Saturday, June 6, 2009

This Week in the Mission Blogosphere

This week the Mission Blogophere gave us several interesting posts. In addition to these I wanted to include an old post from the "Voice of the Martyrs" blog that was challenging. So here it goes:
  1. Solving the Southern Baptist missions dilemma (and others?) - One Mission blogger, Grady Bauer, posted a possible solution to the Convention's missions problem. The same day, another blogger, Alan Knox, affirmed Grady's thinking on his own blog. What was the solution? Encourage missionaries to get secular, income-producing jobs. On Alan's site, this caused quite a bit of raucous in the comments. Some accused him of some "personal agenda", an axe to grind, etc. But is it really a bad idea? Not only is it very practical, but it is also very biblical. The greatest church planter in history (Paul) worked for an income almost everywhere he went. I concur that this option should be considered by all missionaries and sought by many (most?). This will be discussed in much more detail on this blog with an up-and-coming series.
  2. The unreached may be more reachable than we think - Justin Long of "The Network for Strategic Missions" posted about the location of unreached peoples. He notes that nearly all (90%) missionaries are working with people groups that already have access to the Gospel, while almost no missionaries (1%) work among unreached people groups. The reason often given is that these groups live in restricted countries. However, Justin pointed out that an enourmous number of these people live in relatively open countries, waiting to be reached. What will we do about them?
  3. If you lost your Bible would it change your life? - This was a question posed by an old post on the "Voice of the Martyrs" blog quite a while back. A persecuted Christian prisoner made this statement: "In prison, the most difficult thing was to live without a Bible." Would it affect you as much?
Should missionaries consider working in a secular field for an income while they are church planting? 

What will we do about those unreached peoples who are reachable?

If you lost your Bible would it change your life?

Three important questions. What will you do?

1 comment:

Debtor Paul said...

I'm posting this for an Independent Fundamental Baptist missionary who tried to comment on this post. She is a friend and used my name, so I am posting her comment without my name in it:

"I wanted to comment on your question should missionaries consider working while trying to church plant. As you know we have been on the field for 3 years now. In that time our support has dropped nearly in half. We decided after much prayer that I(Janice) should look for some part time work so that Brian could continue in the ministry. We both agreed that we would do ANYTHING to stay where God has placed us. God blessed us with a job that lasted for 2 years and got us through until the church grew and people began to tithe. If I would not have found a job we would have had to leave the field and go back on deputation only to return again and start all over. During those 2 years we saw 13 souls saved and baptized. 8 people rededicated their lives and and 3 surrender to God's will for their life. We would do it again to see these same results. Wouldn't you? God is so good!!!"