Brigada Today
21 of Mar., 1997
Now with 5104 participants!!!
News and Notes about Brigada, Your Gateway to Missions Networking!
Visit Brigada on WorldWide Web: http://www.brigada.org (Note the new
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[Pass this issue to a friend! To subscribe, see instructions at end.]
In this issue....
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRIGADA!!!
Join us as we celebrate 2 years of focus on
mobilization for the final frontiers! The first "edition"
of Brigada Today was a simple test letter between two individuals, Jonathan Marsden
and Doug Lucas. Within a month, there were 38 participants and with the
Feb. 18th issue, the idea of Brigada Today and the Brigada family of
networks began to take shape in a more concrete way. March 21st was set as
the official "public opening" and by that day, there were more than 100
involved. Interestingly enough, by August 23rd, just when we were about to
celebrate topping the 800 mark and introducing something called the "People
Group Consultant," we ran this item:
"FROM THE "LET'S GET SERIOUS ABOUT VISION" DEPARTMENT
Ya know, I always
thought that if a person was highly technical, highly skilled, highly
process oriented, then they would probably be pretty scared about bulging
growth. Not so with Jonathan Marsden, who manages the technical end of
CrossConnect and, as such, helps with Brigada technical projects. When I
asked him this past week about how he felt about Brigada growing past the
800 mark, I was surprised to hear him say he wasn't satisfied. "I won't be
happy until we have 10,000 people on board, with hundreds of conferences
about least reached people groups and cities all over the world." Wow.
When I grow up, I want to be like that.
" [end of quote]
And now, with well over 5000 people involved, we're halfway to Jonathan's
goal... but we've got a long way to go to really make a dent in the task.
Most recently, we've been coming to grips with the fact that there's not as
much intentional networking for specific people groups as we originally
hoped to spawn. But even that might be changing.
GARLIC AND GARDENIAS FOR BRIGADA
So how do we answer when people ask,
"What are the five greatest strides forward and the five greatest "missed
opportunities" so far with Brigada? Here's our "garlic and gardenias"
grasscatcher list:
- Gardenias to the sheer numbers of people who have jumped on board
- Garlic to the fact that those numbers haven't translated into "action
forums" for unreached groups
- Gardenias to the number of "connections" all of us now enjoy to
virtually any subject in practically any part of
the world! (If Brigada Today carries a query about just about anything,
people tell us they get
anywhere from 7 to 70+ responses giving answers and resources.)
- Garlic to the continuing questions about security for "open"
conferences and the ongoing "wait" for everyone to start using PGP (until
it's built into the email client that we use [like it is in Pegasus], it's
unlikely that we'll take it seriously)
- Gardenias to the volunteerism we see that makes the Brigada concept
possible! (E.g., to Revis Ann Massey, who faithfully handles questions and
problems for a 5000+ mailing list [some magazines have 10 people to handle
that same work load and Rev' does it as a labor of love while participating
on a cross-cultural church planting team in Miamia]! ... and to Bob Mayhew
for amazingly consistent web-mastery, transferring everything to HTML on a
weekly basis, again as a labor of love! And join us as we celebrate our
two-year anniversary with a new brigada domain...
http://www.brigada.org !
... and to contributors like John Hanna and Mark Kelly who go on week
after week, month after month, writing their columns, gathering their
resources/info., AGAIN, as a labor of love. You get the idea!]
- Garlic to our inability to figure out how to recruit volunteers to
moderate proactive information-sharing conferences for the least reached
people groups on the JP2000 list.
- Gardenias to the folks at MAFxc (like Jonathan, Rex, Bob, and early on,
for Cathleen Sward) who have managed somehow to put together a bunch of
wildly fun tools with incredible potential that we can all use for an
insanely reasonable cost! ... and to MAF (the mother ship) for believing
in electronic communication enough to make the investment and buy
CrossConnect from it's original holding organization back when CrossConnect
was still more of an idea than it was a producer of any funding at all.
- Garlic to the ideas that have never really become full reality, like
the full implementation of the People Group Consultant and
brigada-travel-bids (which has too many customers asking for business and
not enough travel agents on board to handle all the requests!).
- Gardenias to my wife and two boys, and to the board to which I am
responsible at Team Expansion for giving me up to this labor of love for an
additional 10-20 hours per week to handle the extra workload to lead the
Brigada family of networks and
compile Brigada Today each week.
- Garlic to the fact that I wish we could do more promotion, more
marketing, more intentional growth planning, more experimentation, more
recruitment, more information packets, more cutting edge stuff!
So . . . on this 2-year anniversary, we say thanks to all Brigada
participants and make a very simple birthday wish: that God would enable us
to make some small contribution to the global growth of His kingdom. We
don't wish for big numbers if they aren't effective at bringing change; we
don't long for new technology if it doesn't put us better in touch with
people worldwide; we don't yearn for publicity, a "name" or anything
earthly... but that You, or Lord, would be exalted through our every word,
our every step, our every keystroke. That's our prayer. That's the
purpose of Brigada.
THIS IS THE EVENT TO FOCUS ON HOW TO IMPLEMENT AN ADOPT-A-PEOPLE PROJECT
And it's
coming up fast! April 25-26 in Littleton, Colorado
(Greater Denver). The combined forces of Caleb Project, Kingdom Building
Ministries, Team Expansion, PACE, Pit-Stops, and real live local church
people (who are actually out there doing it!) are coming together to help
advance the "edge of the envelope" on fulfillment of adopting a people
group. The price is right (you get a full 3-ring notebook, set of
diskettes, complete program, food, and great
fellowship/training/inspiration for $45!!! Check it out at
http://www.brigada.org/pace to get full details. Featured speakers include
Greg Fritz, Director of Caleb Project; Steve Moore, who wrote the script
and helped master mind that hot new Amdo prayer video; Doug Lucas (I
promise to have tons of fun PC graphics on the data projector); Eric
Derry, Missions Minister at Beavercreek Christian Church in greater Dayton,
Ohio, who helped bring you Envision '96; plus representatives from
projects in China, Pashtun, and more! So don't delay! Check out the web
site or send email to
hub@xc.org 
with only the following line in the text
of the message:
get brigada pit-stop-denver
Send a note to Noelle or Robert at
rpeterson@ccu.edu or call (303) 761-6187.
YOU WAITED FOR THEM FOR YEARS!!
You were frustrated not to be able to
give the body of Christ up to date information on unreached peoples! Your
intercession times lacked depth because you just didn't know enough to pray
effectively! You searched the world over for profiles, but came up empty!
Well, your search is over. The PRAYER PROFILES are FINALLY HERE!!! For the
past 15 months, Bethany World Prayer Center has been producing Prayer
Profiles for each of the 1,739 groups on the current Joshua Project list.
These profiles are now coming off the press at a steady pace. For only
$0.20 each, you can get the latest information on the unreached, presented
in a glossy, easy-to-look format. You won't find a better or cheaper
profile anywhere in the world. And they are available NOW!
If you would like to order a catalog of the currently produced profiles
please e-mail us at:
upg@bethany-wpc.org or you can write us at: 13855
Plank Rd., Baker, La. 70714 Ph:504-774-2002 Fax:504-774-2001. Also, check
them out on the web at
http://www.bethany-wpc.org/profiles/home.html. We
owe these folks a big round of
applause . . . and more for
the ton of
work they're doing on behalf of the Kingdom! Thanks Rick, Gabriela, and
all at Bethany!
LOOKING FOR SOMEONE TO INSURE YOUR MISSIONARY OVERSEAS?
Try Jeff
Gulleson at
goodnbor@juno.com. He can handle your overseas worker even
if he or she can't come home for a physical! He advertises low rates...
Available for both short- and long-term trips!
SO HOW DO YOU SPELL CHURCH-PLANTING?
Let's say you're successful in
mobilizing a team of cross-cultural workers . . . and you field your team .
. . and you're over there ready to go. . . . so... Now what?! How do you
plant a new church? If you've got a favorite resource or guidebook (we all
assume that the Bible is our primary guide, of course), send a note to
Wayne Penner
wpenner@nutecnet.com.br. The results will be compiled and
made available on Brigada. These could include books, videos, training
program, email lists, etc.
11,000 AND COUNTING . . . AND PRAYING!
As reported last week, the
Manna Church of Fayetteville, NC has taken up the task of recruiting prayer
"adopters" for all 1739 unreached peoples on the Joshua Project 2000 list.
Join them in celebrating the crossing of the 11,000 mark - i.e., 11,000
churches recruited to pray specifically for unreached people. Dick
Gaffney, from the office there, writes "If you'd like to report an adoption
in your church or group, include a mailing address (US post office) so that
we can mail immediately mail out an info packet, explaining the project. A
reply by mail postcard is included in that packet which will allow them to
request an unreached people group if and when they make the decision to
sign on. Due to the large number of responses we have and/or expect, we
just will just not have sufficient time to respond to each inquiry on an
individual basis." Dick and his team will keep us informed as time goes on.
So watch for continuing adoptions! Send your people group to Dick
RGaff13817@aol.com along with mailing instructions for the USA if possible.
WEB-WATCH
Have you seen the collection of links at
http://www.iinet.net.au/~createit/ResearchLinks.html Wow
- a real
cross-section of possibilities for research unreached people groups! And
don't forget to see what an absolute amateur can do with a couple of good,
inexpensive tools and a few quick hours at
http://www.teamexpansion.org.
I can say amateur because I'm talking about myself!
GLOBAL GLIMPSE FROM ADDIS ABABA
Andrew Meekens, an elder in the
International Christian Church in Addis Ababa, was one of the victims of
the tragic plane crash last November, when the aircraft ran out of fuel
after being hijacked. One of the members of the cabin crew recently
reported that following the pilot's announcement of his intention to
attempt an emergency landing, Meekens stood up and spoke to calm the
passengers. He explained the gospel of Jesus and invited the people to
accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. The surviving steward reported that 20
people responded, including one of his colleagues who was killed in the
crash.
(Source: Church around the World, PO Box 464, Mt. Morris, IL 61054,
USA, via DAWN Friday Fax 97/10)
Global Glimpse is compiled each week by
John Hanna, Caleb Project, Littleton, CO.
HERE'S YOUR CHANCE: BRIGADA SUBSCRIBERS TO PICK FIELD FOR MISSION COUPLE
Now here's
an interesting twist. Next week, we'll begin the
story of how one mission couple has decided to ask the people of Brigada
where they should go as cross-cultural workers! Watch closely for next
week's announcement about how it'll unfold. Exciting to see God at work!
TO SUBSCRIBE TO BRIGADA TODAY, send email to
hub@xc.org
with only the following message:
subscribe brigada
(Sure you can quote from Brigada Today! But please tell your readers
where you learned about the item, and if it's not asking too much, include
the 3 lines on how to subscribe - see above.)
TO UNSUBSCRIBE, send email to
hub@xc.org with this line in the text:
unsubscribe brigada
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!
21 of Mar., 1997
| "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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| PO Box 4100
| FAX: +1 (513) 244 8430 |
| Cincinnati, OH 45204 USA
| Organization: Team Expansion |
