September 2006

September 2, 2006

How much can change in 10 years?

How much can change in 10 years? Consider, on January 1, 1990: Russia was still the Soviet Union, but Russian troops had just withdrawn from Afghanistan. The wall between West and East Berlin had just fallen, but Germany has not yet reunified. Hong Kong still belongs to Great Britain. Protests against apartheid will result in its end this year. The first Gulf War in Iraq had not yet happened. The World Trade Organization has not yet been created. No one shopped on the World Wide Web, bought airline tickets on the Web, read the news on the Web, arranged dates [...]

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September 1, 2006

What will it take to make a difference?

You can buy this article for your Kindle for $0.99. Here is the problem: In 1900, 879 million people (56% of the world’s population of 1.6 billion) had never heard of Christ, Christianity or the Gospel. They were unevangelized. They could not get access to the Gospel very easily. They had no churches, no preachers, no evangelists, no Scriptures, no books and so on. What they did have: 15,000 cross-cultural missionaries (of all traditions) working among them. One hundred years later, in 2000, the number of unevangelized people had grown to 1.6 billion—26% of the world’s 6 billion. Just 10,000 [...]

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September 1, 2006

How to find missionary candidates

Larger agencies have strong recruitment arms, but many smaller ones agencies I’ve talked to tend to take whoever they can get. I’m not sure this is a wise course of action, but some agencies I have met don’t understand how to properly recruit or screen for candidates. This is a short glimpse into a process that may help you. Describe the ideal candidate The first step is to describe the kind of candidate that you are looking for. Consider: Physical characteristics. For the fields you are ministering in, what is an appropriate age? Gender? Should they be married or unmarried? [...]

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September 1, 2006

The importance of sharing

There is an old parable which most people involved in missionary training have either heard or told at some point. It is the parable of the blind men and the elephant. A group of blind men stand around an elephant, each declaring what the elephant is like based on what part of the elephant they are touching. An elephant, for example, is like a wall (touching his side), or a tree trunk (the leg), or a hose (the trunk), or a fan (the ear). Each of them understands a little but no one has the whole picture. A common parable, [...]

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