next. I developed a lot of good, fresh ideas from that. I also spent some time going over our Mission Statement, our Purpose Statement, our Strategic Priorities, and etc., and on all these things asked, are there ways we can monitor this stuff? For most of it, there are. For example, we say that evangelization is a big priority for us as a mission. So I am going to ask every missionary, every year, how many people did you share the gospel with last year? (There are some complexities, definitions to that question, but still, I think I can make it workable). … I believe that just the asking of that question is going to increase the amount of evangelization we as a mission do every year. Similar with many other categories, in the life and work of the missionary, and field-by-field.

“I suspect a lot of missions could do a better job with this business of field statistics – gathering them, analyzing them, reporting them, and strategizing on the basis of things learned and opportunities revealed. The things we want to be doing as a mission, let’s quantify them if possible, and then learn. The point is not to make anybody look good or to make anybody look bad. The point is to give glory to God and serve him well.”

Thanks for your frank and honest sharing, Michael!

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