Global Mission Mondays: Saudi Arabia

Tonight our church will be praying for the country of Saudi Arabia. 

Saudi Arabia has a population of about 25 million people, 97% of whom are Muslim.   Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, although, according to the Basic Law of Government adopted by royal decree in 1992, the king must comply with Sharia law and the Qur'an. No political parties or national elections are permitted.

Religious freedom is virtually non-existent in Saudi Arabia. The Government does not provide legal recognition or protection for freedom of religion, and it is severely restricted in practice. As a matter of policy, the Government guarantees and protects the right to private worship for all, including non-Muslims who gather in homes for religious practice; however, this right is not always respected in practice and is not defined in law. The preaching and public practice of non-Muslim religions is prohibited.  There are no churches or other non-Muslim houses of worship permitted in the country.  Proselytizing by non-Muslims is illegal, and conversion by Muslims to another religion (apostasy) carries the death penalty.

The freedom of women is seriously restricted in Saudi Arabia. Women are not allowed to travel without the permission of their closest male relative, who may be a son or a younger brother. Women who are divorced, return under their father's authority and like any other adult woman is denied the right to live on her own and to marry of her free will.

Saudi Arabia is sometimes called "The Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Mecca and Medina, the two holiest places in Islam.

Saudi Arabia has the world's largest oil reserves and is the world's largest oil exporter. Oil accounts for more than 90% of exports and nearly 75% of government revenues.  Saudi Arabia is one of only a few fast-growing countries in the world with a high per capita income of $20,700.

[information from wikipedia]

Monthly Evening for Senior Citizens

Wednesday our church hosted its monthly evening for senior citizens.  I left my camera at church afterward and so I'm a little late on this post. 

Liese and the crew cooked up a storm while making sure that it wouldn't violate the Orthodox fast that is going on now.  Of course nobody is sure exactly what can't be eaten or who is keeping the fast, but no meat was served just to be safe.  Only fish.

After supper we played Bingo which is pretty much everyone's favorite game, because who wouldn't want a free chance to win a chocolate bar or Southwestern cactus print oven mitts? 

Partnering or Outsourcing Missions?

Today a friend linked to a blog that had this quote at the top:

 More often than not, “partnering in missions,” means small churches give what little money they think they can afford to a larger church or a missions sending agency that will handle mobilization, screening, indoctrination, training, sending, and maintenance of missionaries on the field. This is not “partnering,” it’s outsourcing.

 I'm not against churches giving to missions organizations or agencies but I think that this fellow has a point about how we think about partnering: is it our church that is partnering or has the board of the church simply allocated funds to missions? 

I would love to see more churches partnering, maybe participating is a better word, in missions by having the congregation actually involved in the spreading of the gospel by actually being supports to missionaries and missions. 

What do you think?

How is your church partnering with missions?

Global Mission Mondays: Syria

Tonight at our prayer meeting we will be praying for the country of Syria.  Here are a few facts to give us a picture of Syria so that we can better know how to pray for the church there and for the gospel to be spread:

Syria has a population of approximately 22.2 million people, and Syrian Government figures place the population growth rate at 2.45%, with 75% of the population under the age of 35 and more than 40% under the age of 15.   In 2005 it was estimated that 30% of the Syrian population lived in poverty and 11.4% live below the subsistence level.

Syria has been under Emergency Law since 1962, effectively suspending most constitutional protections for citizens, and its system of government is considered non-democratic.  Syrian governments have justified the state of emergency in the light of the continuing war with Israel.

The constitution requires the president to be a Muslim, but does not make Islam the state religion.  It is illegal to convert from Islam to Christianity however Syria is not as antagonistic toward Christians as most Muslim majority countries.  Many of the 1.3 million Iraqi refugees that live in Syria are Christian, as well as a large group of Armenian Christian refugees from the 1915 war with Turkey.  Many Christian Syrians belong to a high socio-economic class.

Christians make up 10% of the population, Muslim 87%, and Druze 3%.

Syria has a poor record on human rights. The Assad government has been criticized for arresting democracy and human rights activists, censoring websites, detaining bloggers, and imposing travel bans. Arbitrary detention, torture, and disappearances are widespread. Although Syria's constitution guarantees gender equality, critics say that personal status laws and the penal code discriminate against women and girls. 

[information mostly from wikipedia]

Lessons from the life o Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

The Resurgence recently posted an article with 20 lessons from the life of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones.   Here is the list, but check out the full article for the reasons behind these lessons. 

On education

   1. Having a theological degree is not necessary for everyone who would be a minister.
   2. We should not despise academic learning.
   3. We should learn from those who have gone before.
   4. We should actively pursue a knowledge of God by his Spirit, as well as reliable theology.

On ministry

   5. Pastors should not leave all student ministry to others.
   6. Preachers should make themselves available to their congregations.
   7. We should labor to build a community, not just a preaching center.

On preaching

   8. The Word of God must be applied with all the skill of a surgeon’s scalpel.
   9. We urgently need preaching that carries a sense of burden and compassion for the people.
   10. Anecdotes and illustrations are important.
   11. Preaching the gospel is the highest calling, and giving up a lucrative career, if called to do so by Christ, is no sacrifice.

On the church

   12. Denominations are not the most effective way of governing the church.
   13. Some men are a gift of Christ to the whole church.

On our interactions with others

  14. We must be able to work with those who disagree with us.
  15. We must not be afraid to criticize our friends.
  16. Separation from unbelievers need not always mean separation from those who do not separate.

On ourselves

   17. We must be self-critical.
   18. We must never become professionals.
   19. We must emphasize prayer and seek God earnestly to do what only he can do.
   20. We must make the pursuit of Joy central.

Global Mission Mondays: Iraq

Tonight we will be praying for Iraq at our weekly prayer meeting.  Here are some facts about Iraq that I'll be sharing to help in understanding the needs in Iraq:

Iraq has a population of about 32 million, around 75%–80% of the population is Arab; the other major ethnic groups are Kurds at 15%–20%, Assyrians, Iraqi Turkmen and others (5%). Religious composition includes: Islam, 97%; Christianity or other, 3%.  Estimates for the numbers of Christians suggest a decline from 8-10% in the mid-20th century to 5% at the turn of the century, to 3% of the population in 2008.

The Barnabas Fund website states that:

"The situation for Christians in Iraq has steadily got worse over recent years. Baghdad and Mosul appear to be particularly dangerous places for Christians, with numerous examples of horrendous anti-Christian atrocities including rape, kidnapping and murder.

Women and church leaders are particularly targeted. Car bomb attacks occur on churches, especially at times when there will be worshippers present. In the chaotic situation, churches now find it difficult to generate the resources to care for the vulnerable and poor among the faith community. Many Christians have fled, either abroad or to the ancient Christian homelands in the north of Iraq and now live in refugee conditions. The Christian population has been reduced from 1.5 million in 1990 to an estimated 400,000. "

Iraq's economy is dominated by the oil sector, which has traditionally provided about 95% of foreign exchange earnings.  Nearly 30 years of fighting, against Iran in the 1980s and the United States since 1991, has had a detrimental impact on Iraqi economic growth. Oil production remains Iraq's chief economic activity. The lack of development in other sectors has resulted in 18%-30% unemployed.

Five years after the 2003 US invasion, an estimated 2.4 million people were internally displaced (a further 2 million refugees are outside Iraq), 4 million Iraqis were considered food-insecure (a quarter of children were chronically malnourished) and only a third of Iraqi children had access to safe drinking water.

[information mainly from wikipedia]

Good thoughts on Missions from Jerry Rankin

Desiring God has been posting on their blog questions to the speakers at their upcoming pastors conference.  I thought  Jerry Rankin's thoughts about missions are very helpful:

 On the greatest challenges to the world Christian movement today:

The greatest challenge is not adversarial religious worldviews, hostility to a Christian witness, government restrictions and persecution of believers but indifference to God’s mission on the part of the Church.  God’s people have become ingrown and self-centered. The spiritual vitality needed to extend an effective witness to the ends of the earth has been eroded by carnality and humanism among Christians.

On the importance of God's sovereignty in missions:

It is evident that God loves all people, Jesus died for the sins of the world and God is acting in providence and power to draw men from every tribe, people, language and nation to salvation for his glory.  To put salvation in the proper perspective of God’s divine grace alleviates a tremendous burden of having to discover the appropriate strategy or effective methodology as if results were dependent on human effort.

The doctrines of grace are liberating to the missionary.  Because the message of the gospel is indwelt with the power of God, the task becomes one of boldly communicating the claims of Christ and communicating the gospel which is the power of God to draw all men to himself.

Voice

Our outreach through English lessons is over and it went really well.  We had about 30 kids come on the last two days and one of the teachers brought her whole intermediate English class to join us. A handful of the kids have been hanging out with the American team in the evenings which is one of the goals of doing these lessons: to build relationships.

Thanks to Calvary Chapel Maricopa for coming and helping us with Voice!

Here are some pictures from Voice: 

.

 Abbey and Katya with two students during small group discussion time

 

 Michael teaching new vocabulary words.

 

 School #3 where we held Voice.

 The principal of school #3 and I "posing for the press".

In the beginner classroom.

 The intermediate classroom.

Addressing the students at the end of Voice.

"Voice" Day 1

Yesterday was day 1 of Voice, an outreach idea started by our missionary friends in Chernigov that focuses on building relationships through teaching English.   A team from the Phoenix area of Arizona is here helping us host Voice by teaching the lessons.

Our goal in this is to provide a service for the community by offering English language training free of charge, help the students improve their grades in English, and open doors to be able get to know people in our city and share the gospel with them.

We only had about 10 students show up the first day, which isn't too surprising for Kaharlyk and also considering that it was the last day of Christmas vacation. Voice is being held at one of the local schools and per their request we are having the lessons during school hours so that more kids can come.  So we are expecting more kids today as the director (principal) of the school is very enthusiastic about working with us to improve the language skills of his students. 

More books to give away

One of the great joys of working with In Lumine is being able to give free books to Ukrainian pastors who would not have the opportunity to purchase these books.  Last Sunday evening two pastors from Rokitne (a city about 25 miles west of Kaharlyk) came to discuss working together this summer doing children's ministry.  Our church has been working alongside them for about 7 years now and I try to get our In Lumine books to them whenever I can.

This trip I was able to give both of them a copy of Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology in Russian.  In Lumine partnered with a publisher in Russia this summer to do a reprint of this huge reference book.  This book costs $50 retail in Ukraine but through In Lumine we are able to sell it for much cheaper to pastors and seminary students. 

I also gave these pastors copies of Piper's Don't Waste Your Life and Grudem's Christian Beliefs.  Last year I had given them Piper's Future Grace  and they really liked it, so they went and bought a couple other Piper books in Russian.  I love seeing people get excited about books that point them to the glory of Jesus Christ!

To top it all off we also gave them a box of the illustrated Life of Jesus Christ books that we received last week.  

Global Mission Mondays: Iran

With the new year we are starting back up our Global Missions Mondays.  Each week at our church's prayer meeting we will be praying for a different country in the world.  The goal is to be a part of the great commission by praying for churches and missionaries around the world as well as expand our own understanding of what type of needs there are around the world.  Last year we began praying for countries in Asia and this year we are starting in Iran and moving south west across the map.

Iran is a diverse country consisting of people of many religions and ethnic backgrounds cemented by the Persian culture.The majority of the population speaks the Persian language, which is also the official language of the country, as well as other Iranian languages or dialects.  It  hosts one of the largest refugee populations in the world, with more than one million refugees, mostly from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Iran's population increased dramatically during the latter half of the 20th century, reaching about 75 million by 2009.  According to the 1956 census the population of Iran was about 19 million.  More than two-thirds of the population is under the age of 30.  Most of the population is Muslim.   In 2000, about 0.4% of Iran's population were Christians. In 1975, Christians numbered about 1.5% of the total population.  

Though protected by the constitution Christianity in Iran is under constant surveillance and persecution.  The Barnabas Fund reports that:

Sharing one’s faith is strictly prohibited, and in September 2008 the Iranian parliament gave provisional approval to a bill that mandates the death penalty for apostasy from Islam, which is seen by many Muslims as equivalent to treason....Last year also saw a spate of arrests and reports of the torture of Christian converts from Islam by the Iranian security police. One Christian couple died from injuries sustained when police raided their house, where they were holding a worship service.

Illustrated New Testaments

Yesterday a delivery truck showed up at our house with 13 boxes of illustrated books in Ukrainian titled "The Life of Jesus Christ".  

A year and a half ago one of our supporting churches, Foothill Bible Church raised money at their summer VBS to help print these books.  As part of this drive the publisher agreed to give some of the print run to their missionaries.  After more than a year I had just about given up hope that we would ever see any of these books when I got a call asking where would be the best place to have the books delivered.   They came less than a week later.

I talked with our children's ministry leader about what to do with the books and we will be giving them to orphans, kids in sunday school, kids in under-privileged homes that we support with humanitarian aid, and sharing them with other churches.

Thank you to Foothill Bible Church for providing these great resources that we can give away for free!

Resolved: be diligent in reading

This year we brought back more books than usual from our trip to the States and I've realized that if I'm going to make a dent in reading them that I need to be more diligent in my reading habits.   So I'm reading more.  That's my plan for this year.  Call it a resolution, or wishful thinking, or whatever you want.

Right now I'm reading Communities of the Converted: Ukrainians and Global Evangelism by Cathrine Wanner, Preaching Christ in all of Scripture by Edmund Clowney, and Notes from a Tilt-a-Whirl by N.D. Wilson.

My reading list for the next couple months is:
 - Love Walked Among Us by Paul Miller
- The Prodigal God by Tim Keller
- Think by John Piper
- Showing the Spirit by D.A. Carson
- Introverts in the Church by Adam McHugh
- The Trellis and the Vine by Colin Marshall and Tony Payne

Liese has a bunch of books on her list too, but she is much more responsible in her reading than I and doesn't need to resolve to read more.  So I'll let her write about her books if she wants.

What is on your reading list?