December 2009

December 20, 2009

1 simple, quick way to head toward a vision for your life

We wrote before about 7 key ways to find a vision for your life. Here’s a simple way to get some forward motion. First, figure out your SHAPE. I first heard the SHAPE acronym from Rick Warren’s ubiquitous Purpose Driven Life. It stands for: S)piritual giftings, H)eart/passion, A)bilities, P)ersonality, and E)xperiences. Grab a piece of paper, and make some simple lists under each category that help you figure out your SHAPE (or, read the book). Second, read what God commands us to do for non-believers in the Bible. Read about care for widows, orphans, the oppressed, etc. Use a search [...]

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December 20, 2009

Wearing the Muslim veil in the West

In “Wearing the Muslim veil in America: what it’s like” (Christian Science Monitor, http://bit.ly/6KVV6Y), Husna Haq writes about her experiences wearing the hijab. She leads with a poignant story of how she wordlessly sat down next to an elderly female Asian Christian, who reacted fearfully and quickly moved away. Note the 7 million Muslims in America: are we befriending them and reaching out to them as a Genesis 12 blessing, or are we fearfully isolating ourselves from them? In a related article, “The Muslim veil: modesty has its own style” (Christian Science Monitor, http://bit.ly/8yf2RK), Carol Huang explores the world of [...]

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December 19, 2009

Statistics of Suffering

The following are statistics of suffering from the new book, “The Poor Will Be Glad” by Peter Greer and Phil Smith: 1.    Hunger: Approximately 850 million people go to bed hungry every night and search for creative ways to ignore their discomfort. [page 25] 2.    Child Mortality: Worldwide, eleven million children die every year before reaching their fifth birthday. That translates to thirty thousand children who die each day from hunger and preventable disease ― one child every three seconds.   [page 25] 3.    Drinking Water: Twenty percent of the world has no access to clean water. Millions more walk long distances to carry [...]

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December 18, 2009

Resilient Communities: transforming the world step-by-step

Resilient Communities are one of the goals of mission. No, you won’t find the phrase “resilient community” in the Bible – but we know that God cares about communities, cities, and peoples just as much as he cares about individuals. So we know that Jesus came to forgive, rescue and heal the lost as well as to destroy the works of the devil: He does this both for individuals and for groups of individuals. A standard part of missiology is: the world was broken into nations at Babel, and now God has been penetrating each individual nation with the Good [...]

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December 16, 2009

What’s in your Kindle?

Justin Long (strategicnetwork.org): Vocations and what to do with them: how Jesuits identify and recruit: great little book that talks about a number of “tests” for potential candidates to help recruiters determine whether someone has potential as a missionary candidate. Applicable to Protestant agencies, too. Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today’s Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves (Adam Penenberg): examines how “viral” businesses can grow massive without any significant advertising. Ten Stupid Things That Keep Churches from Growing: How Leaders Can Overcome Costly Mistakes (Geoff Surratt): a humorously written guide to mistakes you can learn from. A Christmas Carol (Charles [...]

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December 12, 2009

How the Taliban use Luke 10 to control villages in Afghanistan

In “On War #325: How the Taliban Take a Village,” William S. Lind and Mark Sexton explore the current methods used by the Taliban to gain control of an area in Afghanistan. The analysis is interesting because it reflects a successful pattern similar to church-planting movement theory revolving around Luke 10 and the “person of peace.” Lind/Sexton define three social structures within a village—administrative, religious and security. These are the “key nodes of influence.” The article goes on to explore how, with a very small number of fighters who subvert villages in a decentralized fashion, the Taliban can go on [...]

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December 11, 2009

7 ways community helps vision

Swarms begin with vision but are sustained by communities of small groups banded together in the pursuit of vision. Dunbar’s Number (see Wikipedia article, and Seth Godin) theorizes that at most you can have about 150 people in a ‘tribe.’ Christopher Allen has written about Dunbar’s Number in the context of online gaming to make theories about group sizes: from small intimate groups of your closest friends (max 15) up to groups of 60 to 150 in size. I personally apply this by dividing my contacts into 4 groups: my 15, close 50, near 75, and tribe-150. Picking your closest [...]

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December 9, 2009

25 free/cheap tech we use to achieve our goals

Calendaring: Google Calendar (free) Documents, Spreadsheets, Powerpoints: Google Docs (free), although we also like Zoho.com Project Management: Basecamphq.com ($24/mo) Email: Gmail.com (free); we avoid Yahoo.com because they’ve given names of Chinese dissidents to China Communications: Skype.com (free), Google Voice (SMS send/receive, phone number forwarding), Pamela ($14.95, meeting/call recorder) Cloud Storage for documents, photos, files: Google Accounts (400GB, $100/yr) Images: Management, Picasa (free); image editing, GIMP (free); illustration editing, Inkscape (free) Business graphics & flowcharting: Smartdraw ($197), one of the best diagramming packages I’ve ever found. Stock photography: iStockPhoto.com (credits can be purchased or earned) Audio: iTunes, Audacity for editing (free) [...]

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December 8, 2009

Water Wars: Yemen

Saudi Arabia battled Yemeni-based rebels for two weeks, establishing a six-mile buffer zone inside Yemen and warning civilians to stay clear of it. Yemen did not cooperate with the Saudi government but agreed that Saudi Arabia had a right to defend its borders. Some 174,000 civilians have been displaced since the war began in 2004 (Wall Street Journal, http://bit.ly/4OZr0f). Most of the conflicts both within Yemen and between Yemen’s rebels and Saudi Arabia are simply over access to water. At current water usage rates, Sanaa’s wells will likely run dry by 2015. Researchers at Sanaa University have estimated that between [...]

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December 4, 2009

Statistics Journal: online giving in 2009

Online giving by major donors The Chronicle of Philanthropy released a study of 3,500 donors in March 2009 which found: 4 out of 5 donors have made a gift online A little over half preferred to use the Internet for donations 46% expect to make a greater share of their charitable gifts via the Internet in the future 60% felt charities sent too many email messages 82% did not want a charity to send them an email about a different organization 92% wanted end-of-year receipts electronically 83% wanted electronic updates on the charity’s finances & spending 75% found emails explaining [...]

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