- WHAT DO YOU THINK OF POLYGAMY?
- MOBILE VERSION OF POWEROFCONNECTING
- NEW MISSIONS TEXTBOOK TEACHES PROPER PERSPECTIVE ON MUSLIMS
- HELP IN UNDERSTANDING INSURANCE
- GET GLOBAL INTEL REPORTS FOR FREE VIA “STRATFOR”
- OUTREACH LITERATURE
- IMPROVE YOUR CHURCH WEBSITE
- TRAIN AS A STRATEGY COORDINATOR
- AMAZING FEELING OF MOTIVATION
- HELP US FINISH STRONG?
- THE BACKPAGE: LIFE IMPROVED IN 2007; TAKE SPAM FOR INSTANCE
- WHAT DO YOU THINK OF POLYGAMY? — OK… remember my two sons? They’re at it again. Today at lunch they started asking me about polygamy. Well I knew to tell them that elders and deacons should just have one wife. But what do I tell them — scripturally — about marriages in countries that *allow* polygamy legally? I know it’s a problem, when missionaries confront new cultures where polygamy is dominant. Christianity arrives, the missionaries teach monogamy, and — what does that say to existing believers who are already married to 4 wives? If you have an answer… or a good scriptural response (especially one in the New Testament), please browse to
http://brigada.org/brigade/?p=55
and click on “comments” at the bottom. Thanks for any help you can give.
- MOBILE VERSION OF POWEROFCONNECTING — On the go? Grab some info on Partnership!” visionSynergy has created a mobile (or cell phone) companion to its PowerofConnecting website, which is viewed by people from over 145 countries. See it at
http://www.powerofconnecting.mobi
To see what it looks like, use Testiphone’s simulator at…
http://www.testiphone.com/?scroll=off&url=http://www.powerofconnecting.mobi/
View the growing number of iPhone-optimized mobile sites at the Religion section of AppsSafari, at
http://www.appsafari.com/category/religion/
PowerofConnecting’s main site, a trove of mission partnership and networking resources and advice, is at
http://www.powerofconnecting.net
(Thanks Dave!)
- NEW MISSIONS TEXTBOOK TEACHES PROPER PERSPECTIVE ON MUSLIMS — Charles Gailey and Charles Gailey have just released their new work, “Discovering Missions,” an introductory textbook on world evangelism. The book examines the biblical foundations for global outreach, outlines the history of world evangelism, and has chapters on the globalization of the church, the implications of culture, the importance of language in gospel communication, short-term missions, the missionary call, mobilizing the local church and a peek at some future trends.
Institutions wanting to look at “Discovering Missions” as a possible textbook may order a copy for half price by writing on institutional letterhead to: Teresa Eller, 2923 Troost Ave., Kansas City, MO, USA 64109, or by faxing a request to: 816-531-0923. Upon adoption as a text, the charge will be canceled. The book is also available at discount prices on such sites as Amazon.com.
One of the co-authors, Howard Culbertson, is putting together a CD of teaching/learning resources. Professors that adopt the textbook can get that CD free by contacting the author through his website:
- HELP IN UNDERSTANDING INSURANCE — If you need help in sorting through international health insurance visit
and click on “Tips for Understanding International Health Insurance.” You will find over 150 articles dealing with international health insurance. Also, if you want a short understanding of Medicare coverage browse
http://www.gninsurance.com/medicare.asp
or email jeff(at)gninsurance
(dot)com or call 480/813-9100. [As a means of preventing spam for our contributors, in the preceding email address(es), please replace (at) with @ and (dot) with . then reassemble the address onto one line.] Call toll free in the USA, 866/636-9100. Visit
- GET GLOBAL INTEL REPORTS FOR FREE VIA “STRATFOR” — Have you tried it? Our Global Security Coordinator and our New Fields guy both glean resources from it regularly. Browse to:
Funny… They’ve been using it for years, but it wasn’t until a friend reminded me of it that I realized we haven’t mentioned it in Brigada Today for quite some time. (Thanks Steve!!!) Give it a try; if you want to stay up to date about how global politics are affecting the country where *you* work, odds are, you’ll love Stratfor.
- OUTREACH LITERATURE — SOON Ministries has spare capacity to add any of your ministry’s not-yet-Christian contacts (e.g. BCC or radio ministry inquirers) to their mailing list of their easy-English outreach paper SOON or their similar papers in African French, Swahili and Fulani dialects. Larger quantities of these papers are available to national workers and missionaries for outreach:
http://guide.gospelcom.net/resources/free-papers.php
(Thanks Tony!)
- IMPROVE YOUR CHURCH WEBSITE — Internet Evangelism Day’s self- assessment tool for church websites now provides a free 15-page evaluation report that can transform the effectiveness of your site:
http://ied.gospelcom.net/church-site-design.php
(Thanks for that referral too, Tony!)
- TRAIN AS A STRATEGY COORDINATOR — If you intend to design platforms for ministry and launch new outreaches among unreached peoples, the upcoming Strategic Coordinator Seminar to be held in Perth, Australia, 18th February to 7th March 2008. Coming from Hong Kong are guest speakers who will share from their experiences as Strategic Coordinators. Seasoned trainers, they have many stories of how God has used them – and others – as facilitators for evangelism, church planting and community transformation. This one is shaping up to be a challenging and exciting time. So don’t delay. Apply now before time runs out. Download an application here:
http://www.ywamperth.org.au/applications/sc.pdf
Or email the Registrar to have an application sent to you:
info(at)ywamperth
(dot)org(dot)au [As a means of preventing spam for our contributors, in the preceding email address(es), please replace (at) with @ and (dot) with . and reassemble the address onto one line.]
- AMAZING FEELING OF MOTIVATION — I’ll have to admit… it’s an amazing feeling of encouragement and motivation when Brigada receives gifts such as a $500 push from a member of Arab World Ministries. Isn’t it kind of ironic that the people who work in some of the toughest places on earth end up with some of the least kudos, partly because they can’t even tell people about their progress? Think about it. When they start being really successful, that’s when they could get in the biggest trouble! So here’s a big prayer of thanks for *all* those who are working in the dry places on earth… in the spiritually parched portions of the planet. Please take this opportunity, on behalf of *all* of them, to offer up a prayer of thanks for those who labor in Jesus- darkness, with hopes of being able to live as a still small voice on behalf of a loving savior.
Thanks, too, to Peninsula Bible Church in Cupertino, California! $200 will go a *long* way… a *very* long way, in fact, toward helping us finish 2007 strong! Thank you!!!
- HELP US FINISH STRONG? — The gifts above, added to last edition’s total of $9817.90, bring our 2007 total to $10,517.90. That’s *tremendous*, but is there anyone out there that could help us even try to match 2006’s outcome of $15,096 ? Would you ask your church, group, family, or your own bank account to chip in, if not for you, then for someone overseas who can’t? If so, thanks!!! Just click on the “Sponsor/Donate” page. Really, we only need 92 more people, groups, or churches. Would you be one of those 92??? We have 6 more days left, counting today. If you *can’t* give, would you be willing to ask someone who might? We really only need *one* person to give $1000. Would you be willing to be that one person? As we say above, we’ve made progress, but still need the following gifts to meet our needs…
1 of 1 more gift of $1000
2 of 5 more gifts of $500
8 of 250 more gifts of $250
5 of 13 more gifts of $100
20 of 27 more gifts of $50
56 of 70 more gifts of $25You can pull the money from your PayPal account or from any major 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. (Team Expansion is a 501(c)3 incorporation so for USA citizens, your checks made out to Team Expansion are tax-deductible.) 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. And thank you in advance for helping.
- THE BACKPAGE: LIFE IMPROVED IN 2007; TAKE SPAM FOR INSTANCE — Throughout the years, we’ve written quite a lot about spam here in Brigada. (If you’ve been visiting your aunt on Mars for the past 15 years, we’re using the word, “spam”, to describe unsolicited email messages — junk email.) Funny that after all these years, our office finally switched in 2007 to software that allows us to use Outlook. For the first time in my life, I’m finally seeing what Outlook can *do*! It has automatically classified 754 messages as spam in just the past few days. That doesn’t even count the spam that was caught before that by our office’s server-side spam-catcher. Shew.
So here’s what I’m learning about spam:
*** Ask your office leadership to install a server-side spam removal tool. Your ISP might be able to give you advice about how to install that. They might even do it *for* you for a small fee of $50 or so. Well worth it.*** Try to position yourself to use Outlook. If possible, upgrade to Outlook 2007. I’m convinced its spam removal tools are the best in the industry now.
*** Configure your email client *not* to download images in emails. Sure you’ll miss all the glitz and glamour. But half of those images are designed to be “bugs” to see if you really open your mail, so the address is verified. Besides, do you *really* want to see those Victora Secret ads? (Get Outlook.)
*** Configure your email client to ask you before it sends a receipt saying you opened the email. If it’s a personal friend, you can click ‘yes’. If it’s a spammer, you don’t want to say yes. (Get Outlook.)
*** Whenever a piece of spam *does* get through the gate, tell your email client that it’s spam. With Outlook, that keystroke might be Alt-A|J|B. That stands for clicking “Actions” in the top-line menu, then “Junk email”, “Add Sender to Blocked Sender’s list”. (Get Outlook.)
*** Check your Junk email folder sometimes. (Yawn. :-) )
*** Remind your friends that if they send you too many forwarded messages about someone stealing kidneys from a man in an iced bathtub in Portland, you might someday become careless and accidentally hit Alt- A|J|B on one of their emails. (Oops! :-) ) In other words, please be judicious about what you forward. And please *do* ask your friends before you subscribe them to newsletters or email lists. Otherwise, we all become part of the spam problem.
So with Outlook, suddenly, spam just isn’t that big of a deal to me any more. I used to get 100 or 200 messages a day. Now, 100-150 of those are going in my junk mail folder. Hurray!!!!!!!!!!!!! Life *has* gotten better in 2007!
Has life improved for *you* in 2007? If so, tell us how. Just log on at:
http://brigada.org/brigade/?p=54
to tell your story about how life improved in 2007… or about your battle (hopefully victory?) against spam. Thanks!
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