Brigada Today
25 of Nov., 1996
Now with 4106 Participants!
News and Notes about Brigada, Your Gateway to Missions Networking!
[Pass this issue to a friend! To subscribe, see instructions at end.]
In this issue....
VOLUNTEERS & PRAYER NEEDED FOR GATEWAY PEOPLE CLUSTER CONSULTATION
Want to really help least reached peoples? Here's your chance. AD2000 and
Beyond is planning a consultation on developing "key contacts" for the
approximately 140 people group clusters identified on the Joshua Project
2000 list of Unreached Peoples of the 10/40 Window. (The majority of the
1739 peoples in the Joshua Project 2000 list can be grouped into these 140
clusters.) The consultation will be held April 17-19, 1997 in Pasadena, CA.
What's a key contact? Someone who helps concerned individuals, churches and
agencies more fully and easily take advantage of opportunities and avoid
pitfalls in ministering among a cluster of least reached peoples from the
JP2000 list. Organizers are praying that by the time the meetings close
down, respective individuals and teams will understand all the definitions
and will be identified as key contacts for dozens of the Gateway People
Clusters and a plan will be in place to identify other key contacts as they
become available. One of the key issues is how to define contact points
between the field focused partnerships and the resource based advocacy
work. ..."
Who is involved in calling this meeting together? "Twenty-eight people
representing adopt-a-people programs and agencies met October 24, 1996, and
among other things, agreed to convene this consultation on the Gateway
People Clusters of the Joshua Project 2000 list. The planning task force
for the consultation includes:
Phill Butler / Mats Tunehag (Interdev)
John Robb (MARC)
Patrick Johnstone (WEC)
Ralph Winter (WCIU)
Eric Watt (CBN WorldReach)
Luis Bush (AD2000 and Beyond)
Doug Lucas (Team Expansion / Brigada)
Mike Stroope (Cooperative Services Intl.)
and others.
Gregory Fritz (Caleb Project) has been appointed chairman of the planning
task force and to oversee the consultation. To offer input or get
more information contact:
Gregory Fritz
Caleb Project
10 West Dry Creek Circle
Littleton, CO 80120-4413
303-730-4170;
gfritz@cproject.com"
So what can you do to help? Luis Bush wrote this past week, "The Gateway
People Cluster Consultation brings practical life and renewed hope and
energy to the vision of a church for every people and the gospel for every
person by the year 2000. Please consider the following:
- Pray right now for this strategic gathering
- Encourage others to pray
- Register and come for this important event (write to Greg Fritz,
Chairman of the Task Force )
- Recommend key network leaders, facilitators, advocates and key
contacts for the 140 key gateway peoples listed below to John Hanna
jhanna@cproject.com."
NON-WESTERN MISSIONS ANYONE???
Bob Kennedy is Director of Missions at
Washington Bible College and Capital Bible Seminary. He's gathering
material for a course next semester on the History of Western and
non-Western Missions. His goal is "to inform my students as to the
progress of Non-Western as well as Western missions." So - as you can
imagine - he's looking for sources. Any clues? If so, write directly to
Bob . . . and Bob . . . here's the deal. In two weeks or so, can you send
us a book list or list of sources that we can make available to all?
Thanks brother! Write Bob at
drbobk@juno.com directly.
WEB-WATCH
You knew it was inevitable...
And now the day has come...
Global Mapping has launched a site,
And you're invited to stop by some.
We're sure they'll have some maps to show,
Some links and software too,
So stop by
www.gmi.org
Or GMI will be so blue.
Or maybe your hobby is soccer,
And you're looking for sites "just for kicks",
Well check out
http://members.aol.com/UltGoal
Which tells about short-term soccer mission trips!
[(Hey! Give me a break! -- "kicks", "trips" . . .
it's almost rhymes!!!
Besides . . . I'm a sucker for 
soccer.
)]
And while you're out there on the web,
You might as well stop by
At
www.iinet.net.au/~createit
For missions resources, links, and pie.
[Okay. We admit it. We stretched the truth with the "pie" part. But
Create International from East Perth,
Australia has come up with tons of
other goodies waiting for you at their new site.]
DON'T FORGET "THE JOBSHOP"!
Please don't forget that you can do
computerized job-matching right from your PC! All you have to do is send
an email message to
hub@xc.org 
with the following text in the message
block:
subscribe brigada-job-shop
Well over 250 people are waiting there
to either find the right opportunity or the right person or the job of your
dreams! So... for example, if you're like Dan Jealouse
104754.1525@compuserve.com and you're looking for a TEACHER/TUTOR to
teach their two children during a two year short term, you just send a
message to brigada-job-shop@xc.org that explains your need and all of a
sudden, tons of teachers write back and say, "Take me! Take me!" Well...
at least we hope that's what will happen.
Only you can actually
make it reality at brigada-job-shop... Have at it! And Dan, good luck
finding your teachers.
IMPONDERABLE FOLLOW-UP
A reader in Greenville says "The probability
that a slice of toast will fall jelly-side down is directly proportional to
the cost of the carpet."
Somehow I think he's on to something.
THEY COME TO AMERICA
Here's a question for all those who have been
involved in partnerships with congregations in economically challenged
lands: "Is there anyone out there that has brought economically-challenged
national pastors to America for a visit/training retreat? If so, I'd be
interested in their successes, things they'd do differently, the long and
short-term effects they saw, and what they included in the itinerary. We
are in the "considering" stage of bringing our partnering pastors to the
States and would like to avoid reinventing the wheel if at all possible!
Also, what kinds of culture shock and re-entry stress were observed? How
did they prepare the pastors for that inevitable part of overseas travel?"
Please write to Lori Rogers at
74557.2307@CompuServe.COM and Lori, could
you write up a summary report in the next couple of weeks to fill us all in
on what you found out? Thanks and Godspeed!
BURUNDI INQUIRY: THANKS!
Remember the missionary family in Burundi
who desperately needed medicine? The stateside contacts had no clue as to
how to get it to them quickly. The call went out in last
week's Brigada Today and within 36 hours, 12 contacts volunteered to help! Three cheers
for the Brigada family!!! ... and from the family in Burundi, "Thanks!!!"
WANT TO AVOID THOSE 3/4 PAGE HEADERS ON INTERNET MESSAGES?
Roger E
Doriot
doriotre@ticnet.com points out that in many cases, those headers
are filled with addresses in "distribution lists" of mail to more than one
person. Roger suggests using the "blind copy" ("BC:") address line (check
your own mailer for exact terminology) so that others don't have to print
out endless lines of email addresses at the top of their mail! Good idea
for those paying by the byte, too! Thanks Roger!
ENVISION '96 TALLIES ARE IN!
The tallies are in! Envision '96
resulted in individuals who agreed to do the following:
- 885 people said they would pray regularly for a specific people group.
At the conference, they received an info-sheet on how to do that, along
with an executive summary people profile about their respective group.
- 83 offered their services for a 2 week prayer journey overseas.
- 102 said they would give two weeks to a missions project.
- 49 dedicated the summer of '97 to a missions internship.
- 19 said they would invest 3-5 months as a researcher on a research
expedition in a frontier people group.
- 111 said they wanted to commit their lives to full-time missions!
- 137 wanted to help their churches initiate a frontier church-planting
project among a least reached people group
- 69 said they'd try to recruit other local churches to start a frontier
people church planting project.
- 52 said they wanted to try to help a local church accomplish such a project.
Other interesting facts and trivia from Envision '96:
- Number of computer networks used during the convention: 4 (at the Message
Center, Adoption Center, Registration Center, Press Room)
- Amount paid to the Dayton, Ohio, computer programmer who created,
Trellis, the custom-written software for tracking the adoptions of least
reached people groups in "real time": $0.00 (The 100+ hours of programming
were a gift to world evangelism.)
- Amount of suggested donation (to Envision '96) for those wanting a copy
of the software (Trellis) for use in other events and venues: $40 -- to try
to reduce the remaining deficit of $15,000. Write to be
added to a list of those wishing more information once the published
version is ready.
- Number of People Group posters featured in Rupp Arena seating behind the
stage area: 1739
- Height of People Group posters when stacked at the loading dock: 7 feet
(over 2 meters)
- Number of Volunteers who worked at Envision '96: 800+
- Number of balloons dropped from the ceiling of Rupp Arena at the
conclusion of the Torch Run (during the opening ceremonies) and the
number of and light sticks waved in the dark during "Just Take Your Candle"
at the close of the session: over 4000 of each
- Miles covered in the pre-convention Torch Run: 34 miles covered by some
20 runners
- Number of handheld radios used to link various volunteer subcommittee
chairpersons: 11
- Number of students attending from top three Bible colleges: Over 250 from
Kentucky Chr. College, 180 from Lincoln Chr. College, and scads more from
other colleges and campus ministries
But these statistics can't tell the story of the personal human side of
things. A campus ministry student from the University of Kentucky said, "It
served as a wonderful blessing to me and strengthened my confidence in
knowing God's purposes for my life. Praise to Jesus alone!" A missionary
who flew in from Colorado commented, "I have never been at a missions
conference that emphasized reaching the least reached peoples of the world
as much as Envision. I thought that the speakers were excellent and that
their topics were very appropriate to open eyes and motivate each
individual to think about adopting an unreached people, and to work to
finish the task Christ has given us. The music was also excellent. It was
obvious that an enormous amount of work went into planning and implementing
this conference. There was a lot of creative thinking and attention to
detail..." A missionary from Iowa (who has, himself, served as president
of a previous National Missionary Convention years ago) shared, "It was
utterly marvelous. It was a glory to God. It was an inspiration. It was
an encouragement to all, I am sure. Its ramifications will surely continue
throughout eternity."
Are we satisfied with these results!!! In a word, Yessssssssssssssssss!
We're thrilled. Is God finished? Nope. He's spawning a wave of
interest in missions, revitalization and prayer around the globe! What
"next step" are we encouraging Envision '96 attendees and others to take?
We want to invite local church leaders from near and far to choose a
weekend to attend a Pit-Stop during the coming months. These conferences
are designed especially for the local church which wants to pioneer (in
partnership with a missionary or Nations agency) a new multiplying church
movement among frontier peoples -- a least reached people group or city.
Upcoming dates and locations include the calling:
- Pit-Stop-Indy - Jan. 24-25 - at Chapel Rock Chr. Ch., Indianapolis, IN
- Pit-Stop-Dayton (Ohio) - Feb. 28-Mar. 1, in conjunction with the regional
ACMC conference, Dayton, OH
- Pit-Stop-Denver -- Apr. 25-26 - at Littleton Chr. Ch., Denver, CO
Envision '97 - Oct. 9-11, Tulsa, OK
For more information about any of the above events, call the Envision '97
office at 800-072-1137 or write to Walter Birney at Box 11, Copeland, KS
67837, Fax: 316-668-5220, E-Mail:
wbirney11@aol.com.
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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
ADVANCE: Mark A. Kelley, Kainos Press,
70420.1057@compuserve.com- Brigada Website: Bob Mayhew, Brigada Volunteer,
mayhew@xc.org
- Technical Development: Jonathan Marsden, MAFxc
jonathan@xc.org
- Brigada
Customer Service Manager: Revis Ann Massey,
RevisAnnMassey@xc.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!
25 of Nov., 1996
| "If you've been asked to lead, you've been asked to serve." |
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| Doug Lucas DLucas@TeamExpansion.org
| Phone: +1 (513) 244 8149
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