missionary Archives - Page 2 of 2

FAQs: Why Do I Have So Many Websites?

In late 2011, I finished my first fiction fantasy novel and had plans to attend the Christian Writer’s Guild, “Writing For The Soul,” event in Denver, Colorado in 2012. I was excited and nervous to pitch my idea to an editor and agent. Like any new writer, I felt like this was it.

I worked so hard to build my online platform. I visited blogs. I built my own website using Homestead (my first company). I had a blog on WordPress where I had published interviews and book reviews. Writing is a small community, and God connected me with some great new friends. I had been online since 2006. My publishing list was a long one–a lifelong desire that started when I was a teenager. But reality hits every new writer.

Some truths I learned were…

Traditional publishing is hard.

Independent publishing (or self-publishing) is just as hard and more expensive.

While an agent asked for a partial manuscript in 2012 (the closest I had ever gotten to traditional publishing), it was later rejected because fantasy fiction in the Christian market was hard to sell. I continued writing more novels, and a strange restlessness began to seep into soul.

If I got a novel published, name on the cover, what then? So what? What was I going to do in between writing and publishing? What matters most to God? My name on the cover? Or the words and actions in between?

TRC Magazine began in 2012 (published in 2013). God had so many stories in the world that I wanted to give a place where people could share them. As a writer sending to big magazine conglomerates, it was discouraging to not get through the front door. Mainly, the people who got through the door were people with larger online platforms that could bring in new readers to these magazines. I wasn’t jealous. It takes a lot of work to get where they were, and I was happy for people who get that far in their life. They’ve earned it. God took my dream of writing and changed it. TRC Magazine became a place to be a megaphone for stories from anyone who wanted to tell it. If they couldn’t write, we help them. That wasn’t enough after a while. I was restless again.

We live in an economically hard area. I started a new business of Social Media Consulting as a ministry to help struggling writers and others get help with their marketing that would be within their budget and teach them to be independent. I was still sending in manuscripts and short stories, but I started to see the cutthroat side of Christian book reviewing. I didn’t like what I saw or how Christians online were mean to each other, or on their own agenda. Aesthetically, we weren’t cohesive, working towards the united goal of the Great Commission.

That’s where WorldVenture and Cataclysm Missions Intl LLC came in. I became a Social Media Missionary with WorldVenture and started Cataclysm Missions Intl LLC (CMI).

Why reinvent the wheel when other online cybermission organizations were doing a great job for the Great Commission? The problem was in how to bring them all together in one place so the pulpit becomes aware of online missions work. How do we also inspire people to join CMI or other cybermissions organizations if they couldn’t serve a traditional missionary organization? How do we educate and equip regular Christians who just want to go to church on Sunday to use their one social media well? How do we change Christian culture in how they react to things online?

The goal of Cataclysm Missions Intl LLC is to bring people from online into a fellowship of faith and the people in the pews to online in order to reach a hurting and lost world. How do we get Christians excited for what God is doing through technology?

I run so many websites so the current volunteers at TRC Magazine and CMI do not have to run a website. I take away the barrier of marketing, maintenance, and cost so God can use our volunteers through our different brands to reach this world. We are showing symbolically that, though we are different, we can work together with a single purpose. It’s been a struggle to bear the yearly costs of running three websites, but God is a generous God. He is the God of the impossible. On a church secretary’s salary, He has made all things possible. His example of generosity has led me to trust Him for all future things.

So pray for me as I continue to run these sites. Pray we can begin to engage, not just share things.

Waiting In This In-Between Season

I am in between where I started and where I want to go. The days are growing warmer, and I wonder where winter has hidden himself. Even the trees are confused. They bloom pink and white now, but a freeze is coming. It always comes before actual spring. Arizona weather is weird that way. It’s ironic that God is teaching me lessons in the waiting, in this in between season, when He knows I hate to wait.

We all have to wait for something…

The grocery store line behind the woman and the cashier who are catching up on each others lives.
Results that are slow, because forming online communities are a slow process, much like making a roast where all the flavors have to have time to marry and soak into the meat.
Training will be life long for me as I learn from others who have gone before me.
Raising support so I can work full time in ministry.
Having to stop at every red light when you need to be somewhere. I think someone who controls them must intuitively know when a person is in a hurry and takes sadistic delight in making them stop at every red light.

One of the authors I am reading says not everyone will “get” our ministry. It takes time to help them understand the vision. If you give them too much, like a fine art painting of a bowl of fruit, they think it is impossible to accomplish. If you give them too little like an abstract painting with its lines and squiggles, they get a bad impression of the vision. The answer lies in Monet.

From a distance, you can see the whole picture, but up close the picture is created by a bunch of paint sploches. I need to be Monet when showing my vision to potential supporters. The author is correct though when he says it is an art form.

How many times have I written and rewritten my letters? How many different ways have I explained what I do?

I am grateful for the people coming alongside in this in between season of life as I look beyond the freeze of winter to the colors of spring and the heat of summer.

Reading: Developing a Strategy For Missions – 70% done

VIDEO: Every Journey Begins Somewhere

This is another experiment.

When I raise full funding as a missionary, I plan on getting Video Corel, an external hard drive, and a better desk top. Meanwhile, I am using a cell phone and a tablet to create short videos, and editing with Windows Movie Maker. I’m not as fond of Windows Movie Maker as I am of Video Corel. I use Video Corel at Solid Rock Christian Fellowship.

The purpose of this video is to share our adventures in a missional way; to connect with people who love the outdoors or people from other countries who are fascinated by the outdoors. Woven into this music-and-scenery-only video are words of comfort and encouragement. Please let me know how you think I could improve this.

The video isn’t meant just to showcase our adventures. The purpose is always to bring engagement with the goal of making disciples.

Studying: Developing Mission Strategy @Biblegateway

From Developing A Strategy For Missions by J.D. Payne:

“First, a team must assume the Great Commission. Jesus gave his followers this great mandate. While the account in Matthew 28:18-20 is generally the most popular version, variations are given in Luke (24:45-47), John (20:21-23), Acts (1:8), and in the disputed section of Mark (16:15)…Like all commands it comes with the expectation that there will be results. As a result the general response of mission teams should be to develop strategies that seek to reach the largest number of people in the shortest possible time, while remaining absolutely faithful to the biblical principles for healthy evangelism and discipleship.” (64% – Kindle Version)

As a church secretary for almost ten years, I often felt that evangelism or missions was results-driven. A former pastor once said that conversion was a Holy Spirit miracle. In my years online, I have learned that Jesus and his disciples taught through relationships. Social Media is about relationships.

As I dissect the above paragraph, it also says, “…the general response of mission teams should be to develop strategies that seek to reach the largest number of people in the shortest possible time…” Technology and social media have given us the gift of spreading the Gospel in the fastest possible way.

This is a screen print from a webinar I took on how to use social media for business via Hootsuite. Examine this graph from the perspective of a missionary or an evangelist. What do you see?

This graph doesn’t go into country or culture or people groups. But this might help you.

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What is Diaspora?

“The world has increasingly become ‘borderless’ due to globalization, technological communication, and accelerated migration or diaspora (ie scattering or dispersion of people from their homeland), towards the end of the second millennium. These diasporas have created tremendous opportunities and challenges to evangelize and disciple millions of people who, just a century ago, were living in isolated countries and regions of the world described by missiologists as ‘closed’ and ‘restricted’ to Christian missions. Thus, the 21st century reality of mass movements of people requires the global church, here after referred to as the ‘whole church’, to respond.”

– Lausanne Movement

Diaspora is an integral part of my ministry as a missionary. It is a field that I am learning about so I can do online missionary work better as I understand how to build bridges to other cultures. As I learn about it, I will post about it here, too. It is my hope to help you understand how our world is growing smaller and the unreached is quickly becoming more accessible thanks to technology.

Articles to Read:

Around the globe, 232 million people live as immigrants. The United States alone hosts the largest amount of immigrants compared to other countries, with 45.8 million migrants living here. – VIEW FROM THE TOP: REFLECTIONS FROM MISSIO NEXUS
The United States has an estimated 360 unreached people groups, making it the country with the third largest number of unreached peoples. Canada has an estimated 180 unreached people groups, making it the country with the fifth largest number of unreached peoples. Given these present realities–in light of Acts 17:26-27–how should we now live? In this episode, I discuss the movement of the peoples and how reaching them in North America can also open doors to reach them in other countries. READ MORE
Saudi Arabia women had their first video gaming convention. This is a great opportunity to teach our youth and those who love video games to interact with these women through sharing the Gospel via avatars and chat rooms. READ MORE.
Mobile Ministry Forum reported how a private website is offering discipleship materials in Arabic to arabic countries via SD cards or mobile phones. READ MORE.

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Would you like to commit to the vision God has given me as a missionary?

Quarterly, Monthly, or Yearly Commitments

One Time Gift