19980906 Brigada Today

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News and Notes about Brigada, Your Gateway to Missions Networking!
On the WorldWide Web, browse https://brigada.org or http://www.eGroups.com/list/brigada-today
Brigada Today is “the missionary helper newsletter!”
Compiled by Doug Lucas <DLucas@teamexpansion.org>, Louisville, KY
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In this issue….

LYRIS SWITCHOVER GOT THE BEST OF YOU?

You’re not alone. It’s been frustrating for TONS of others too. What’s Lyris? It’s the new software being used to bring this Brigada Today to you. It’s also used for the zillions of Brigada-peoples-* conferences that operate in the network below us. Since 1995, MAFxc had hosted all its conferences on Majordomo, an old but fairly efficient mailing list manager. Lyris is slick, because everything is echoed to password-protected web pages, but the switchover involving thousands of people has been, shall we say, uncomfortable, partly because of the sheer number of changes for the moderators themselves. Also, there were some errors caused along the way, presumably due to the countless programming details. For example, if you haven’t gotten a Brigada-peoples message for awhile, maybe it’s because some 100 subscribers were lost during a recent Lyris outage. The conference permits consultants and missionary types to give input on queries re: unreached peoples and reaching them. Also, see the last item in this newsletter regarding the essence of change. And… hang in there.

GLOBAL GLIMPSE FROM MALAYSIA

Although the Enemy frustrated efforts to publicly promote a showing of the Jesus film in an area of Sarawak, Malaysia, word of the screening spread by word of mouth and more than 800 people crowded into a theater to see the film. A total of 323 viewers indicated decisions to follow Christ. Those unable to get into the theater rushed to get copies of the video, and another 143 people heard the gospel that way. This year 1,600 Jesus film teams will share the gospel with more than 30 million people in 110 countries.
(Source: Advance Newsletter 8/98, Kairos Press, www.brigada.org/advance/adv9808.html)
Global Glimpse is compiled each week by John Hanna, Caleb Project, Littleton, CO.

WEB SEARCH ENGINES – THE SEARCH CONTINUES

Larry submitted that http://www.looksmart.com was the best search engine. He just might have a valid argument. Wow.

Meanwhile, Danie wrote us about http://www.ferretsoft.com/netferret/webferret.htm which uses a free downloadable you have to install. In the end, it’s the search software that works best for you. You pick!

IN THE MOOD FOR A CHRISTIAN BOOK? CHECK HERE!

Carol Nevin nevinc@usa.net sleuthed out the following for sources:
Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, MI http://www.bakerbooks.com
Barbour Publishing,Uhrichsville,OH http://www.barbourbooks.com
Campus Crusade for Christ Intl http://www.newlifepubs.com
Christian Book Distributors http://www.christianbook.com
Harold Shaw Publishers, Wheaton, IL http://www.shawpub.com
InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL http://www.gospelcom.net/ivpress
Moody Press, Chicago, IL http://www.moodypress.org
NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO http://www.gospelcom.net/navs/np
Parable Bookstores (assoc. of Christian Stores) http://www.parable.com
Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton, IL http://www.tyndale.com
Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI http://www.zondervan.com
Thanks Carol!

FREE CURRENCY EXCHANGE CALCULATORS

Check out Carol’s sources for free International Currency Exchange Websites: http://cgi.canoe.ca/htbin/calculators/currency.calc.cgi
http://cyberstation.net/~jweeesner/ccc/ccc/shtml

TCMC (TRAINING CHURCH MISSIONS CHAMPIONS)

Now with a new four day schedule, the goal of TCMC is to train and equip key church and missions leaders to help regenerate missions vision and involvement in local congregations through high quality, professional consulting.

PHASE I Includes Seven Dynamics, GAP Workshop, and Facilitation Skills.
PHASE II Emphasizes the use of a five step process in consulting with local churches.
SCHEDULE: Dana Point, CA
Phase I: November 12 & 13
Phase II: November 14 & 15

For more information please contact
LARRY WALKER
ACMC, Inc.
1637 EAST VALLEY PARKWAY #145
ESCONDIDO, CA 92027
Tel: 1-800-587-ACMC
Fax: 760-746-9683
Email: ACMCSW@Compuserve.com.

MORE ACMC CONFERENCES COMING TO A SPOT NEAR YOU

The Oregon Area ACMC conference is to be held on Saturday October 3rd at Village Baptist Church in Beaverton, Oregon. Plenary speaker is Paul Borthwick and the conference title is “Missions for the neXt Generation”. For registration information contact Dennis Miller at 110216.57@compuserve.com. Workshops include Native American Urban Ministry, Short Term Leadership Training, Short term to Creative Access Countries, Introducing Missions to the African American Church and many more topics. In addition, ACMC Conferences are being held in Ohio and Indiana this fall. The theme for both is “Turning Vision into Reality – How to Run an Effective Missions Ministry in the Local Church.” October 31 in Akron, November 7 in Indianapolis. Practical, nuts-and-bolts, hands-on, how-to workshops. For more info, contact David Mays 102100.2020@compuserve.com.

DO YOU WORK WITH ALGERIAN ARABS?

If so, someone wants to know!

Write Keith at t-work@pobox.com, verify that you want to release info. to him, then he’d like to gain more from any additional info. you have on the Algerian Arabs.

CHECK WITH THE HOST COUNTRY BEFORE BRINGING IN THE CORDLESS

Some countries, according to Bob, have regulations against bringing in the top notch cordless like the one described last week in Item “PHONE HOME FROM THE NEXT HOME OVER.” As a result, be sure to check around first!

TO GET PGP

PGP is an international protocol software for encoding your email so that you and your recipient can depend a little more on secure communication. Get the int’l free version at http://www.pgpi.com/ and see how it works for you! If you’re in the USA, grab the latest version at http://www.nai.com/products/security/security.asp and try it out.

NEED A WEB SITE FOR YOUR MINISTRY? TRY SF FOUNDATION

In response to requests from ministry leaders, SF Foundation and Affiliated Outsourcing are releasing http://www.sfpages.com as a new way to help individual missionaries, national workers and Christian workers present themselves with their own multi-page web sites. A new site goes up in just five minutes and individuals can personalize their own site with their picture or organization’s logo. The sites feature a specially designed feature that takes an e-mail message and publishes it on a FlashPrayer web page. Another quick e-mail message updates a NEWS Page and a third goes to a GIVING Page! Supporters and prayer warriors sign in at the bottom of a page. Then, when a page is updated, the computer senses it and sends everyone who is signed in a personalized message: “Come see our FlashPrayer page. It has been changed!” Groups starting to use these sites include Teen Challenge Brooklyn, Student Venture Twin Cities and more than several hundred missionaries and national workers. There is even an option to activate a button on the Giving Page, for a one time set up fee, so supporters can make donations to you over the Internet on a secure page! Check out the help button and the order button on the toolbar after you check the links button complete with Veggie Tales and a witnessing link! Bruce Fleming bruce@sf.org is helping work all this magic. Check him out at http://www.sfpages.com/sffoundation — he’s a former Free Church missionary to central Africa and now Executive Director of SF Foundation in Minneapolis.

GET THIS MONTH’S ADVANCE NEWSLETTER

Here’s an executive summary of this month’s ADVANCE! newsletter (September-October 1998). Here’s the summary:

THE GOSPEL FOR EVERY PEOPLE — King of Bhutan proposes sweeping political changes; the Sundanese of Indonesia; Chad’s 181 ethnic groups; the Mam of Guatemala; the Tho of Vietnam; the Uzbeks of Uzbekistan; taking the gospel to 15 states of India; disastrous floods in China

THE PERSECUTED CHURCH — The International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church set for Nov. 15; Christian workers murdered in Congo (Zaire); Muslim leader beheads 15-year-old son; believers slaughtered in southern Sudan; believers imprisoned in Maldives; Laotian believers forced to renounce faith; church leader among unreached people group arrested

SPIRITUAL FORCES OF DARKNESS — Radical Muslim leaders pledge to punish United States for missile strikes; “Ghost Month” in Taiwan and Macau; the Durga Puja festival of Nepal; Viacom, Showtime run “Lolita”; U.S. president issues executive order on “sexual orientation”

REJOICE! — Miraculous light in Rajasthan; Hindu businessman, family prevented from suicide; 40 rabbis accept Christ; 500 Sudanese believers rescued from slavery; India’s prime minister derails persecution of Catholic churches; biblical values affirmed by two mainline denominations; ban on assisted suicide takes effect in Michigan; police in 12 countries raid pedophiles

NETWORKING — Prayer walks in Iran; e-mail “Update on Christian Persecution”; how to protest the arrests of believers in the Maldives; how to protest the persecution of believers in Laos; how to register concern about Viacom and Showtime running “Lolita”

CHANGE . . . OPPORTUNITY AND CRISIS

Let’s face it. Change is NOT very fun. Like… anybody want to go through the process of switching everything over from a DOS world to Windows again? Yikes.

There were advantages back in DOS days. Most everything ran seemingly incredibly fast. Every screen was coded by fixed font spacing. It was kind of a hassle, but once you got everything arranged, life really wasn’t too bad. Course, in late 1990, when we tried to write in a Russian font, it was nuts. Then Windows came along . . . and AmiPro. (Anybody remember those days?) All of a sudden, Russian fonts were relatively EASY! Course, the process of learning the new paradigm was absolutely unnerving. Lately, I’ve been nostalgically remembering Majordomo days as I look toward learning Lyris. True, for moderators, Lyris is pretty slick in some ways. You can look at all the conference settings on the web just like you were changing settings in your preference tabs in Windows. In other words, there are drop-down pick-list boxes, buttons, check-boxes, the works! (Do they do all this stuff with Java or what!?) In Majordomo days, FEW of us tried to adjust those settings because it was all very cryptic code. MAYBE John-Hanna-types would attempt it now and then . . . but the rest of us were a little too fearful.

Now that Lyris has come along, I’ve changed several settings myself… Lots more freedom… lots more precision… lots of options. But . . . yikes.

Take me back to the speedy days. Getting this month’s copy of Mark Kelly’s Advance to auto-respond is like watching your favorite glacier head for a dip in the bay. MAFxc tells us that the speed is picking up. I’m confident they’re working on it. They’re really good people. And they’re as honest as the day is long (during SUMMER in Alaska… not winter)

. But let’s face it gang. This has NOT been an easy switch. Part of it is just the . . . unknown. What’s our new password all about? How do we “get” documents (where did they all go???)? Why are some of us suddenly unsubscribed? And why is s-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o slow? To answer those questions, I have to ask another one: How many of us still prefer DOS word processors?

I thought so. It will take TIME to switch to Lyris… but in the end, I’m [nearly] SURE that all of us will be glad we did. Now… where’s that copy of the new PC Week so I have something to do while Mark Kelly’s Advance is being mailed to me…

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COPYRIGHT — This issue of Brigada Today is Copyrighted © 2001. However, permission is granted to freely redistribute these materials, including those available through email autoresponders, provided that such redistribution is to those who will help the Good News of Christianity to reach the unreached. But please include this phrase: “For a free subscription of Brigada‘s weekly missions publication, write <brigada-today-subscribe@egroups.com>.”
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SUBMITTING CONTENT — To submit content or ideas to Brigada Today, first please get a copy of “Guidelines for submitting items to Brigada” Then, once you’ve composed your item in keeping with those guidelines, send your item for Brigada Today to DLucas@teamexpansion.org.
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Emphasis is placed on items relating to unreached peoples and challenges faced by those reaching them cross-culturally.

PLEASE DON’T SUBSCRIBE US TO YOUR LIST — It’s always better to ask before manually force-adding anyone to your list-serve or mailing list. Recently, tons of well-meaning people have been subscribing Doug to their lists. Since he often travels overseas, he doesn’t join many of those, for obvious reasons (like being charged big-time for overseas access). So as a general rule, please don’t bulk-mail us! See the note above if you’d like to submit items for Brigada Today. Thanks for understanding. Bottom line: We will never create Brigada Today items from bulk mail. Bulk mail gets deleted immediately — sorry. Nothing personal. We suggest you apply the same standard to everyone. Ask first!

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BRIGADA TODAY IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE FOLLOWING TEAM OF REGULAR VOLUNTEERS:

Global Glimpses: John Hanna, Caleb Project, jhanna@cproject.com
Brigada Website: Bob Mayhew, WebServant@brigada.org
Brigada Customer Service Manager: help@brigada.org
Brigada Coordinator: Doug Lucas, Team Expansion & Brigada, DLucas@teamexpansion.org
and many other occasional contributors too numerous to mention!: But thanks for working together! That’s the dream of Brigada!