BRIGADA TODAY -- 18 of Feb., 1995

Compiled by DLucas@TeamExpansion.org

IN THIS ISSUE....

PLEASE DON'T HIT THAT REPLY BUTTON

BETA MONTH RAPIDLY DRAWING TO A CLOSE

BRIGADA-ALBANIA-DURRES -- Northeast Chr. Ch. Adopts Durres

BRIGADA-PROJECTS-LEX96 -- 20,000 in Lexington???

BRIGADA-ORGS-TEAMEX -- 85 Participants Already!

OTHER CONFERENCES READY TO ROLL! -- Peoples and Pubs

BRIGADA-PRAYER-MOBILIZERS SUBJECT OF A DREAM! -- You gotta' read this!

HELLO NEW FILES, HELLO NEW SUBSCRIBERS -- Working side by side...

BIG THANKS TO JONATHAN MARSDEN AT CROSSCONNECT -- The "INTERNET Wiz'"

NEED HELP? -- "Get" it when you want it!

PLEASE DON'T HIT THAT REPLY BUTTON... -- ... until you're sure you want to send a message to people all over the world! Throughout the network of Brigada conferences, if you 'reply' to a Brigada mailing, remember that your message =bounces= to every subscriber! If that's what you want, it can be great. But if you actually wanted to send an individual, personal note, it can be very embarrassing!!! :-) A word to the wise....

BETA MONTH RAPIDLY DRAWING TO A CLOSE -- Just ten days until we begin announcing Brigada publicly (March 1). Yet even though Feb. is a 'test month', some are already beginning to make good use of Brigada's networking capability...

BRIGADA-ALBANIA-DURRES -- (12 participants) The Northeast Chr. Ch. in Louisville, KY, came "on-line" today in the person of Lisa Middleton, the new Missions Secretary for the church (MiddletonL@aol.com). Lisa will be coordinating communication to and from the Missions Team, chaired by Randy Gordon. The church has invested the past 3 months in prayer and preparation for "adopting" Durres, the second largest city in Albania. This Thursday, they sign the 'adoption papers'!!! :-) When they brought Lisa on board, they included Brigada as a major piece of her job description. Already today, she's busy shuffling messages and decisions back and forth between on-site workers in Durres and the Missions Team. The church wants to build a strong prayer ministry in preparation for their next phase of development, a short-term thrust in Detroit to work with ethnic Albanians that will hopefully result in a new Albanian outreach there.

BRIGADA-PROJECTS-LEX96 -- (9 participants) Planners and implementers are continuing an on-going discussion in this conference area to prepare for a giant missions mobilization campaign that will hopefully result in some 20,000 believers gathering in Lexington, KY, on Oct. 31, 1996. Their goal??? To help make sure there is "A Church for Every People" by Dec. 31, AD2000. The next 18 months will be key if the project is to succeed and the participants of this conference are determined to seek God's heart in making it happen.

BRIGADA-ORGS-TEAMEX -- (85 participants) This conference by far has the most participants, having moved its weekly HeartBeat On-Line news update to Brigada just 10 days ago. Each Thursday morning, all participants receive an update edited by Team Expansion's International Services office in Cincinnati, OH, then bounced via Brigada to missionaries and supporters throughout 11 countries, serving among some 16 people groups.

OTHER CONFERENCES READY TO ROLL! -- Through the next few days, several other conferences hope to fire up on-line, and with structures and practice sessions already in place, all the lights are green!

BRIGADA-ARGENTINA-LAPLATA (12 participants) heard from one of the on-site workers today. BRIGADA-PEOPLES-KAZAKH (formerly BRIGADA-CENTASIA-KAZAKH -- please make a note of the name change), BRIGADA-URUGUAY-MONTEVIDEO, and BRIGADA-PUBS-MISSIONFRONTIERS are all experimenting with first 'posts'. BRIGADA-PUBS-GLOBALPRAYERDIGEST is already functioning, though on a practice basis. Still, you can 'get' Friday's reading from the Global Prayer Digest (17 of Feb.) by joining and 'get'ing GPD.950217. (Note the upper case on GPD. On file names and commands, case =is= significant. We're currently evaluating the use of upper CASE ... in this case.)

BRIGADA-PRAYER-MOBILIZERS SUBJECT OF A DREAM! -- (7 participants) Lynn Heatley takes her prayers seriously. That's why not more than a month ago, when she woke up in the middle of the night with a 'start', she wrote down her feelings right then and there. She had dreamed of a greater involvement in prayer than ever before. And that's saying a lot for a young woman who is about to invest in office space in Chino, CA, specifically for the purpose of networking and mobilizing more prayer for worldwide Christian outreach. We met Lynn last December and were impressed with her vision. That's why we sent her a fax regarding Brigada last week, hoping she'd give input as to how we could inspire and motivate all the more prayer involvement throughout the land. But we hadn't heard about the dream. You see, in the dream, there was one word that kept coming back to her. "And when I woke up," Lynn said on the phone earlier this week, "I had that one word on my mind." The word? [Twilight Zone music in background] .... "Brigada," says Lynn. The Brigada networks had already been buzzing for a full week before the call. Hmmmmm........ See Lynn soon on the BRIGADA-PRAYER-MOBILIZERS conference. And if you haven't stopped by for the "muslim-prayer-guide", get it today. It's not too late to begin the 30-day prayer emphasis being sponsored by agencies and churches throughout the globe. The electronic version is ready for 'get'ing.

HELLO NEW FILES, HELLO NEW SUBSCRIBERS -- There are now 38 participants in the 'top level', "network of networks" BRIGADA conference (=this= one). This conference will be used for general updates and announcements that seem to relate to the over all network as a whole. 17 files have been posted, featuring everything from testimonies about the possibilities for Brigada (by the likes of individuals with names like Robb, Rowland, Pemberton and Stearns!) to a complete chart of the 100 Gateway Cities (for "Praying through the Window II" this October). You can get an annotated member directory, a brief explanation of why we proposed the name 'Brigada', pick off the original 'Brigada White Paper', and even 'get' a special tool that let's you send binary files via Brigada's text based email system!!! (uuexe521.bat, 52K, documentation included; note that both the sender and receiver will need this batch file.) New subscribers include Bible translators (like Dr. Rondal Smith of PBT and Ron Rowland of SIL), more overseas missionaries (like Dr. Doug Priest of Massai missions fame, now based in Singapore with Christian Missionary Fellowship, published by William Carey AND Viv Grigg with AD2000's Cities Resource Network), researchers (like John Gilbert, Southern Baptist Global Research Coord.), professors (like Dr. Eddie Elliston, Assistant Dean at Fuller's SWM, and Steve Burris, Distance Learning Coord.) and missions strategists/facilitators (like Dave Nesmith of Global Mapping's DMIS, and Elise Christol, who provides tech. support for the Research and Development arm of the US Center)! And there are more! (Just send a "who brigada" message to the hub@xc.org computer address for a full list.) But keep in mind that the real "roll-up-your-sleeves" work won't be occurring on this 'top' level (Brigada). It'll be occurring in the new "cities" section that Viv Grigg will be helping get under way, or among participants of Jeff Pike's new "AD2000 Mobilizing New Missionaries Network USA" due to be launched next week, or in Dave Butts' and Lynn Heatley's Prayer Mobilizers' conference, or in any one of the new "peoples" areas (like the Kazakh conference that John Robb recommended). If Brigada is to really be effective, we'll have to =make= it work. It won't happen automatically! So thanks to all who have jumped on board... It seems like we're ready to see some networking like never before. Korea here we come!!!

BIG THANKS TO JONATHAN MARSDEN AT CROSSCONNECT -- We continue to be baffled by the many skills and energies of Jonathan Marsden, who has served as our primary support specialist at CrossConnect in Colorado. (Although the Brigada hub is actually located in Columbus, OH, Jonathan and the CrossConnect staff 'telecommute' each day from the Rockies! You'd never know it by how fast he delivers tech support for this venture!!!) Without the help of JM at XC, we'd never have been able to get this far... and we'd shudder at trying to face the coming week of new start-ups! Join me tonight in praying for Jonathan's 4-year-old son, David, who is still recovering from a 104 degree fever he dealt with yesterday. And while you're at it, please thank the Lord for Jonathan's friendship and partnership in this new venture.

NEED HELP? -- "Get" the brand new file, "help-detailed" if you'd like a 4-page explanation, complete with a 10-point outline to handling the commands and structure of Brigada. The file is ready for use, but still "under construction," so input is welcome! If you want the 'quick start' version, just get the subset, "help". For those still getting used to the Brigada approach to 'get'ing files, send a message to hub@xc.org (for Compuserve users, that's INTERNET:hub@xc.org) that has the following line in the body of the text:

get brigada help-detailed

If you'd like the quick-start, just use...

get brigada help

The subject line is irrelevant and will be ignored. (Compuserve users have to fill it in, though, because the Cserve software requires it; you can use dots... or dashes--- or whatever you like! Again, it's ignored by the hub computer.) Remember that 'get'ing files is automated and requires =very= exact syntax, spelling and case. To see a file listing in your favorite area, send...

filelist

to the hub computer. Good luck!!!

18 of Feb., 1995