Brigada Today
6 of August, 1995
News and Notes about Brigada, Your Gateway to Missions Networking!
Compiled by
DLucas@TeamExpansion.org
[Pass this issue to a friend! To subscribe, see instructions at end.]
In this issue....
AT "PRESSTIME"
As of August 3, there were 676 participants in Brigada's
top level network (which sent this Brigada Today)! That's an increase of
over 75 users in one week's time! The reason? More than anything else,
probably thanks to the recent Mission Frontiers article.
(Thanks MF!)
To get a list of Brigada's whole family of dozens of conferences, send a
message to
hub@xc.org with only the following word in the text of the
message:
conferences
Each conference is a separate family, to be joined individually, if you want
to exchange mail with that conference.
BRIGADA-PEOPLES OFF AND RUNNING
Thanks to Dave Dougherty for his
willingness to head up the moderatorship for Brigada-Peoples. He's given
the conference the right mission, the right agenda, and the right start-up.
A sample:
> Brigada-peoples is beginning a discussion of the whole idea of
> adopt-a-people. What can be done to advance this movement linking
> congregations and mission agencies to reach unreached people groups?
> Several churches and agencies are already starting to discuss this key
> program, and your input is important.
We're hoping that Brigada-Peoples can be a kind of "foyer" for finding out
which people groups have been "claimed" and by whom. This doesn't intend to
imply that there will be an attempt to forge a one-to-one match-up. Quite
the contrary... more than one church, agency, and/or network will be needed
to truly plant an indigenous church multiplication movement, in most cases.
But the Brigada-peoples conference will help you find the existing
"adopters" for your selected group... and if you haven't yet identified a
group to adopt, Brigada-Peoples will be a source for finding information
about which groups are available.
To join the discussion, send an e-mail message to xc.hub with this line as
the body of the message:
subscribe brigada-peoples
PROGRESS AMONG UZBEKS!
Protestant churches are sprouting in Islamic Asian
republics of the former Soviet Union. A church planted in Uzbekistan four
years ago has grown to 3,000 members and has planted 55 other congregations
-- 22 of them in neighboring republics. "My father received Jesus and I
wanted to kill him," said a former Muslim who now assists his father in
pastoring 250 people at three churches in Tajikistan.
Thanks to John Hanna, of Caleb Project in Littleton, CO, for highlighting
this "Global Glimpse". His source was Page 1, July 24, 1995, National &
International Religion Report, Roanoke, VA.
HOW ONE VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL DID IT
My family and I have just returned
from a week with our major supporting church in NE Ohio, the Andover Ch. of
Chr. [This is Doug talking.] For Andover's nightly VBS, we used:
- Monday: The 10/40 Window for Kids video (from Joey and Fawn Parish,
6673 Sora Street, Ventura, California, 93003; Tel. (805) 650-3511)
- Tuesday: Prayer-walking for Kids video (also from the Parishes)
- Wednesday: Light the Window (from CIN, 11025 State Highway 83,
Colorado Springs, CO 80921)
- Thursday: The Ten Four-O, a music video by Bill Drake, from OM
- Friday: The Challenge of Our Unfinished Task (from Procla-Media, P.O.
Box 26479, Colorado Springs, CO 80936
In addition, each night, we displayed a big 5' by 5' map of the 10/40 Window
, explaining practical ways kids and adults alike could get involved in
making a difference there. We brought volunteers to the microphone to pray
for people and countries in the Window, so others could hear examples of
prayer... and we highlighted missionaries who were already at work there,
changing the future. By the end of the week, the VBS Director told me that
her son had said that the missions segment was his favorite part of the
entire VBS! We found an overwhelming interest in what God is doing in the
10/40 Window part of the world... and we're excited about the possibilities
at Andover. One woman said, "If we can't participate in the 100 Gateway
Cities prayer campaign, what kind of church are we?" Leaders of four
churches in the area are discussing how they can get together as a network
to take responsibility for planting a church in one of the 100 Gateway
cities. God is at work! They want to do it in concert with the Envision
'96 PACE project, where Christian churches and churches of Christ are being
invited to stand shoulder to shoulder with each other to "adopt" key cities
and peoples in the "least reached world."
Either way, one thing is for sure. Those kids' eyes were riveted to the
needs of the 10/40 Window. God is at work!
PRAYER FOR GUIDANCE REQUESTED
John Robb (Unreached Peoples specialist
with World Vision and Coordinator of the Unreached Peoples Track with AD2000
& Beyond) wrote this past week, "Dear Friends, Please pray and get others to
pray for this situation. We need to see God's solution." Quoting an
internal World Vision memo by Dean Hirsch, World Vision International Chief
Operating Officer, John shared the plight of Bosnian Serbs.
"Morality seems to have gotten lost in Bosnia over the past three years.
There's nothing moral about expelling neighbors from their homes, then
blowing up their houses so they won't come back, just because the family is
Serb, or Croat, or Muslim. There's nothing moral about kidnapping young
women and keeping them as sex slaves. There's nothing moral about making
entire villages homeless. There's nothing moral about 200,000 deaths. And
there's nothing moral about ripping boys as young as 7 away from their
mothers to join the other "men" for investigation of war crimes, as we've
seen in Srebrenica." ... While we're limited in what we can do to bring
about a political settlement, we can call for justice for the oppressed; we
can and must call for the protection of civilians."
Would you take a silent moment this morning to remember this critical need,
lifting it in prayer to the Lord of hosts and asking Him to bring some kind
of lasting resolution to this moral crisis?
BRIGADA OPENS PARTNERSHIP WITH "ADVANCE"
Thanks to Mark Kelly (Compuserve
70420,1057) for the work he does on "Advance", a monthly email and print
magazine to highlight the need to pray for unreached peoples and persecuted
believers. Folks, this is good stuff. Each issue works hard to feature
resources for making a difference among 10/40 Window peoples. Now, in the
past few days, Brigada and Advance have formed a kind of partnership, since
their agendas are so similar. Advance will be available directly in the
Brigada file storage area and highlights will be featured in Brigada Today
. To retrieve the full August edition of Advance, send email to
hub@xc.org
with only the following words in the body of the message:
get brigada advance.9508
The August issue contains the following main articles and items:
THE GOSPEL FOR EVERY PEOPLE --
- Summary re: status of Bible translation -- at least one book in 2092 out
of 6000 languages
- DAWN India report -- 200,000 churches already established on the way to
491,000!)... "One pastor reported his congregation grew from seven in 1973
to 7,400 today and has started 75 missions. He envisions 1,000
congregations in five years...."
- Jesus Film update -- "To date, more than 701 million people in 220
countries have seen the Jesus film..."
- Baptist World Congress calls for targeting the world with "no access"
- Tons more on persecuted believers
- Close-up on Fulani
- Close-up on Jakarta
- Close-up on World A -- China
- The Cities!
- Networking "close-ups" -- World Prayer Center, resources, etc.
- FRONT LINES -- Editorial on "Our timid prayers"
Mark hopes all users will put him on their mission publication's mailing
list (Mark Kelly, 70420,1057 -- or snail-mail to 8992 Midway Rd., Richmond,
VA 23229)
Believe me, in this one move, Brigada has become infinitely more useful --
just through association with what Mark is doing!
ETHNOLOGUE ON LINE
Have you checked out the Ethnologue online???
(Information regarding the languages of the world and where they are spoken)
Try it out at...
http://www-ala.doc.ic.ac.uk/~rap/Ethnologue/eth.html
Also, check out the SIL homepage at
http://sil.org
Thanks to Matt Benjamin, who works with Ron Rowland in computer support at
SIL, for this info. He's just started a new project for SIL's Strategic
Information Office and he'd like your help. His task is a simple one: "to
research missions-related materials on the Internet, ... looking for and
cataloging information in the following categories: countries,
cities,regions (ie-Tibet, African studies, etc.), peoples, ethnic
studies, world religions, demographics/population studies,
anthropology,languages/linguistics,national governments, and topics
related to any of these, ... country WWW server lists/click maps." So
Matt, what are you going to do with all your spare time? If you can help
Matt collect these resources (and no doubt put them on line somewhere so we
can all see them, right Matt???), write him at
matt.benjamin@sil.org
ATTENTION THOSE WHO WARM UP TO AFGHANS
Thanks to Justin Long for bringing
to our attention this worldwide web page on Afghanistan:
http://www.wam.umd.edu/~endevour
JOHNSTONE WORKING ON "AFFINITY BLOCKS"
Patrick Johnstone (author of
Operation World and Chairman of the AD2000 & Beyond Unreached Peoples
Track) has a new project -- affinity blocks. These aren't a replacement for
legos. Nor are they intended to replace the list of 1500-2500 groups being
finalized for the AD2000 & Beyond emphasis on planting churches among the
"final frontiers." Instead, Johnstone simply wants us to be able to
simplify the landscape. Watch for more details on this concept in the
future... and look for it to help us see connections between our work and
workers! Thanks Patrick!
KOREAN CHURCH FINISHED GCOWE WITH POSITIVE BALANCE
Ready for some news
about an organization that finished something "in the black"???! Here it is
. GCOWE. Thanks to some good planning and the power of His Spirit, the
Korean church ended up debt-free on AD2000 & Beyond's Seoul extravaganza!
Bravo Luis, and all those working with you ... and bravo Seoul coordinators!
!! Even more importantly, working together ended up in the black! Take,
for example, the SM2000 student missions conference, where tens of thousand
Korean students pledged themselves to be available for worldwide mission
outreaches. According to a recent letter from Luis Bush, AD2000 & Beyond
International Director, leaders concluded, "For so many groups to cooperate
was also a big first! ... Yes, together we can obey the Great Commission of
our Lord Jesus Christ, and yes, together we can achieve the task of world
evangelization--Yes, together we can." Furthermore, Korean church leaders
in the USA have covenanted together to officially adopt 300 of the
integrated AD 2000 target list at their AD2000 focused conference in Wheaton
next year, and Korean mission leaders (at Torch Center) hope to adopt 100 of
the list. Korean leaders have also made the commitment to "convene the
denominational leaders here in Korea to adopt each of the remaining peoples
on the list." What an initiative!!! Now comes the problem of tying
together a ready-to-work Korean congregation with your mission or network!
Enter Brigada! Start a Brigada conference on the 10/40 Window people group
you're targeting and ... presto-change-oh . . . you'll have a Korean partner
checking in... I bet. :-)
Luis Bush's conclusion regarding everything God has done in Korea??? "Praise
the Lord!" He ended his letter, "The End." But it looks to me like he
should have probably entitled it, "Another beginning!" 
AD2000 & BEYOND'S LIST OF "LEAST REACHED" PEOPLES COMING INTO FOCUS
According to mail passing by our Brigada news desk, AD2000 & Beyond leaders
are hoping to finalize the criteria for inclusion into a finalized list of
"least reached" peoples by August 12 ... just 6 days away! Pray for John
Robb, Coordinator of the Unreached Peoples Track, who will need to shoulder
ultimate responsibility for this burdensome task. Once criteria is
finalized, Ron Rowland (of SIL/Wycliffe) and others will assemble the list
that will serve as a key guide (and a measuring stick for AD2000 & Beyond)
for national, regional, denominational, congregational and agency church-
planting initiatives for at least the next 18 months or so.
ONE BRIGADA READER'S PRAYER
[The following overheard on a Brigada
conference:] "How I thank God for His many answers to prayer, including
GCOWE, Brigada, the prayer movement, your moderating this conference, David
, and all that God is doing through His people for worldwide evangelization
I am so grateful for the movement to reach every people group, and am so
excited about the goal to reach every person with the gospel by the year
2000! It cost Jesus such an incredibly high price to give us salvation,
that I long and pray that as many as possible will be saved (I Tim 2:1-4)
according to God's will, and that all of us Christians will love Him
fervently with all our hearts and please Him in every way. Our God is the
greatest treasure imaginable, and we want as many as possible to have the
joy and privilege of being His own and serving Him!
I grew up in Mexico, as my parents were missionaries there, and am very
interested in knowing if anyone has Adopt-A-People information available in
Spanish. I would like to try to get as many Spanish-speaking churches
interested in adopting a people as possible (as well as English-Speaking
churches).
Thank you very much for your help. I am trying to pray for Brigada, and as
many of the other evangelization projects as I can daily, and hope and pray
that many other Christians are praying for these things daily too.
In His Service,
Linda Knapp"
[Ed. Note: Linda is finding her answers on Brigada-peoples. To subscribe
there, send email to
hub@xc.org with only the following line in the body of
the text:
subscribe brigada-peoples
BRIGADA WORLDWIDE WEB PAGE BOASTS NEW ICON
Thanks to Michael Schrank, an
AIMS artist who gave volunteer time to create a new logo/graphic for
Brigada's homepage on the worldwide web. Visit it at:
http://www.xc.org/Brigada/brigada.html
Michael was very unselfish giving up his "big bucks computer time" at AIMS.
Michael's age? 13.
NEED THOSE BIBLE TERMS IN RUSSIAN?
See
the ENGLISH - RUSSIAN DICTIONARY OF BIBLICAL TERMS
published by Nikolai Poliakov. "It is a $7.50 paperback,
168 pages long. Besides a concise alphabetical listing of Biblical terms it
includes:
- Differences in verse numbering of English and Russian Bibles (there are
many)
- Basic Phrases for the traveler
- Christian witnessing phrases
- Lists of Feasts, names, places, teachings from the Bible, all in both
languages.
To order send your check to Nickolai Poliakov, P.O. Box 4213 Salem, OR
97302. The $7.50 includes shipping to U.S. destinations. [Thanks to David
Hallowell
DAVIDORREN@aol.com for this note!]
Have a great day!!!
BRIGADA TODAY -- 6 of August, 1995
