Check it out and let me know your thoughts: Jesus in China

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- Ted

1. Personally “adopt” a country or people group

• Be an expert on one country or people group
• Prepare a one-page overview of this country for others to pray through
• Discover mission agencies, if any, that are working there – pray for them
• Share your burden for this country or people group with others

2. Read books about missionaries and missionary efforts

• “Peace Child” by Don Richardson
• “Lords of the Earth” by Don Richardson
• “Shadow of the Almighty” by Jim Elliot
• “Bruchko” by Bruce Olsen

3. Befriend Internationals

• If you are a student, meet them on campus
• Invite an international to Christmas,
• Thanksgiving, or some other holiday
• Help settle an immigrant to Canada
• Invite a foreign student to live with you

4. Become active in your church’s missionary programs

• Learn the names of your church’s missionaries
• Host a missionary family who is visiting (for dinner or longer!)
• Request newsletter from your church’s missionaries – pray!
• Join the missions committee

5. Keep the world in front of you day to day

• Put a world map up at your workplace
• Tape another one to your bathroom mirror
• Tape a small map into your Bible
• Put a small globe on your desk at work. Be creative!

6. Study the world

• Study the Bible looking for God’s heart for the world’s people Genesis 12:1-3
• Can you name the countries of the world? How about their capitols?
• What is the country known for?
• What is the spiritual condition of each country?

7. Become a consumer of World News

• Read it on the internet
• Watch it on TV
• Listen to it on the radio
• Decipher the “story behind the story” for the Kingdom of God –
• Start a prayer list from headlines

8. Systematically pray for the world

• Get Operation World and pray for one country a day
• Get on one email list which highlights global prayer needs
• • Find someone who will hold you accountable
• Cover the world in prayer—Block out a country with a highlighter each time you pray for it

9. Personally adopt a missionary

• Learn all you can about their country and people group
• Write them regularly – even if they don’t respond
• Remember their birthdays and anniversaries, send a care package
• Pray for them daily

10. Give

• Give regularly
• Give sacrificially
• Give with a plan
• Give strategically

11. Go short term

• Don’t make excuses—make plans: virtually everybody can go at least once in their lifetime
• Don’t go where there are many Christians: go to the unreached
• Don’t go alone: visit a team who can follow-up on your efforts
• Don’t go as a tourist: go as a learner—adapt to their culture

12. Go long term

• Make yourself available for God to open or close the door
• Take the course “Perspectives on the World Christian Movement”
• Contact missions agencies and ask about opportunities
• Tell your pastor about your desire

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Hot Spots – This is where demand converges and everybody wants to play (for example, all phone companies want to deliver multi-media capabilities).
Cool Places – Trend setting product design and development (currently it is electric cars among the auto industry).
White Spaces – Nobody is there quite yet, but new opportunities will emerge (cashless wallets).
Black Holes – Technology has shifted substantially and obviated some entire market players (iTunes kiling record stores, for example).

What would be some examples in the church and missions world?

Here are a few of my ideas:

Hot Spots: Church planting, multi-site (for mega-churches),
Cool Places: Missional churches, Business as Mission
White Spaces: Truly distributed e-churches? New denominationalism (when mega-churches start their own churches under their “brand.”
Black Holes: Denominations

Are Western missionary structures part of the “Black Hole?” Hard to say. Westerners, like all Christians, will always have an obligation to GO. So, the role will change, but I don’t think it can be dismissed.

Book reference: Marketing Genius by Peter Fisk

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