On the surface, its connection to the word mission is obvious. But does a desire to share one’s faith encapsulate the meaning of the word? Trevin Wax addresses this issue in a helpful article entitled “Missional—The New Buzzword.”
One of the problems with the term is its varied usage. The term missional has become a buzzword of the Emerging Church and has taken on a certain meaning. Many from the more traditional stripe, recognizing it as a good word, have also started using it, but often in a different way. Trevin explains, “For many traditional SBC leaders, the term is synonymous with the idea of being ‘missions-minded’ or ‘evangelistic.’”
All 19 of the remaining South Korean hostages are now free. The Taliban released 12 hostages on Wednesday and the other 7 on Thursday. Now the discussion turns toward the issue of whether foreign missionary work should be allowed in countries like Afghanistan where the risks are great.
Protestant organizations in South Korea have said they will respect the new law banning missionary activities in Afghanistan after voicing appreciation for the government’s effort in freeing the Christian volunteers.
Church by the Glades in Coral Springs, FL is giving away free $15 iTunes gift cards to every new visitor in hopes of drawing more people in to hear the Bible. There’s even a chance to win a free iPhone.
Ministries that target men by appealing to their supposed manliness are popping up all over the place these days (e.g., Church for Men, GodMen, etc.). More and more people think that the way to reach men is by catering to their love for “manly” stuff like sports and outdoor activities.
Fifty-one-year-old Ed Trainer, who runs International Fishing Ministries, thinks church is boring and better suited for women.
Franklin Graham (Wikipedia) preached to more than 231,000 Ukrainians at a recent event in Ukraine. His preaching was accompanied by a 4000-member choir. Nearly 6,700 responded publicly to the gospel call.
Over three days, the Graham fest drew 124,586 to the Olympic Stadium in the country’s capital Kiev, and another 107,000 people via live satellite broadcast in 104 additional venues across Ukraine.
On the festival’s second night, more than 40,000 people stood in the rain and 6,694 people responded to the invitation to follow Jesus Christ by the end of the weekend, according to the festival’s report.
“For years, Samaritan’s Purse has used the Ukrainian Antonov airplane to transport hundreds of thousands of our Operation Christmas Child shoe box gifts,” said Franklin Graham, president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
“Now I am here in your country, not because of the Antonov, but because of the Gospel—the good news that you can have spiritual freedom found in Jesus Christ,” Graham said.
According to the Christian Post, the American Baptists are seeking to jumpstart their struggling association with a call to a “‘radical new form’ of ministry.”
The American BaptistAssociation has been through hard times lately, wrestling with doctrinal, practical, and spiritual issues. The whole southwestern constituency split from the Association a year ago.
A. Roy Medley, the general secretary of the Association, declared the need for a “righteous reboot” within the Association, beginning with the launch of New Life 2010. New Life 2010 is a missions project, seeking to produce 1,000,010 new Christians and 1,010 new churches by 2010.
We must re-imagine the church as ever-multiplying clusters of believers, each one shaped by its mission context, coming together with an intense sense of call to mission in worship style, in elements of ministry, and in the call to ministry in the community.
It seems that behind all the dramatic speech lies not a call to “reimagining” or “radical new forms of ministry,” but a call to renewed dedication to the pursuit of Christ and the furthering of His gospel.
Truthfully, Christianity does not need an exterior makeover. It needs internal, spiritual revival.
The Christian Post reports that the dwindling Church of England is using a new book and outreach effort, which centers on The Simpsons TV show, to reach people with the Christian message.
Mixing It Up with the “Simpsons,” a book to be released by the Church of England’s publishing company, will be sent to youth advisers in every diocese across the country next week, the Sunday Telegraph reported, with the hope of showing how Christianity is relevant to life today through issues tackled in the popular U.S. TV cartoon series. Clergy will be urged to show episodes of “The Simpsons” that focus on Christian themes such as love and punishment.
The book’s author, Owen Smith, is a youth worker in the Kent Diocese of Rochester and insists the cartoon series is filled with biblical references. He looks to illustrate this in the book with quote comparisons.
Smith told the Sunday Telegraph: “’The Simpsons’ is hugely moral, with many episodes dealing with issues and dilemmas faced by young people. The willingness of the show’s writers to deal with questions of both morality and spirituality makes the program an ideal tool.”
“The first million was hard,” said Elder Dieter Uchtdorf, a member of the church’s Quorum of Twelve Apostles who sits on the church’s missionary executive committee. “The second million will be easy. [The number of missionaries] will grow and it will grow fast.”
Mormon founder Joseph Smith believed he had a mandate to “proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people.” Shortly after establishing the church with six people, Smith sent his younger brother, Samuel Smith, to neighboring towns with a knapsack full of copies of the Book of Mormon, the faith’s unique scripture.
Now scores of young men and women, older single women and retired couples serve the church as full-time missionaries for 18 months to two years. They are assigned in pairs to proselytize, perform humanitarian service, help people trace their genealogy or anything else church leaders ask them to do. They pay about $400 per month for the privilege; those who cannot afford it can be subsidized by the church.
“They face rejection and sometimes verbal abuse, but they soldier on,” Ballard said. “It’s a marvelous thing what these young men and women and couples do.”
Someone pointed me to a neat story about how God used a missionary couple to reach hundreds of people who lived in a garbage dump in a Muslim country.
A missionary couple had been laboring in a certain Muslim country that I will not name for purposes of protection. They had become terribly discouraged in their attempts to share the gospel with the Muslims there, and they were about to quit and go home. However, they first decided to take a few days to fast and pray, asking the Lord for direction and guidance.
To their surprise, during this period of seeking, the Lord gave them this simple instruction, “Go to the garbage dump people.” The garbage dump people lived on the outskirts of this large Muslim city, the last people group anyone would normally ever want to visit. There are thousands of people there who literally live in the garbage dump.
. . .
They soon began an outreach to the garbage dump people. God’s anointing was obviously on the effort because after only a short time they had 30-40 people gathering around them for a Bible study in the garbage dump. In less than a year, 800-900 people were gathering every time the missionaries went in to preach and teach, which was three times a week.
First, the convicting words of James 2:1–5 come to mind:
2:1 My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. 2 For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, 3 and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” 4 have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? 5 Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? 7 Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?
Second, what a beautiful picture of the condescension of Jesus, who, “though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” —2 Corinthians 8:9 (cf. Phil 2:6ff)
Mission Network News reports that in just ten days 14,000 from the Idoma people group in Nigeria turned to Christ in response to the JESUS film.
A large people group in Nigeria now has a Christian leader. Brett, from JESUS Film Project, traveled to Nigeria in April where they showed the Idoma people group the JESUS Film. There are approximately 1-million Idoma people.
. . .
And after I shared Christ with him, the chief asked for me to write down the prayer, how to pray to receive Christ. The pastors we were working with were very ecstatic. They had told me that meant that he wanted to go pray to receive Christ, kind of in private,” said Brett. They later got word that he has accepted Christ.
. . .
Besides the chief, 14,000 people accepted Christ in just ten days.
On the surface, its connection to the word mission is obvious. But does a desire to share one’s faith encapsulate the meaning of the word? Trevin Wax addresses this issue in a helpful article entitled “Missional—The New Buzzword.”
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All 19 of the remaining South Korean hostages are now free. The Taliban released 12 hostages on Wednesday and the other 7 on Thursday. Now the discussion turns toward the issue of whether foreign missionary work should be allowed in countries like Afghanistan where the risks are great.
Church by the Glades
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