- IMPACT THE BUDDHIST WORLD WITH THIS AMAZING RESOURCE
- MAYBE THE CHURCH *ISN’T* SMALLER THAN WE THINK
- SINGAPORE: GATEWAY TO ASIA
- GLOBAL PASSION
- MORE ON “HOOSIERS”
- ESL MISSIONS OPPORTUNITY IN MEXICO
- MORE ON VOICE OVER IP
- GIVE BRIGADA REASON TO CELEBRATE
- THE BACKPAGE: FOLLOW-UP “GET PEOPLE PRAYING”
- CLOSING STUFF
- IMPACT THE BUDDHIST WORLD WITH THIS AMAZING RESOURCE — Global Mapping International’s newest resource, the CD-ROM edition of Paul Hattaway’s PEOPLES OF THE BUDDHIST WORLD, is packed with 238 people profiles, hundreds of beautiful color photos and *38 brand-new custom maps* which can also be used in personalized documents and ministry presentations! Text is hyperlinked to maps, tables and is fully- searchable in both Windows and Mac. Informative, easy to use and a visual treat, it will bless concerned Christians, missionaries, mission agencies working among Buddhists and ultimately Buddhist peoples themselves. Priced at US$24.95; quantity discounts are available. For more information about this resource and to order visit
Now the cool thing is — I got to see s sneak-peak of one of these in advance and, I’ll have to admit, bar none… this might be the single best mobilization piece for evangelizing the Buddhist world in the history of the planet.
Note: GMI had talked about trying to give $5 to Brigada for every order received during the 10 days following release of this item. However, their original deadline for this program (Sept. 2), is already passed, due to the fact that there were other items in the queue in front of them. No worries. It’s still a great resource so please order it anyway, for the sake of the Buddhist world! :-) (However, just in case, please type “Brigada” in the Comments box on the online checkout form. :-) ) Questions? Write to info(at)gmi(dot)org [As a means of preventing spam for our contributors, in the preceding email address(es), please replace (at) with @ and (dot) with .]
- MAYBE THE CHURCH *ISN’T* SMALLER THAN WE THINK — I figured I’d hear back from some friends. Remember the item, “THE UNREACHED: THE CHURCH MAY BE SMALLER THAN YOU THINK” (July 21st edition)? Thanks to all the lay people *and* the professionals who replied. The latter group included the lead researcher from JoshuaProject.net (Dan Scribner), the editor of Momentum Magazine (Justin Long), and even the author himself of Operation World and “The Church is Bigger than you Think” (Patrick Johnstone). (Can you believe these guys make time to read Brigada? I should send them ice cream cakes from their local Dairy Queens.) Anyway, the bottom line was — they showed convincing proof that the church has grown and is growing by leaps and bounds and that it would *not* be accurate to state, as the article in question had stated, that “3 out of 4 people have not heard the Gospel.” Some of our researcher friends wondered if the author might have misunderstood his secondary citations (there are no research citations given) or maybe he was referring to a special study with different criteria than that used by nearly all of the other researchers in the business — like, maybe he is only counting evangelical gospel presentations, as opposed to counting presentations by Catholics & Orthodox too. Either way, at the end of the day, most researchers seem to feel that at least half the world has been exposed to the gospel. However, some 6,000 people groups definitely have *not*, comprising about 2 billion people — so we still have our work cut out for us.
- SINGAPORE: GATEWAY TO ASIA — Is God calling you to serve in Asia? School of Frontier Mission — YWAM’s SoFM starts 12th April 2007. Read more at
http://www.ywam.org.sg/sofm.htm
It’s a three-month lecture phase plus nine-month field internship. You will be trained to 1) build relationships through language learning, 2) become an insider in the target community, 3) thrive emotionally, spiritually and physically in the mission frontiers, 4) be an effective teamworker and 5) find a place for long term service. They offer internships at various cities in Asia and among UPGs in Indo China and East Asia. You can see cost information at
http://www.ywam.org.sg/sofm_cost.htm
This is a secondary school with YWAM. A Discipleship Training School (DTS)
http://www.ywam.org.sg/dts.htm is required before taking this course. For more info, write sofm(at)ywam(dot)org(dot)sg [As a means of preventing spam for our contributors, in the preceding email address(es), please replace (at) with @ and (dot) with .]
- GLOBAL PASSION — UK TOUR — Loren Cunningham, the founder of Youth With A Mission (YWAM), is the guest speaker at the upcoming Global Passion UK Tour. Having visited every sovereign nation on earth, Loren has gone into all the world with many seeing him as a hero to the nations. Between 4th – 15th Sept ‘onehundredhours’, with their faith, hope that rock ‘n’ roll, and Loren who has been there and done it and has the air miles, will bring their passion for the nations to seven locations in the UK and sound the call to be part of the new missions movement that is going to surge out of the UK. Admission is free with a ticket which can be booked online.
For further information and locations visit:
http://www.globalpassion.co.uk or email lorentour(at)ywamliverpool(dot)co(dot)uk [As a means of preventing spam for our contributors, in the preceding email address(es), please replace (at) with @ and (dot) with .]
- MORE ON “HOOSIERS” — I shared in a recent “BackPage” about visiting with folks in Milan, Indiana, the *real* hometown for the movie “Hoosiers” (July 14th edition). Interesting… in one follow-up email (from Lisa), I learned about the “Hoosier Gym” in Knightstown, Indiana. It was the scene of one of the staged games in the film and, in contrast to the community of Milan, the town there has apparently worked very hard to preserve the gym and showcase it. I’ll have to stop over there on my next trip through that part of the country. (Thanks Lisa!) But the *real* lesson is… we *can* work hard at protecting a legacy, if we just make it a priority.
- ESL MISSIONS OPPORTUNITY IN MEXICO — Here’s a work seeking a Christian ESL teacher for Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico. They’ll even pay a monthly salary of $1,500 – $3,750. Low-cost accommodations are available there. Requirements include: Reformed or evangelical doctrinal convictions; willingness to work with evangelicals of various backgrounds; desire to reach Mexicans of all socioeconomic levels with the gospel; experience doing evangelism that involves both verbal witness and exemplary deeds (cf. Harvie Conn, Evangelism: Doing Justice and Preaching Grace); strong interpersonal skills; strong teaching gifts; basic or better Spanish proficiency. Email C.V. to es(at)dryander(dot)com [As a means of preventing spam for our contributors, in the preceding email address(es), please replace (at) with @ and (dot) with .]
- MORE ON VOICE OVER IP — We continue to watch with interest the changes in telephone connectivity around the world. For example, Neil recently told us about Webcalldirect, which is another clone of Voipcheap etc, run by the same company. Neil wrote, “Like Coca-Cola, they produce different, apparently competing products with different names and so end up with a larger market share. All the voipcheap clones do phone-to-phone options, also free, with a 3 euro-cent connection charge. They also work direct from a webpage on any computer, or can be accessed via the program itself. Webcalldirect just does not have the computer to computer option.” (Thanks Neil!) Watch for the day we’ll no longer by PBXes for offices but instead, we’ll just connect a bunch of IP Phones via some software info-center… yet all the IP-phones will cooperate together just like the old Panasonic (and other) PBXes of the past.
- GIVE BRIGADA REASON TO CELEBRATE — Want to send a gift to an organization that rejoices with a hoop and a holler at every single check that arrives? Pick Brigada. There aren’t that many checks, so every single one counts. :-) Support a mission where your financial gift can easily be 50% of the monthly income!!! And all the while, help speed Brigada on its way to thousands of workers around the world, many of which are nationals that could never afford to subscribe to a traditional magazine or printed medium. In return, Brigada will use the money to pay for its website, pay a part-time secretary to keep up with personal emails from 10,000 subscribers, and help with some simple marketing costs. Besides, it’s a tremendous encouragement when you partner to undergird this work. To make your gift that counts, just click on “sponsor” in the top menu (to use PayPal or a credit card), or if you prefer, send a check payable to Team Expansion to: Team Expansion (Brigada secretary), 13711 Willow Reed Dr., Louisville, KY 40299. 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. In any case, thanks for considering Brigada in your estate giving, your monthly church missions fund, and/or your own personal giving for this calendar year.
- THE BACKPAGE: FOLLOW-UP “GET PEOPLE PRAYING” — In the July 21st, 2006 edition of Brigada, in the BackPage editorial, we asked the question, “HOW DO WE *REALLY* GET PEOPLE PRAYING?” We received many answers from those who shared our pain. Many fellow workers spoke of the challenge of truly communicating and *activating* a church toward active prayer. Some talked about the multiple distractions our modern world offered, while others pondered the status of prayer in the new millennium.
By far, it seems that email is the most often-used modern tool to foster greater prayer for world missions. But, according to some, it is precisely due to that very situation (its over-use) that email might be the least effective and ragged approach. Breakfast prayer meetings received much higher marks, as did home meetings around a 5′ DVD video prayer presentation. Some contributors reminded us not to fear start- ups with small numbers, citing haystack prayer meetings in history and home cell group prayer sessions in the Bible itself.
Either way, it’s a tall order to actually try to involve a local church in prayer for missions. Brian, from Toronto, wrote, “I would expect it is the rare church that builds a church community that places mission at it’s core and driving passion for all ministry. For all congregational members to buy in to that consuming vision where supporting ministries and ancillary programs always support the key vision of world mission would require absolutely committed leadership with a clear world view that sees how marriage enrichment programs or basketball teams or ushering or building maintenance can support missions.
Brian continued, “I see people getting excited about being married, or playing basketball, or sitting people in seats, or fixing lights – and who see no connection to world mission. Doug- should they see world mission behind or through their activities? Or are we asking that people care passionately about stuff that they don’t really care about.
He added, “Case in point – I’m single, I don’t have kids, I’m happy to support the SS program and think it’s a great idea, but I’m not active in making it happen, and don’t *really* care about the graduation sunday in June. It’s good, but not my thing. Isn’t that the case with many people when they think about world mission?”
Shew. Great points, Brian.
Lisa gave a somewhat more optimistic view. She wrote, citing prayer mobilization guidepoints from the very organization of which I am a part, “We have missions moments once a month to share about various missions we support. Sunday school classes adopt different missionaries to pray for them and send care packages to them. We encourage visits to our missionaries to see their work firsthand and provide encouragement.
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