Great Commission Initiative's New Webpage

www.PantaTaEthne.org

Check it out for the latest news, upcoming trainings and perhaps best of all, loads of great resources on reaching "all the people groups" to whom God has sent us!

StoryRunners

StoryRunners, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, has some storying resources available online at http://www.storyrunners.com/Resources.aspx. Interesting features are the Bible Theme Search and a sample story set on mp3s aimed at American college students.

Example: Importance of Researching A Culture

New Evidence of God Influencing Chinese Civilization

The history of Western civilization often focuses on the influence of Judaism and Christianity. Would it surprise us to learn:

• Many ancient Chinese written characters have their origins in the stories of Genesis?


• The Chinese emperors started sacrificing an unblemished calf to the "God above the emperor" around 1500 BC and continued to do so each winter solstice until the 1920's?


• No images or idols were ever allowed to depict the "God above the emperor", who was considered to be holy, all-powerful, all-knowing, and forgiving?


• Many of the earliest Chinese Emperors understood this yearly sacrifice was a priestly duty to atone for the sins of their people?


• Huge altar complexes were created in the emperor's cities for this yearly sacrifice, including the last one called 'the Altar of Heaven,' located in Beijing in a complex even larger than the Forbidden City?
  

Chinese businessman Chan Kei Thong wrote a book now available in the US called Faith of Our Fathers: God in Ancient China, which tracks the influence of Christianity in Chinese culture. Amazingly, Chan Kei has found quotes by Confucius acknowledging the importance of the yearly atonement sacrifice. Chan Kei also found clear astrological records confirming a convergence of three bright stars in the east in the spring of 5BC (estimated date of Jesus' birth) and a solar eclipse around AD31 (estimated date of Jesus' crucifixion). Ancient Chinese astrologers amazingly connected these occurrences to God initiating an atonement sacrifice.

In addition to the evidence of God's work in the earliest formation of Chinese civilization presented in Chan Kei's book, other historians have found evidences of later influences that have impacted modern China:

• Records indicate that Christianity arrived in China in AD 635 with Nestorian missionaries and heavily influenced the emperor's court over the next 300 years;


• A 'Buddhist' pagoda built in the 8th century AD has a nativity relief on the 2nd floor, and upon further investigation, it was discovered that it was originally a Christian church;


• The father of modern China, Sun Yat-sen, was a Christian, converted by his wife whose sister married and also converted the founder of Taiwan to Christianity.

When God calls us to mission either in our community or across the world, we can assume that He has already preceded us in ways that would confound our imaginations. Too often we have such a need to get our plans and strategies recognized by people, whom we are convinced desperately need them, that we fail to listen carefully to how God has already prepared more powerful plans and strategies in their hearts and lives.

It is not surprising that studying the influence of Judaism and Christianity in Chinese history has not been a priority in the last century among Chinese government historians. What is maybe more surprising is that those of us in the West failed to discover earlier that we were not bringing something new to Chinese culture, but rather awakening and revealing what God had put there long before many of our own cultures existed.

Chan Kei's book is available in the US only at http://whatcounts.com/t?r=300&c=912200&l=5690&ctl=16E5C14:90CF487062509E41DC879CE0E826C1F1156BDF0B28E6EBE6.

It is an inspiring read demonstrating that when Jesus called us to witness to the outermost reaches of the world after his resurrection, God had already been preparing the ground in various cultures of the world for thousands of years. It is a pungent reminder to listen for where God has preceded us in our work, family, church, community and mission in the world before we impose our own plans and strategies.

"I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd." (John 10:16)



from GlobalScape, April 2007, Bakke Graduate University (http://www.bgu.edu/news/globalscape/index)

Have something to contribute?

If you'd like to contribute to this group blog, send an email to ScottColeman@dba.net and we'll send you instructions on how to be a part!

Chronological Bible Video

Check out this site for an 80 minute video of "God's Story".

www.movieofthebible.com

(or www.videoofthebible.com)

Currently available in 170 languages (http://www.gods-story.org/progress.htm) Even hip-hop! (http://www.biblevideo.org/html/holy_hip_hop.html)

Much can be seen or listened to for free online. (To read and/or watch the whole thing in English: http://www.christiananswers.net/godstory)

The cost of the videos are under $20 (http://www.gods-story.org/ShopCart/product_videos.asp) with some available for $3! (http://www.gods-story.org/ShopCart/Specials.asp)

Story4All Podcasts

story4all is based in Ireland and is part of a growing network of believers throughout the world who are committed to bringing the Story of God to all peoples ... orally.

On our Links page you can visit various ministries who are doing a sterling work discipling oral learners, training full-time workers or providing wonderful resources.

Check it out using iTunes or visit www.story4all.com

Bruchko

Great examples of the Gospel's communication across cultures--even when the Gospel carrier is uncomfortable with the indigeneity of this communication.

See especially two middle chapters recording this first move of the Spirit.

Bruchko by Bruce Olson

"What happens when a nineteen-year-old boy leaves home and heads into the jungles to evangelize a murderous tribe of South American Indians?"

http://www.amazon.com/Bruchko-Bruce-Olson/dp/0884191338

Storying in Narnia

I just ran across this in my bedtime reading to my kids.

In The Horse and His Boy, one of the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis writes...

At last Bree said, "And now Tarkheena, tell us your story. And don't hurry it--I'm feeling comfortable now."

Aravis [the Tarkheena] immediately began, sitting quite still and using a rather different tone and style from her usual one. For in Calormen, story-telling (whether the stories are true or made up) is a thing you're taught, just as English boys and girls are taught essay writing. The difference is that people want to hear the stories, whereas I never heard of anyone who wanted to read the essays.

Ha! An incentive to pay attention in week three, huh?!

Distinguishing between home and mission field no longer makes sense

Here's a link to an interesting article.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/january/30.42.html

He doesn't talk much about people groups, but he does make some interesting "missionary" points.

Among them, this:

The U.S. remains the largest single contributor of Protestant cross-cultural missionaries. But which country is the second largest? Not a Western nation, but India. And it is possible that India has overtaken the States in the number of those involved in truly cross-cultural mission—both within and beyond India. There are many more Korean missionaries than British, and some Nigerian evangelical mission organizations are larger in personnel than most Western ones (while operating on budgets that are a fraction of their Western counterparts’).

International Dallas: It's not just about illegal immigrants

"Some eye-opening facts gleaned from the report, which was based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau and other sources:"

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/localnews/columnists/sjacobson/stories/DN-jacobson_06met.ART.North.Edition1.2477dac.html

MLA Language Map

Brand new today on the web today is the MLA Language Map!

www.mla.org

You can use it to find concentrations down to zip codes of 30ish different language groups.

Leave a comment as you discover practical ways to use the maps and the accompanying information.

TxGCI-ers Rob and Gloria Rolinson in this week's Baptist Standard

"Providential connections speed church planting in Mexico"
http://www.baptiststandard.com/postnuke/index.php?module=htmlpages&func=display&pid=4751


Rob and Gloria work among unreached Indian tribes in the Mexico mountains.

This story talks specifically about God's work through them among the Tepehuano people group in the town of Guajolota.

And an example of incredible "person(s) of peace."

DFWInternational.org

www.DFWInternational.org is a great website for those in Dallas, Tarrant and surrounding areas.

The best pages for research are the "Demographics" and the "Resource Center" pages. The "Resource Center" has two immigration reports that are full interesting information on where how dozens on cultures thrive in our area.

IMB Resources

I found a lot of potentially useful information at www.IMBResources.org, including a whole section of books on "Storying and Oral Learning"...

...and the map showing the status of Global Status of Evagelical Christianity (for free!).

And on www.imb.org/WE, there is a whole lot of info available on people groups.

“Film at 11…!”

TxGCI participant Pastor Campo Londono and his church, Iglesia Bautista Horeb in Houston, reach Arab Muslims in North Africa using their Hispanic heritage.

They are the subject of the featured clip on the IMB video site at http://www.imb.org/VideoLink/default.asp

P.E.A.C.E. Plan

Rick Warren and Saddleback's PEACE Plan Announcement
http://www.purposedriven.com/en-US/AboutUs/PDintheNews/Archives/25th_Celebration.htm

"The emphasis calls for church-based small groups to adopt villages where spiritual emptiness, selfish leadership, poverty, disease, and ignorance keep people from experiencing the kind of life God wants them to have, he said.
...
"Saddleback's network of 2,600 small groups is starting the movement as each one adopts a village where it will seek to implement the P.E.A.C.E. Plan. The congregation has been testing the plan over the past 18 months as 4,500 church members have been involved in pilot projects."

How to get involved with the PEACE Plan
http://www.purposedriven.com/en-US/PEACE/How_can_my_church_get_started.htm

Muslim Student Associations

"Whatever we do with other ethnics, we must be doing something with Islam. Islam will dominate America in 40-50 years." - Jim Slack, session one, 2/27/06



List of Muslim Student Associations in Texas
http://wings.buffalo.edu/sa/muslim/org/MSAs.html#Texas

From “History” page at the Muslim Student Association’s national website. (http://www.msa-national.org/about/history.html)
“Muslim student organizations were popping up all over the country, mainly in the mid-west, and comprised largely of foreign graduate students bent on returning home after their studies. Many of them did. But a significant portion realized that they would still have the responsibilty of spreading Islam as students in North America. The main goal was always Da’wah (“invitation” or proselytizing).”

"The World is Flat"

Here are links to Thomas Friedman's speech to the governors that we saw at Camp Buckner.
video: mms://media.nga.org/AM2005/B-4-Friedman.wmv
audio only: mms://media.nga.org/AM2005/B-4-Friedman.wma

These are links to the 11 minute question and answer time that followed, which we did not see.
video: mms://media.nga.org/AM2005/B-5-QandA.wmv
audio only: mms://media.nga.org/AM2005/B-5-QandA.wma

"Orality" articles in current Christianity Today

Winning the Oral Majority
Mission agencies rethink outreach to the world's non-literate masses.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/003/30.56.html

"Seventy percent of the world's people today can't, don't, or won't read," says Avery Willis, executive director of the recently formed International Orality Network (ION), a partnership of 22 mission agencies including the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board (IMB), Youth With a Mission (YWAM), Trans World Radio, Campus Crusade for Christ, and Wycliffe Bible Translators.

while

"...nearly 90 percent of the world's Christian workers serve among auditory learners and often use inappropriate, literacy-based communication styles."

- AND -

Orality at Home
The language of postmodernism.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/003/31.58.html

"The storytelling around the campfire that we view as the practice of the ancients has been replaced by storytelling from the flickering light of the television screen," says Grant Lovejoy, the Southern Baptists' director of oral strategies.

International Migration to Texas Cities

Thanks, Tom, for the reference to www.frey-demographer.org. Just looking through some of the materials there I found these bits that refer to us in Texas:

• Texas had 1.4 million more foreign-born residents in 2000 that we did in 1990.
• From 95 to 2000, Harris County lost 114,892 residents to other places in the US, but gained 181,509 from international immigration.
• Similarly, Dallas County lost 89,724 "domestic migrants" but gained 137,081 international immigrants.
• The larger areas of the Dallas-Fort Worth CSMA and the Houston-Galveston-Brazoria CSMA, gained 231,494 and 214,268 immigrants from abroad respectively during that time.

I believe this is all pointing to the fact that there are more and more ethne coming to our cities.

Rapid Asian Growth in Texas

Tom Billings just pointed me toward this article in today's USA Today.

Sun Belt, Suburbs Get More Diverse
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-03-07-diversity-report_x.htm

Interesting quotes for Texas include:

"The influx of immigrants and people moving to the Sun Belt and Western mountain states from other parts of the USA is rearranging the ethnic tapestry of urban centers in an unprecedented way. "

Increase in Asian population from 2000-2004 (just four years!)
Austin-Round Rock, Texas 28.2%
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas 24.8%
These are the 7th and 10th fasting growing areas of Asian population in the country.

House Churches in TIME Magazine!

In this week's TIME Magazine (dated March 6, 2006)...

There's No Pulpit Like Home
Some Evangelicals are abandoning megachurches for minichurches--based in their own living rooms http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1167737,00.html

4/11/06: The article is now in the "archive" at:
http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1167737,00.html