Listen to The Webinar #SocialMedia #missions
The webinar from April 22 is posted. Please watch on Vimeo. Click button below.
Tag: missions
Running and Ministry
Not every run will turn out okay. Running is a metaphor, an adjective, and a goal and discipline-maker. As a high school student, I wasn’t athletic. I hated running. All I wanted to do was sit on the bleachers under the warm California sun and read. Running happened almost three years ago when I so desperately wanted to do something different with my life; break the mundane. Do something crazy.
Running happened because someone believed I could do it (you know who you are!). It became part of my spiritual life, a creative expression, a longing to embrace the outdoors. On Saturday, I ran my peak run a few weeks from the Whiskey Row Marathon (20 miles) and it was the worst run ever.
If a friend had driven by and offered me a ride, I would have taken it that day, and called YMCA to downgrade my run from a full to a half marathon. When the emotions and pain subsided, I realized that I did finish 20 miles. The very act of just finishing a difficult task is worship. Following the Lord in what He has called you to do is like running that 20 miles. It is obedience.
Training requires consistency. You can’t train sometimes and only when you feel like it. For a marathon, you have a regiment of regular running, specified miles, so you are prepared for the real thing. When I think of bad runs, I think how ministry requires consistency and planning.
Many times a ministry will fail, not because the idea was bad or it was against God’s will, but because of lack of preparation, discipline, or consistency. A ministry cannot run on a few volunteers. Volunteers must embrace the vision and mission of the ministry and be “sold” on its message. Like running, ministry requires patience as you train to get there.
I’m praying that my run on May 14 will be good in spite of the struggle to train just like I pray your ministry will succeed with unlimited energy to produce great results, but not be results-driven.
Have a great day, friends!
Why Investing in Experiences is Necessary
In an article by Intellectual Take Out called, “Why You Should Spend More Money on Experiences than Things,” it said,
” While new things might make us happier at first, we adapt to having them, and their meaning to us changes over time. So rather than buying that shiny new Apple watch or shelling out for a brand new BMW, research suggests that you’ll get more happiness by spending that hard-earned cash on experiences like art exhibits, participating in outdoor activities, learning a new skill, or traveling..”
When we began moving from our mobile home to the home we now live in, we had watched too many home and garden television shows and began to clean through all the “things” that had cluttered our life. The rule was, “If we didn’t use it for a year, did we really need it?”
Lots of sentimental and other items went in the trash bin or donation bag. The result was an easier move and simple living. Our Christmases and birthdays in our marriage had begun with gift giving and have now become about gifts of experience. Our short term missions trip to Honduras taught us this, too.
While donations and prayer got us to Honduras, some expenses still came out of our pocket. We didn’t mind because this was another gift of experience. God was moving our life to another culture, and using that culture to prepare me for a life of missions in a new field. He showed us how happy and content the Honduran believers were with so little. I couldn’t help but think of the American culture at that moment, and how the culture wants what their neighbor has, and is never content to live with what God has gifted them.
We take for granted our home, our stuff, and our lives every day. A missionary in Phoenix recently shared in his newsletter how the refugees he sponsors were amazed at having an apartment, clothes, and the basics that are the norm for most Americans. A book I read from a Sudan refugee (now American citizen) was amazed at the size of the houses and his room when he was adopted into the United States. As I journey into this new direction and learn about the peoples on the move, people groups, and develop relationships online, I look forward to new experiences. Experience is the greatest teacher.
Your prayers and financial partnership will help me serve online, help other churches and missionaries, and work with others to use the gift of technology across the globe in very creative ways, because as I have learned, people want to support this kind of ministry, and are uncertain themselves how to do it.
Links From The Webinar @EthneCity #missions #SocialMedia
Thank you for attending the webinar today. I will post a link to the video for review or to see it for the first time as soon as it posts. Meanwhile, here are the links where I get all my information. I encourage you to explore and learn more. Think outside the box in how you can use these resources to reach others. God is inviting you to serve in His kingdom.
Ministry Websites:
Note on side projects: The Wilderness Trekking Video Series will be coming late May. Due to illness and training, things had to be reshuffled.
History of Cybermissions:
The Stats
Moving Works Copyright Free Videos
Who is Doing it Right?
LDS Addiction Video Featured on Fox
Mormons Hand Out Book of Mormon at Musical
Bringing The Social Into Social Media
Four Ways to Deeper Friendships by Intellectual Take Out
Stories From The Field
Nancy Keel (Bible TransMission)
Opportunities?
***cannot locate the Business Insider Article***
Nikole Hahn on Personalized Ministry
If you would like to join our Technology and Missions Facebook Group, please email me.
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
The New Yorker: I Laughed!
The Useless Agony of Going Offline humorously talked about a guy and his wife who chose to follow someone’s advice and go offline for a few days. I read about this all the time.
Some people take fasts, lents, or don’t go on at all. We seem to make technology the bad guy when it is a tool; a very effective tool. People often make comments to me about technology.
“I don’t have a smart phone.”
“I don’t use email.”
“I am not on Facebook.”
“I call people.”
The guy said in reference to his experiment, “What I’m learning may not always be of great social value, but I’m at least gaining some new knowledge—by using devices in ways that, sure, also distract me from maintaining a singular focus on any one thing. I still read deeply, and study things closely, and get lost for hours at a time in sprawling, complicated pieces of literature.”
He also said, “If getting outside and taking walks, or sitting in silence, or walking dogs, or talking with loved ones on the phone got me to that same place, I’d be more than happy to change things up.” In his three days, he discovered that technology didn’t take away from his life; it added to it.
I know people who have text conversations with others about Jesus, people who use email to talk to Muslims, and people who take short term mission trips, bringing SD cards filled with Bible translations, to a people in need of the Word. This is technology, and it comes in all kinds of forms from social media to dumb phones. My husband and I are often on Facebook or youtube at the same time in the same room. Sometimes, we flirt with each other via Facebook even as we sit across from each other. This makes us laugh.
Preference is subjective in how we choose to communicate with each other, and there are negatives to social media, but don’t close the door to the possibilities of technology. People need to hear what God has been doing in your life. They can benefit from your Christian walk.
Being a believer is not a safe calling.
J.D. Payne said,
“VISION FOSTERS RISK TAKING Just because someone postulates a vision to be realized does not mean that success is guaranteed. Mission strategy is often about going against the status quo. Strategy involves change and requires vision to move beyond the comfort zone. A vision requires taking risks, and working toward a vision requires faith.” ― from “Developing a Strategy for Missions (Encountering Mission): A Biblical, Historical, and Cultural Introduction
How to Know Your Target Audience
Social Media professional, Giselle Aguiar, says, “You need to look at everything objectively. Step back and look at it through the eyes of your target market.”
When using social media, as not just a tool for business, but as a tool to disciple and spread the Gospel, you need to listen to her advice. Look at her suggestions here.
As a writer, you are taught to know your audience. This advice is applicable in life, planting churches, mission work, etc. Knowing your audience as a believer means following, mentoring, and praying for them. Shape your audience with the truth from a place of compassion. You can’t share the truth with them unless they let you in their community.
Have YOU ever listened to unsolicited advice?
Your blog or social media is an extension of your livingroom. Make it a great visit so they return.
Devotions: When I Was Single… @Biblegateway
“The book of Leviticus begins with one of the Bibles basic assumptions: we must worship and serve God with the resources and possessions he entrusts to us.” – Page 123, NIV Stewardship Study Bible
Day 3: Living Generously Study
When I was single, I had no money. My tithing was service. In reality, if I had been a good steward of my finances, not spending foolishly, I would have discovered what I know now–there is contentment in living on faith.
So while I was partially correct that an offering to the Lord can be service, I missed the point on those stewardship sermons. I missed the blessings of giving beyond what I thought I was capable. God gives us what we need and asks us to give from His generosity.
A Reason of Anticipation
“I go to this class called Beatbox in Nashville, and it is really hard. It’s an hour long and as soon as it starts, I anticipate its ending. From the first minute, I can’t wait for the class to be over so we can do the cool down song and get out of there. Working out is hard, especially for someone who has little to no upper body strength. But you know what happens between the beginning of Beatbox and the end of Beatbox? Beatbox. The actual exercising part happens. Without the middle part, there would be no work out at all. There would be no reason to anticipate the ending because no work would have been done. There would be no results, no reason to feel proud of myself, no healthier me.” READ MORE
Waiting is an unavoidable part of missions. Right from the beginning, God teaches you patience. He helps you accept that the results you long to see won’t happen immediately. Missions online is not any different in some aspects than missions on foreign soil.
You must first gain the trust of the people group you are trying to befriend and mentor before they will accept truth.
Social Media, like face-to-face relationships, takes time.