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Reconsecration to a Wartime Lifestyle (PDF) is a classic article written by Dr. Ralph Winter, founder of the U.S. Center for World Missions, about Christians mobilizing for the spiritual war that we are in. Using the service of the Queen Mary during war time as an illustration, he talks about ways believers need to deny themselves for the good of the war.
Reconsecration.org is a website that tries to help Christians reconsecrate their lives with practical advice and resources including a spread sheet for setting up a budget. This is taken from their FAQ page:
Why use the language of “war”? Who is the enemy?
We are advocating reconsecration to a wartime lifestyle in order to overcome evil with good, especially by freeing up millions of dollars to overcome all kinds of evil. We are pointing to a war that is going on now, that threatens the planet. The Bible says, ‘The whole world lies under the power of the evil one.” (I John 5:14). We are pledging ourselves to a “wartime lifestyle”, in order to produce the instruments that will win the war. The Bible says, “The Son of God appeared in order to destroy the works of the devil” (I John 3:8). The works of the devil are evident all around us.
Do you guys have any advice on how to ration well?
These are always fun.
Did you know that there are more English translations of the Bible than there are of all other languages combined? I hereby call a moratorium on English Bible Translations. These Hebrew and Greek scholars have to begin putting their knowledge to work for the thousands of languages and billions of people that still need a Bible. I like the ESV too, but I don’t know if it really is going to improve my walk with Christ. The NASB is doing alright.
A couple of weeks ago I was chatting with a friend of mine, who is employed at a Southern Baptist Church, about the annual convention that was going on. He asked me the one thing that we were both thinking. “Does the enemy even know this is going on?” Or rather, “Does he even care?”
I have written about them, but do the politics of convention just seem like the lamest deal ever? That is all.
Man this is such old news, but it is good news and so I will share it. I wrote a post entitled “To Sad to be Humorous” a while back about a couple that might be thrown out of the IMB for partnering with another group of missionaries that were not with the IMB. The Board reinstated them in May! Boy howdy is that a good thing. I would have been pretty upset if they got thrown out for this. The link above talks about their reinstatement.
Compass, Telescope, and Tour Guide: Lessons Learned in Student Mobilization
Most of the people that read this are students or student mobilizers, so I thought you might be interested in this article. Do you agree with what Claude Hickman is saying?
Sorry that it is only in PDF format, but you can download this Firefox extension to read PDFs as HTML. Here if you want it for Flock.
Here is an excerpt from the article:
God has allowed us to have an enormous amount
of contact with students over the past seven
years. After 150,000 students and 1100 campus
meetings I feel like we’re finally learning some
things about mobilization. Students are changing
quickly and so are the influences on them,
such as media, parents, peers, and music. Here
are a few glimpses of what we’ve learned.
I agree with his take that students have too many choices and that it makes it difficult to figure out what agency of group to become a part of. I remember attending mission conferences during college having no idea what made one group better or different than another. My choice came down to the fact that I knew people personally at HGM. I found this part of his article the most enlighting:
The importance of community among students
is something that is radically changing the dynamics
of short- and long-term work in missions
today. Television gives us a great insight into the
shared values of a generation. Shows like 90210,
Friends and Seinfeld in the last decade demonstrated
that young adults can go through anything
in life as long as there is a small community
of relationships to provide social strength.
I think that this generation is asking the question
“Who is going?” long before they ask “Where
are we going?” I’m not talking about peer-pressure
but a deeper need for a team or community.
For example, mission agencies that offer team
approaches and clear descriptions for summer
trips are seeing an increase in student participation.
Though this may take more effort for agencies,
the payoff can be great. We recently saw
an agency put together a one-year team to India
as prelude to what they hope will be long-term
work there; the team came together quickly, and
two married couples from the team have committed
to lead that work long-term.
My first trip overseas was more about who asked me to go than where we were going. My friend Chris had been discipling for a year and wanted to put together a trip of the guys in our group. I might have preferred to take the trip else where, but I wanted to go with a group of friends who shared the same heart. I have heard John Zumwalt say before, “we care more about who are teams are than where are teams are”.
Also, you should check out Mission Frontiers Magazine. It is a great resource for anyone interested or involved in missions. You can either order a subscription for a recommended donation (or free if you can’t afford it) or read it online for free.
Emboldened by SBC Outpost’s post encouraging readers to get a real browser, I figured I would publish the same here. Much of the programming on the web is being done for Mozilla Firefox and won’t render, or look right, in Internet Explorer. I suggest throwing that old, buggy, unsecure web browser away and getting Firefox, or it’s prettier cousin based on it, Flock. Lots of people also like Opera, which just came out with version 9.0.
So get with it.? You don’t know what you’re missing.
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