Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and it bothers the pig.
We have several ministry events lined up for this week. Wednesday night we are having departure spiritual orientation for many of those going to the USA for Work and Travel this summer. Monday I have meetings with Sasha and Dennis, who are also going to the US this summer but aren't church members, and our Psalms group. We are trying to plan a dinner with Liza and Sergiy and now that they are almost finished with university, they may have time. I think Soup Group may happen but am not sure about which day. I think we are also having at least one planning meeting. Sergiy L. went to Egypt this week so we will be busy at the UEC covering for him. I am supposed to have an English class Tuesday night but the guy has cancelled twice so I am not holding my breath.
Lena's marketing plan is due Tuesday and she is having some frustrations with her team members. I have just finished reading a pretty awful collection of essays on missions in the twenty-first century. I think I finished it just to torture myself, or in hopes that one of the essays would be worth reading. But most weren't. I won't even mention the name of the book. That's what I get for buying books on the discount table. One chapter contained calculations of how much each baptism in the world costs by tabulating how much is spent on Christian outreach with the number of known baptisms. A baptism is about $3,000 in Africa, much higher in Europe.
One interesting thing happening in missions is that the places we once thought of as mission fields have become mission-senders. And now, the question is how should the much wealthier West relate to these churches. For example, Americans will probably never have any hope of evangelizing the Islamic world because of America's constant bombing of certain Islamic countries. But how will Phillipinos or Mexicans do living in Turkey, Lebanon, or Quatar? It's already happening, actually.
Korea, by the way, sends out more missionaries than any other country except the USA. There are more members of the Church of Christ in Africa than in the USA.
Ah, statistics.
We have several ministry events lined up for this week. Wednesday night we are having departure spiritual orientation for many of those going to the USA for Work and Travel this summer. Monday I have meetings with Sasha and Dennis, who are also going to the US this summer but aren't church members, and our Psalms group. We are trying to plan a dinner with Liza and Sergiy and now that they are almost finished with university, they may have time. I think Soup Group may happen but am not sure about which day. I think we are also having at least one planning meeting. Sergiy L. went to Egypt this week so we will be busy at the UEC covering for him. I am supposed to have an English class Tuesday night but the guy has cancelled twice so I am not holding my breath.
Lena's marketing plan is due Tuesday and she is having some frustrations with her team members. I have just finished reading a pretty awful collection of essays on missions in the twenty-first century. I think I finished it just to torture myself, or in hopes that one of the essays would be worth reading. But most weren't. I won't even mention the name of the book. That's what I get for buying books on the discount table. One chapter contained calculations of how much each baptism in the world costs by tabulating how much is spent on Christian outreach with the number of known baptisms. A baptism is about $3,000 in Africa, much higher in Europe.
One interesting thing happening in missions is that the places we once thought of as mission fields have become mission-senders. And now, the question is how should the much wealthier West relate to these churches. For example, Americans will probably never have any hope of evangelizing the Islamic world because of America's constant bombing of certain Islamic countries. But how will Phillipinos or Mexicans do living in Turkey, Lebanon, or Quatar? It's already happening, actually.
Korea, by the way, sends out more missionaries than any other country except the USA. There are more members of the Church of Christ in Africa than in the USA.
Ah, statistics.
posted by Kyivmission at 2:40 AM
1 Comments:
Here's an idea: Send one guy with a huge bag of cash to the center of any large metropolitan area and offer people $3,000 to be baptized. Conversions by the buckets!
Oh, I'm sorry, did that come across as cynical?
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