Quote of the Week

How well do you know the area you live in? Our quote this week comes with a challenge. With the constant influx of immigrants and refugees into our nation there's a good chance you have members of an unreached people group living nearby.   This gives you an amazing opportunity to impact groups that are difficult to access in their home nations.  The challenge is to look at your own community and see what groups you have access to.  You may be surprised at what you find.  For example, one of the largest communities of Somali people outside of Africa live in Minnesota, of all places.   You can see from the chart below how many diverse groups live in the San Francisco area.  While not all these groups are considered "unreached," you can get an idea of how many unique groups populate our cities. After doing the research ask yourself what you can do to welcome and share Christ's love with these people.

"God cannot lead you based on information you do not have" - Ralph Winter

Collaborative Gathering

This last week I had the pleasure of attending our annual YWAM North America Frontier Missions Consultation.  This is always a great time of connecting with others with similar focus and passions as we discuss ways we can be more effective in mobilizing and training people for ministry to least reached people.  This year we had an added twist as we were joined by our friends from YWAM Cities.  It was a really good chance to see what others in our YWAM family are doing and see how we can work together to better reach least reach peoples, both those living in the 10/40 Window as well as those who are here as immigrants or students.  It was fantastic to look at how our God-given strengths and focuses are able to help each other.  Moving forward I'm very excited about how Father is going to use this partnership.

Quote of the Week

Our quote this week comes from T.J. Bach, a missionary to Venezuela and Columbia in the late 1800's.  I feel like a lot of people have this mentality, that if God wants them to do something, He'll shine a spotlight on the path and it will be lined with Roses and everything will be easy.  

"If we are going to wait until every possible hindrance has been removed before we do a work 

for the Lord, we will never attempt to do anything.” - T.J. Bach

Quote of the Week

Our quote this week comes from William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army.  One of the things I admire about Mr. Booth is that, while caring deeply about helping to meet people's felt needs he didn't lose sight of the bigger picture.  That being the fact that those he was helping also needed an opportunity to hear the Gospel. 

"Not called!’ did you say? ’Not heard the call,’ I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father’s house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face—whose mercy you have professed to obey—and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world.” – William Booth

Reviewing the SOFM: Week 5

Earlier in the SOFM we had taken a look at cross-cultural insights to give the students a surface level look at anthropology and ethnography (the hands-on research of a culture).  This week we dug into the importance of not only ethnography, but also doing research on the location each student feels led to work in.

The idea behind doing research is to better understand the worldview and mindset of the people you're trying to reach.  While things may appear very clear on the surface, it is often the things far beneath the surface that cause the most difficulties, sort of like an iceberg. For example, you might be working in a SE Asian country that is predominantly Muslim.  What you don't see is that the country has been, at various points in it's history, predominantly Hindu and Animistic .  These things, while seeming like ancient history, have actually played a large role and continue to define and influence people's worldview. Without taking the time to dig into a culture and it's history it's impossible to develop a clear picture of their worldview, which makes it difficult to clearly communicate the gospel.

Quote of the Week

I hope that you find this week's quote challenging.  I have always found it strange when Christians complain about facing opposition because of their relationship with Jesus.  When I read the New Testament and look at reality for most Christians in the world, it bears out what Chesterton expresses.  The way I see it is this: the enemy is probably not going to bother attacking you if you're not doing anything to threaten his kingdom, and in my opinion the normal life of a disciple of Jesus should include the type of actions that do just that. 

"Jesus promised his disciples three things: they would be completely fearless, absurdly 

happy, and in constant trouble.” – G.K. Chesterton

G.K. Chesterton