Monday, November 2, 2009
A Changed Family Life as the Most Powerful Evangelistic Weapon by Mitsuo Fukuda
Put Priorities Back Into Relationships
A full-time housewife is making a cake wearing an apron in the kitchen of her own house looking out onto a large yard. Her husband is enjoying a chat with their children in the big living room. This was the ideal life presented by the media in movies, magazines, and family life TV dramas. Between the postwar period and the period of high growth, this ideal family model was based upon the image of white middle-class suburban residents in the prewar days of America. In addition, commercial messages showed married couples happily drinking coffee together, causing Japanese people to dream of a perfect family that was gradually getting richer economically as well as emotionally (Sodegawa, Hanashima and Morizumi, 2005).
That dream was largely reached until the 1970’s. Most Japanese felt that they were approaching the dream because they could move to a better house, buy electric appliances, and educate their children to have successful academic careers. Once the recession started, however, many people lost the economic foundation of that dream. In the 90’s, most families gave up chasing that dream in the economic sphere, and only a small number of the upper class were able to reach it. However, they still held on to the dream to have quality time with their family members. Being influenced by media like family life TV dramas, a new expectation emerged that the members of a family should feel affection for one another.
In the high-growth period, Husbands’ role was to work hard outside of the home and to earn wages in order to buy electrical appliances, and to be able to make a down payment for a new home, while the wives’ role was to administrate the family budget and to do their best to keep house and take care of the children. In the low-growth period, men’s employment situation became increasingly unstable and they could not expect to have an ever-increasing standard of living. Japanese people realized that their marriage relationships were dependent on the shaky foundation of their divided roles. For that reason, husbands and wives expected more than just divided roles from each other. Now they wanted quality communication. This higher expectation required the Japanese families to step beyond their traditional roles. They needed to travel together, go shopping and do leisure activities together, and enjoy hobbies, conversation and sex together. These new behaviors needed to engage their emotions and cause them to feel that their partner was “likable". If they could not have such an emotion, their relationships got worse and worse. In 1990, the divorce rate climbed rapidly. Now Japanese couples have a series of problems: divorce at a young age, domestic violence, child abuse, and withdrawal from society.
I have a pastor friend, whose name is Keishi. Keishi used to have many problems in his marriage. He often criticized his wife, Kazumi, in front of the church people, and blamed her in a loud voice. When he was a university student, he won first prize in martial arts, so his attitude toward Kazumi was like he treated the former lower ranking members of his martial arts club. He was a typical Japanese husband. He thought that he played enough of a role as a husband by working hard outside of his family setting. He never imagined that he had to do anything more in order to have quality communication with his wife. One day, Keishi’s friend, who had recently been divorced, asked Keishi if his marriage relationship was OK. The friend told him, “You are just like I was with my wife.” Keishi was shocked and began to worry about his marriage. Then he visited me with his wife to ask for help. My wife and I were doing an accountability group for marriage couples, called the “Three Dailies”, and had found it useful for our marriage to become a healthier couple. So, I recommended that Keishi and Kazumi start it.
Christian Counselor Douglas Weiss insists that many marriages have little to no structure to encourage intimacy in their relationship (Weiss, 2001). Passion in marriage is a result of making intimacy a priority for life. Passion is a dividend that comes from making consistent investments in the priorities of a marriage relationship. Many couples try to get the passion back into their relationship, when what they need to do is to get their priorities back. Once you re-establish the priority of the relationship, the passion naturally follows and grows. One way to do this is by using the "three daily exercises". Each couple agrees to perform three simple daily exercises to the best of their abilities as a couple: pray together, clearly express their feelings for one another, and encourage and praise one another. They should attempt to make this a top priority in their schedule.
Weiss likes to share an analogy of broken bone and a cast. When your bone is broken, the doctor applies a structural treatment to your structural problem in the form of cast. “The cast is a structural treatment that allows the bone to heal. The cast itself is just plastic or plaster, and it has no healing properties. But when it is applied to a broken bone to hold the bone in place, surprise; Healing can and does happen. The same thing happens when you place the priorities back into your marriage. No matter how sprained or broken a marriage is, healing can and does take place.” (Weiss, 2001: 154) Attending marriage seminars might provide a clue for their future solution, but it is not enough. A structure is needed where couples can mentally focus their attention to put right insight into right practice in their daily lives.
What happened to Keishi and Kazumi? They faithfully incorporated the three dailies into their lives. They came to understand each other better. Keishi said, “Now I can accept my own wounds and weaknesses, and realize her pains and grief. One day God told me that you were created to bear her pain together. I found my heart filled with a passion for her.” Kazumi said, “I was amazed to feel so many emotions in my daily life, as well as to find many new aspects in Keishi. The more I know him, the closer I feel to him. It is like falling in love the second time.” It was difficult work at first, but it became easier over time, and now it has become a core value for both of them. They experienced not only a restored relationship as a couple, but also as a family. Keishi said, “I woke up at midnight and looked at my wife and our four children sleeping in the same room. I thought that I could die for them. It was the natural flow of my thoughts. However, I could not have said such a thing before our marriage was restored.” Their children also found a new sense of peace in their relationship with their parents and with each other. Blessings overflowed from the restored couple to their children.
Intimate Family Model
If Japanese people really seek to have relational intimacy among family members, they need to give up on trying to be rich, and prioritize building up their spouses with prayer, sharing and accepting of emotions, and affirming their love by giving and receiving praise. When the couple becomes healthier, they can become a good team in helping each other to raise up their children. When their children observe how their parents express intimacy in their daily life, they will have dignity and hope in their own lives. They could potentially form their own families after the ones in which they were raised. If family life TV dramas and commercial messages from a coffee company could imprint the ideal family image for the Japanese, how much more impact they will have when they have a real experience of intimacy in their family life. The DNA of intimacy will be planted in the families of the younger generation.
John White, a coach for house church planters, believes that the “Three Dailies” will be used not only to heal dysfunctional families, but also to bless all the families of the earth through healed families. He insisted that marriage is the basic discipleship group as well as the first and most foundational expression of the church. He encourages many Christian couples to start the “Three Dailies” and share their story with other couples to facilitate and train them to plant a church in their own home. Couples are trained and are accountable to other couples in the small church that meets in their living room. It is called an MTG, or Marriage Transformation Group (White, 2003). This group meets weekly and functions as a kind of house church. The benefits are: 1) each couple gets healthier, 2) each couple comes to the larger house church gatherings with significant needs already met, which results in healthier and more positive meetings, and 3) there is potential for rapid multiplication of churches because it is easy to teach other couples about practicing the basic disciplines and about being church.
This kind of healed community would be highly contagious in Japan because it is what people have been consistently seeking since the time of the last world war. Healed couples will multiply by sparking other couples to do the same thing. There is no need to train teachers or to produce textbooks. When a couple experiences intimacy through doing the “Three Dailies,” it is easy for them to teach a new couple because it is simple, organic and realistic. There is potential to multiply rapidly as a grass-roots movement. Now is the time to present this “Intimate Family Model” to Japanese society with testimonies by ordinary Christian couples. I believe that this model will appeal to many young couples who have little or no hope to maintain the living standard that their parents had. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3) The economic recession is a blessing for Japanese in the spiritual realm because they have an opportunity to see the kingdom of heaven expand through intimate family relationships of Christian couples.
In order to implement this new family model into Japanese society, Christians in Japan need a huge paradigm shift. We have been trained to think that church life is made up of religious programs led by sacred clergy in a holy church building. We thought that evangelism was inviting in evangelists twice a year. However, while we were involved in the religious programs in the church buildings on Sunday as well as possibly on Wednesday night, our family life was largely neglected. The same problems in the secular world are taking place in church, too. We have been suffering with ecclesiological dualism.
Marvin R. Wilson shares many practical teachings of marriage and the family for today’s Christian church from a Hebrew perspective. He asserts “the dinner table of the home became, as it were, the altar of the Temple.” (Wilson, 1989: 215) Eating is a spiritual instrument for religious service. At the table, the family sings while the father served as priest instructing his family in the words of the Scripture. The home reflecting God’s glory through prayer and praise was the original form of Christian community. We have missed the most powerful evangelistic weapon, that is, “a changed family life.” We rarely see couples who express their love toward their spouses in an adequate way. Roger Gehring correctly insists that houses served as bases of operations and meeting places for prayer, table fellowship, and teaching in the missional outreach of Jesus’ disciples (Gehring, 2004:295; cf. White, 2008). We need to renounce this dualism and reunite church with family, in order for the home to function as a house of prayer, as a house of study and as a house of assembly where community needs can be served. May all the couples in Japan experience Jesus among them, and function as the 24/7 Embassy of the Kingdom of God, in order to see the promise fulfilled, that "All the families of the earth will be blessed through you" (Genesis. 12:3).
Applications for Japan
Several couples have already experienced a new season in their marriage relationships through their steady practice of the “three dailies” but they have yet to release the potential of this new movement. Many Japanese couples, once they start the three dailies, taste the joyful fruit of restored relationships, but then stop after a couple of months. The reasons for their leaving off are probably three dimensional. The first dimension is an incomplete motivation to start the three dailies. A healthy relationship with their spouse at all costs is not enough for them. If the couple did not agree to invest the time for this exercise as their top priority for at least 100 days, they will not reap what they sow. The second dimension is a lacking of the vision to see that all the families of the earth would be blessed through restored families. Thus, the husband or wife is not understanding the contagiousness of the simple obedience that comes from loving their neighbour, which would be their spouse in these occasions. The third dimension is an insufficient support system for these couples. They need to be part of a spiritual, extended family where they can see, experience and be encouraged by models of intimate relationships in other couples who are already doing the three dailies regularly. Then they would be able to keep on trying to do the three dailies until these skills become a permanent, positive part of their marriage.
At least three measures should be taken for future development. First, both of the spouses need to have a written agreement to start the three dailies by a certain time over the next one hundred days. If they have an alternative timeframe, then that would be helpful, too. Secondly, the couple should be challenged to pray not only for their relationship but also their entire family. To pray in this way would help them to remind them that others need to be saved also. If the couple gets to know Jesus through seeing the intimate relationships of other couples, it would be easier for them to reproduce the process. They could do the same thing for other couples as they have learned from their mentors. Thirdly, accountability should be employed. The couple should decide together, and write down who their accountability person would be, how they will meet, making phones call and timing, etc. For example, if they agree together to implement an outside source of accountability if they miss more than three days of the three daily exercises, it would increase their motivation.
A longer version of this paper will be published by William Carey Library in early 2010 as a chapter A longer version of this paper will be published by William Carey Library in early 2010 as a chapter for the latest volume in the Buddhist World series, which includes Sharing Jesus in the Buddhist World, Sharing Jesus Holistically with the Buddhist World, Sharing Jesus Effectively in the Buddhist World and Communicating Christ in the Buddhist World (cf. http://missionbooks.org/williamcareylibrary/home.php?cat=38).
Bibliographic List
Gehring, W. Roger House Church and Mission: The Importance of Household Structures in Early Christianity, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004.
Nishi, Fumihiko & Mari Kan, “Oya to Doukyo no Jyakunen Mikon-sha no Saikin no Jyokyo sono-1 (The Recent State of the Young Unmarried Persons Living with their Parents, No.1)” in Tokei (Statistics) August, 2005 ed. Nihon Tokei Kyokai (Japan Statistical Association: Tokyo, Japan, 2005, http://www.stat.go.jp/training/2kenkyu/zuhyou/parasit1.pdf
The Institute of Statistical Mathematics Kokumin-sei no Kenkyu: Dai 11-ji Zenkoku Chosa (The Research of National Character, 11th National Investigation), Tokyo, Japan, 2004.
Toshihiro Mori “Kakusa-Shakai to Koukousei no Genjyo (The Gap-Widening Society and the State of High School Students)” in Kakusa-Shakai to Wakamono-no Mirai (The Gap-Widening Society and the Future of the Young Generation, ed., Zenkoku-Minshushugi-Kyoiku-Kenkyukai, Tokyo, Japan: Doji-sha, 2007.
Reich, Robert B. The Future of Success: Working and Living in the New Economy, New York, NY: Alfred A Knopf, 2000.
Sodegawa, Yoshiyuki, Yukari Hanashima, Masahiro Morizumi, Dankai to Dankai Junior no Kazokugaku: Heisei Kakudai Kazoku (Family Sociology for the Baby Boomers and Baby Boom Echo: The Extended Family in Heisei Era, Tokyo, Japan: Dentsu, 2005.
Weiss, Douglas Intimacy: A 100-Day Guide to Better Relationships, Lake Mary, FL: Siloam Press, 2001.
White, John, “A New Kind of LTG,” An e-mail letter in a personal E-List, named “House Church Coach”, April 30th, 2003.
White, John, “Gehring: Church Centered in the Home,” LK10.com, 2008 http://lk10.com/practices-and-patterns/simple-church/gehring--church-centered-in-the-home.html
Wilson, Marvin R. Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith, Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1989.
Yamada, Masahiro Meiso-suru Kazoku: Sengo Kazoku Model no Keisei to Kaitai (Runaway Family : Declining of Postwar Family Model in Japan, Tokyo, Japan: Yuhikaku, 2005.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Brief report of House Churches Movement in Myanmar.
I went to New Zealand in 2003 and became friend with pastor Tony Collis and his wife Lynette.He came to Myanmar (4) times in 2005, introduced and shared us the ministry of Micro Churches Movement.
Pastor Tony conducted the seminars in 4 different cities in Myanmar in 2005.We brcame understand the differences of Elephant church and Rabbit church.Our spiritual eyes became open to see and to know the streadgies of planting Micro churches and Micro Businesses,
Pastor Tony keep and touch with us by equipping and supporting to plant the micro churches and micro businesses in the different regions in Myanmar. This, is great privilege for our people to be saved.
After first seminar in early 2005 we started planting micro churches.
Month / Year No of Micro Churches No of Believers
March 2005 20 63
Dec 2005 152 751
Jan 2006 181 895
Sept 2006 503 2,507
Jan 2007 1,217 5,735
Dec 2007 3,700 13,300
Jan 2008 3,840 13,860
Oct 2008 3,953 13,922
Jan 2009 5,189 20,237
June 2009 6,119 23,159
Due to Nagis cyclone on 2nd May 2008, atleast 400 micro churches and 1,600 believers were lost in the delta region, Myanmar.
We can equip,train and produce micro church leaders in the different places in Myanmar.We also train the new believers to become the spiritual mature christians and to be good followers of Jesus Christ.We can create micro businesses to support their local house churches to grow more leaders,more micro churches and more new believers. Praise God for extending and expanding His Kingdom in Myanmar by the streadgies of House church Movement
The Indispensable Key to the Unfinished Task - Elizabeth Adleta
Ethnê is the Greek word Jesus used for “nation”—a word which means tribe, ethnic group or people. Our world today has 6.4 billion individuals living in 234 geo-political nations but over 16,000 ethnê, or people groups, by country. Of those ethnê, more than 6,000 groups remain least-reached. This simply means they are a people group lacking an indigenous community of believing Christians with adequate numbers and resources to evangelize their own people group. Studies have revealed that until a group has greater than 2% evangelical Christians, it simply does not have enough critical mass to reach its own group with the gospel. This means 1 in 4 people still remain without reasonable access to the gospel—the Forgotten One Fourth World. The Ethnê Movement is simply the Body of Christ together--individuals, churches and agencies--peoples glorifying God among all peoples, Ethnê to Ethnê, this generation!
Why are these groups still “least-reached” after so many years of prayer and missionary effort? Significant barriers exist which keep these groups bound in the darkness of tribalism, Hinduism, atheism, Islam, Buddhism, shamanism, the occult, and other spiritual strongholds. Geographic barriers remain which limit access to these groups. The peoples may live in remote regions as yet inaccessible to most of the outside world. The climate of their region may be harsh and inhospitable, making access difficult. They may be nomadic or semi-nomadic, moving periodically to follow their herds or available water; reaching these groups requires specialized strategies which are adapted to this continual movement.
There are linguistic barriers which keep the gospel from these 6,600+ groups. Over 2,500 languages remain without Scripture. Many languages used are unwritten and some peoples are illiterate or semi-literate; oral means of communicating the gospel must be developed and employed for them to receive an adequate presentation of the good news so that they can understand and respond. In some areas, the language is so permeated with opposing religious understandings that the resulting terminology confusion is itself a significant barrier to the gospel.
Political barriers exist in many parts of the world which restrict access by believers to the people groups living within. Evangelism may be forbidden, the practice of Christianity illegal, or the people may live in hostile environments which are experiencing war or terrorism which hinders the practice and transmission of the Christian faith.
Beyond politics, linguistics and geography though, there are often significant social and cultural barriers to the gospel which prevent the spread of Christianity within groups. Those practicing Christianity may be isolated or rejected altogether from the society. Persecution of Christians makes conversion and the practice of Christianity exact a high price from its followers. Change of any sort may be viewed with skepticism and fear. Often Christianity has come in such a foreign seeming package that it is not seen as relevant or appropriate.
There is yet one other key reason why many groups remain “least-reached”—they may simply be unrecognized as needing witness. Believers may be living nearby but simply not “see” the peoples and opportunities to share the good news may be ignored or neglected. Some groups are resented or even hated by the very Christians who should be sharing the message. At times, the people groups have come as refugees, immigrants, asylum-seekers, who compete for limited resources and jobs with resident believers. The people groups may be perceived as second class or misfits by believers; in these cases, the prejudice of believers creates huge barriers to the gospel. Some people groups are small in size and simply not considered “worth the effort”. Or, the people group may isolate itself in attempts to preserve its language and culture in a foreign setting—and this very isolation itself is the barrier to receiving God’s message of love and forgiveness.
Where are these groups located? Over 600 least-reached people groups live in South Pacific and Southeast Asia; many are either Muslim or Buddhist in this region. Every year just following the Global Day of Prayer on Pentecost Sunday in May, the Ethnê HeLPS Initiative (Harvest-Linked Prayer Strategies) begins praying for the least-reached peoples of this region, moving then east to west, region by region. Outreaches and prayer journeys focused on the least-reached are encouraged for each region for the 90 days during & immediately following the month of global prayer. Over 3.5 million believers around the world pray along with this initiative. In Northeast Asia, nearly 500 groups remain, many of which are found in China; prayer for the groups of this region comes in July each year. The Chinese Church is actively working to bring the gospel to the groups in their own nation, but their effectiveness may be limited by the resentment these groups may hold against Chinese who are viewed as oppressors. In South Asia, more than 100 people groups follow a form of Buddhism and there have been wholesale conversions to Buddhism from Hinduism by Dalit groups seeking to escape the repression of their caste system. The Church of South India still struggles to address these issues and reach across the lines of caste to incarnate the message of Jesus Christ to peoples of every group. August is the month for prayer for these groups. In fact, the largest single block of least-reached peoples are the Hindu groups of South Asia—over 2,000 of them. The good news is that church planting movements are growing in many areas of this region and beginning to penetrate some of these groups, but a mammoth task remains here and militant Hindus strongly oppose and persecute Christians in many areas. September brings the HeLPS focus to this region’s Hindu peoples. Over 500 Muslim groups also live in South Asia; because of the threat of terrorism and political strife, bringing the gospel to the Muslim groups is quite a challenge so the prayer in October for these groups is vital. Central Asia is home to nearly 800 people groups with limited access to the gospel. Political instability and repressive governments hinder the spread of Christianity in this region but the annual prayer every November is making a difference. Over 350 groups live in the Middle East and North Africa—the epicenter of political instability in the world and home to many of Christianity’s competitors. As we celebrate the birth of Christ in this region every December, we also remember to pray for these remaining least-reached people of this region. Eastern and Southern Africa still hosts over 350 people groups with little access to the gospel. And we begin the new year in January directing our prayers to the Lord’s Throne for these groups. Over four hundred fifty groups live in West and Central Africa; February is the month of prayer for this region’s groups. Nearly 200 peoples find their home in Eastern Europe and Eurasia, including the former Soviet Union and another 200 now live in Western Europe. March brings our prayer to Eastern Europe and Eurasia’s groups followed in April by prayer for the groups in Western Europe. Many of these groups are “new faces” to the region, having immigrated fleeing war or famine or seeking jobs or education. Over 200 groups still live in the Americas and Caribbean—and probably over another 200 uncounted groups still live along the Amazon River alone in Brazil. These hidden tribes migrate continually and avoid contact with the outside world as much as possible. Little is known about them except that they do exist. A new partnership is exclusively focusing on learning about them and developing effective ways to reach them with God’s love. We move toward the Global Day of Prayer each year by concluding the year of prayer for these least-reached peoples and preparing our hearts to begin the cycle once again, trusting that every prayer is significant and is making a difference to bring His Light to the Forgotten One Fourth World!
Prayer is certainly one way that you too can become involved in changing this neglected segment of our world today. Prayer changes things! We know that Jesus observed that the harvest fields were already white for harvest; the problem was the laborers were few. His solution? Ask the Lord of the Harvest to thrust forth workers. [Luke 10:2]
Prayer ushers us into God’s presence as we turn our faces and hearts to seek Him. As Isaiah saw the Lord, high and lifted up on His Throne, he realized his own sinfulness and the sinfulness of his people which brought him to a place of confession and repentance. God’s response was to cleanse his lips. Prayer sensitizes us to our own neediness and places us in a position to confess and receive forgiveness from the Lord equipping us to be more effective in prayer and ministry. [Isaiah 6]
When Isaiah’s lips were cleansed, then he heard the Lord speaking, “Who shall I send and who will go for us?” Intimacy with God opens our ears to hear His heart. As we delight ourselves in Him, His desires become our desires. Prayer further reveals God’s plans so we can cooperate with them.
Prayer invites God’s presence and participation in the process. God has chosen to move His hand in response to believing prayer. He has delegated to us as His children authority to come into His presence and ask. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross rent the veil and opened the way into the Holy of holies that we might come with full assurance of faith and bring our requests to Him.
Prayer removes hindrances to the gospel and prepares the hearts of unbelievers to hear and respond. The Word tells us that Satan has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel apart from the revelation of the Holy Spirit. As we pray, the Holy Spirit moves to warm the hearts of those to whom we speak, preparing the way for them to understand and receive Jesus as their Savior and Lord.
Prayer releases resources for the task. An old saying goes, “what is God’s will is God’s bill.” God has promised to meet all our needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Surely as we trust in Him and work to accomplish His purposes in the earth, we will surely find Him graciously providing all that is necessary to do just that.
Nehemiah was on mission with the Lord in rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem. He encountered severe opposition all along the way. His response was to pray, over and over again. When the attacks came, Nehemiah prayed. Prayer ensures protection for the workers and the work. As we cry out to the Lord when the enemy comes in like a flood, we raise up the standard of the blood of Jesus and the enemy is routed.
Prayer releases spiritual power to fulfill the call of God. Jesus specifically instructed His disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they were endued with power from on High. The Holy Spirit comes to give us power to BE His witnesses to the ends of the earth. He anoints us with the supernatural ability to know what to do and how to get there as He directs us.
Prayer exercises divine authority to change situations and people. Whatever the challenge that stands in the way of the gospel of Jesus Christ, nothing is any match for His authority and power when we pray in His will. Jesus assured His disciples that all authority in heaven and on earth was His. The basis of His command to go into all the earth to preach the gospel, baptize, and make disciples was predicated on this authority and its delegation to His disciples. We also know from scripture that Jesus holds the keys of David to open the door that no man can shut and to shut the door that no man can open. Matthew 18 also tells us that what we bind in heaven will be bound on earth and what we loose in heaven will be loosed on earth. As we pray, situations and people are changed by His power.
We see in Ephesians 6 that we are clothed in heavenly armor for the battle and prayer IS that battle and prayer maintains the victory. [Ephesians 6]
How then can we specifically pray for these least-reached peoples of the Forgotten One Fourth World?
1. Pray that Jesus thrusts forth more than enough workers to every place where they are needed and that they are equipped to BE His witnesses, living the message of good news. [John 4:35]
2. Pray that believers will see those whose hearts are already prepared by the Holy Spirit and that they will share the gospel with them in a way that they can understand and receive. [Luke 10:2]
3. Pray that believers work together in the unity of the Spirit keeping the bond of peace, so that the world recognizes that our message is true. [1 Cor. 3:9]
4. Pray that God meets the needs of His workers according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus so that they have seed for the sower and bread for the eater. [2 Cor. 9:8-11]
5. Pray that much fruit that remains abounds for His glory throughout every people group globally. [Matt. 4:20]
What else could be done? Join the Ethnê Movement. Visit www.ethne.net for further updates and information and to connect with the active strategy groups: prayer, holistic gospel movements, crisis response, member care, worker mobilization and training, ethno-arts, information/research, and youth. You may email prayer@ethne.net with questions or for more information. Encourage others to join you in praying and reaching out to groups near you and around the world. Subscribe to the monthly Global Prayer Digest for regular prayer points and daily devotions; visit www.global-prayer-digest.org to read their items online or to subscribe to a text copy delivered daily to your email box. Research the groups beginning with Joshua Project www.joshuaproject.net/ethne.php and use their new prayer cards in 6 languages to pray regularly and to mobilize others to pray. Visit www.prayerguard.net/ethne for 3-minute scripture-based prayers for specific least-reached people groups. Be a promoter of prayer for these groups with Etnopedia—an outstanding website providing people group profiles in 12 different languages www.etnopedia.org. Help Etnopedia provide these profiles in your own language by offering to translate; information is available on their website on how to volunteer. Give finances to support work among the least-reached peoples. Take a prayer journey or short term missions trip to work among these groups. Better yet, prepare and go as a full time worker. Mission to Unreached Peoples is one of the many excellent agencies that focuses exclusively on these least-reached peoples using cutting edge, culturally appropriate strategies and can help take you from home base to the field; visit www.mup.org to learn more.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)