On May 12, a devastating 7.9 earthquake hit China. Reports claim:

• 45,000,000+ people have been affected by the earthquake
• 5,000,000+ people are now homeless
• 360,000+ people have been injured
• 65,000+ people have died
• Thousands are still missing

You can help China. Buy a shirt.

A graphic designer named Steve has partnered with World Vision to sell 50,000 t-shirts and raise $1,000,000 to help China. It is called FiftyThousandShirts.com.

Uncontacted tribes still exist. It is hard to believe a group of people can exist for thousands of years without having contact with the outside world. But currently over 100 uncontacted tribes are scattered throughout the world.

Yesterday, new photos of an uncontacted tribe on the border of Peru and Brazil were published. When the tribe saw the airplane, they tried to shoot it with arrows. Unfortunately, contact with such tribes also brings them in contact with deadly diseases they have never known. Survival International reports many uncontacted tribes are fleeing their land as colonists, loggers, oil crews, and cattle ranchers come.

So how do we reach these uncontacted tribes with the gospel? It is not an easy question to answer, particularly when contact could expose them to diseases. Each tribe is unique. One missions organization that does well reaching people who have never heard the gospel is New Tribes Mission. If you want to see what evangelizing and discipling a remote tribe looks like, watch the following two videos about the Mouk tribe of Papua New Guinea.

Evangelizing the Mouk Tribe

Discipling the Mouk Tribe

For Discussion:
- How do you think these uncontacted and remote tribes can best be reached with the gospel?

[via Yahoo! News & The Daily Mail]

I spent part of my childhood as a missionary’s kid in Lima, Peru. Two weeks before we moved to Peru, the leader of the Shining Path terrorists was captured. His capture made Peru significantly safer.

Because of terrorism, Lima was a place where a bank security guard might carry a grenade and where grocery security guards routinely checked cars in the parking lot for bombs. Overall, I found Lima to be quite safe. Legal gun ownership was restricted to specific people, such as police, military, security, and diplomats. But despite my sense of security, terrorism still occurred.

In fact, a few blocks from our house, a school was bombed. The blast rattled our windows. But our street was always safe. One reason is we prayed for God’s protection. And another reason is we had gunmen protecting both ends our street. One corner had two private security guards protecting our landlord’s house with semi-automatic pistols. The other corner had a military jeep with several soldiers carrying submachine guns.

Needless to say, our street had no crime. No terrorism. The presence of guns helped make our street safe.

MINISTRY LESSON
The presence of church security helps deter troublemakers.

Church security guards make potential troublemakers think twice about doing wrong, particularly misdemeanors like vandalism or petty theft. I also believe the presence of guns and church security can deter potential church shooters.

Sadly, we know even with armed church security that church shootings can still happen. Such was the case at New Life Church (Colorado Springs, CO) when a church shooter killed two and injured three in the church parking lot before he entered the church building where he was finally shot and stopped by an armed church security guard. The security guard had been praying and fasting beforehand.

Just in the past two weeks, three church shootings have occurred in California, Delaware, and Jamaica. Without question, it is important that we pray for God’s protection and fully put our trust in Him. But many churches also consider it important and good stewardship to have a church security presence. In fact, one church goes as far as sending their security team to The Defensive Shooting Academy for police and military quality training.

For Discussion:
- Do you think church security is a good idea or bad idea and why?
- If you already have church security, what are your best tips for keeping church safe?

Other MK Ministry Lessons
1. Speaking Another Language
2. Big Numbered Intis
3. Timoteo’s Fly Eye Kaleidoscope
4. Christmas Tacos
5. Worm Pills

I spent part of my childhood as a missionary’s kid in Lima, Peru. One October, my parents hosted a team of doctors and nurses from Cincinnati for medical missions in Lima and Cusco.

At one of the ministry sites near Cusco, many of the children had worms. It is an easily cured problem with worm pills. Unfortunately, our medical team could only briefly solve the problem. After taking a worm pill, the children would rush to the water spigot to wash the pill’s bad taste out. But the water from the spigot contained the parasites which gave them worms in the first place.

The worm pills could never solve the problem until the root of the problem was taken care of first. Without clean water, the worm pills were useless.

MINISTRY LESSON
Effective problem solving takes care of the root of the problem.

For example, a congregation that resists change for tradition’s sake, does not need persuasion as for why change is necessary. What they need is a mindset shift from a selfish, inward focus to a selfless, missional focus.

Or when your children’s ministry check-in process is creating long lines, do not corral the parents with stanchions if what you really need is to simplify the check-in system.

If volunteers are not performing well, you probably do not need better volunteers. You probably need better leadership.

If you don’t take care of the root of the problem, you will always have problems to solve.

For Discussion:
- What are your tips for problem solving?

Other MK Ministry Lessons
1. Speaking Another Language
2. Big Numbered Intis
3. Timoteo’s Fly Eye Kaleidoscope
4. Christmas Tacos

I spent part of my childhood as a missionary’s kid in Lima, Peru. In the early years, my parents taught Bible school classes at a mission. It was a big blue building with a courtyard for parking vehicles. Near the front gate were some stairs that led up to a small room with a couch and a kitchen. Attached to that was a much smaller room that was barely large enough to fit a mattress. This is where Timoteo lived with his wife and two children.

Timoteo was a Bible student but also worked at the mission as a groundskeeper and night watchman. He had come from the jungle with not much more than his family and a passion to study the Bible. Hoping to make life easier, we gave them clothes. But as a kid, I thought our gift was lacking something, so I added a bright yellow fly eye kaleidoscope. It wasn’t much. I won it years earlier with skee-ball tickets at a pizza joint. And all it did was multiply whatever you looked at into “hundreds” of images just like a fly’s eye.

It was a novelty trinket, but Timoteo loved it. He kept walking around the mission looking through it. Some people might consider it to be an insignificant piece of junk, but to Timoteo and his family, it was a treasure.

THE MINISTRY LESSON:
What seems small to you can make a big difference to someone else.

The Intangible
To a non-Christian, an authentic smile from a church parking lot attendant will probably make a bigger impact than the style of the worship music. Your next door neighbor is more likely to attend your church because you are friendly than because the sermon series is “cool.” Sometimes something as small as listening with genuine interest after asking someone about their day is enough to make their day.

The Tangible
According to Kids Against Hunger, a child dies every 2 seconds from malnutrition, starvation, and hunger-related diseases. It only costs $0.23 to buy a child a meal. According to Living Water International, a child dies every 15 seconds because of a lack of clean water. It only costs $0.98 to provide clean, safe water to one person for one year.

A little bit can go a long way.

In case you are wondering what happened to Timoteo, he eventually sold the fly eye kaleidoscope to raise money for ministry. He is a phenomenal Christian example to me. As a pastor, terrorists came to his church and demanded support. He refused. At gun point, they threatened to shoot him, his wife, and children. He said, “It does not matter. We are already dead in Christ.” The terrorists assumed he was crazy and left without harming anyone.

For Discussion:
- What are some little things that you have found make big impacts?

The weakening value of the U.S. dollar and the rising global costs of food and oil are creating a money crisis for many on the mission field. Missionaries typically do not have big budgets. And as the dollar weakens, some are faced with the difficult decision of cutting something effective for survival’s sake.

If you had a 10% pay cut, that would be significant. Basically, that’s what those people are feeling right now.
George Salloum :: CFO :: Serving In Mission

Prayer and financial support for missionaries is always important but particularly so during times like these.

[via The Charlotte Observer]

I spent part of my childhood as a missionary’s kid in Lima, Peru. It wasn’t the mud huts and jungle you see on National Geographic. Lima is actually an urban metropolis with 8 million residents.

THE STORY:
Less than a block from our house was a large park with grassy fields that were perfect for soccer. My brother and I went to play a game with some other boys from the neighborhood. There were German boys, an Asian boy, and a few Peruvians, and they all spoke Spanish.

Being new to Peru, my brother and I hardly spoke any Spanish. But despite the language barrier, we somehow found a way to interact and start a game. As we kicked the ball around the field, we quickly learned that they did know some English.

“F@%$ you!” one boy said, quite pleased with himself. And after that, a slew of other surprising words followed. They had nothing against us. In fact, they liked us because we were Americans. They wanted to impress us with their English cussing.

But as a nine-year-old boy, I was not impressed. I was shocked. And I did not interact with them much after that. They knew English, but they did not know the right words.

THE MINISTRY LESSON:
We live in an age with many cultures and subcultures. And effectively reaching them often requires learning how speak a culture’s language. But just because you can speak a few words of a culture’s language, does not mean you know how to effectively reach and communicate with them. In fact, you could do more harm than good.

For example, it is common for youth ministers to try to “speak” the language of youth culture by dressing like the teens they are trying to reach. Many youth pastors can pull this off. But there are some who end up looking like they are in a mid-life crisis. Authenticity speaks volumes to teenagers, and without it, a youth pastor just looks like a poser.

Knowing a culture’s language is useless if you do not have the right “words” to say.

And vice versa:

Having the right “words” to say is useless if you do not know a culture’s language.

I struggled to learn Spanish, and consequently, I got little value out of attending Spanish Sunday School. I’m sure it was good, but it was useless since I did not speak the language. Likewise, a ministry can say all the right things but still be ineffective if people do not understand the cultural language being used.

I do believe there are exceptions to these rules. But in most cases, effectively reaching a culture requires:

1. Knowing how to speak the culture’s language.
2. Knowing the right words to say.

Children’s ministers and missionaries have been using clown ministry for years, but University of Sheffield researchers discovered that most children ages 4 to 16 dislike clown images. The research was an effort to find ways to improve healthcare environments for children and young people.

As adults we make assumptions about what works for children. We found that clowns are universally disliked by children. Some found them quite frightening and unknowable.
- Dr. Penny Curtis :: Researcher :: Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth

Very few children like clowns. They are unfamiliar and come from a different era. They don’t look funny, they just look odd. Children are much more happy with things stuck on the wall that have some sort of personal relevance for them, not some images that are foisted upon them by adults.
- Patricia Doorbar :: Child Psychologist

I find Patricia Doorbar’s remarks particularly fascinating because she suggests that clowns are from an era that is no longer relevant to today’s children. Despite this, I am aware of some clown ministries that children do enjoy, but I wonder if they would be even more effective if they repackaged their look but kept the same techniques.

[via BBC News]