There's a lot of good stuff over at the 100 People Network blog. The blog exists to resource and encourage Goers, Senders, and Mobilizers for the Great Commission.
Be sure to add the blog (as well as this one) to your favorite RSS reader. We recommend using Google Reader!
Here are a few recent posts:
- Carl Medearis: Loving Your Muslim Neighbors
- Advocacy Team Resource: 10 Easy Ways to Bless Goers, View Series
- 5 Great Commission Myths, View Series
- Ministry Profile: Preemptive Love Coalition
- What God is Up to in Turkey Through Our Goer
- Ministry Profile: Medical Missions Response
- Educators/Business Professionals Infosession: WellSpring School
- #4 of the 100 People: From Danbury to Taipei!
- Where Are Our Men?
- John Piper: Let the Nations Be Glad
- An Unadjusted Gospel in an Unreached World
- College Students: Listen and Heed!
- How to Know God's Will: Series Overview
Over on the 100 People Network blog, Austin Stone GOER "Andrea" explains how God led her to Turkey and some of the exciting events that are taking place there. Check it out!
Check out the 100 People Network blog where The Austin Stone's Minister of International Mission, Ryan King, interviews Carl Medearis about his books Muslims, Christians, and Jesus and Tea with Hezbollah (with Ted Dekker) on how American Christians can better love their Muslim neighbors.
Carl's advice is well worth heeding for all of us who interact with Muslims in America and abroad.
Check out this month's 100 People Network update. It is full of ways you can get involved either as a Goer, Sender, or Mobilizer for Great Commission.
"What is God's will for my life?" is one of the most often asked questions that comes up when a person considers whether to be a GOER to the nations for the sake of the Gospel. This 100 People Network blog series will help you identify how God wants you to invest in the nations - whether that be as a GOER, SENDER, or a MOBILIZER.
Refugee Services of Texas, Inc. (RST) is accepting interns for the Summer and Fall of 2010. The Austin Stone has partnered with RST for the past few years as we have learned how to best serve refugees. RST is a great organization committed to the success and self-sufficiency of refugees in Austin. This is an excellent opportunity to be ‘For the City' as well as gain tangible cross-cultural experience. Internships are unpaid, and start and end dates are flexible.
Why should you intern with RST?
• Gain an understanding of the policies and procedures involved in implementation of the US Refugee Resettlement Program.
• Gain in depth knowledge of Texas' social service system
• Have a deeper understanding of diverse populations and cultures from around the world
• Improve conflict resolution skills.
RST is a non-profit agency which serves newly arrived refugees and asylees, and provides education and training around issues of human trafficking. Incoming refugees tend to come primarily from Burma, Iraq, Bhutan, Iran, Somali, and Cuba. RST works with the US Department of State to provide clients with case management, job training, cultural orientation, and mental health counseling, as needed, and links them to resources for other basic needs. RST's mission is to provide refugees with resources, referrals, education and guidance to ensure successful and self-sufficient lives in Texas.
Internship Duties:
• 20-40 hours per week for 10 weeks
• One on one client [KEEP READING]
Each summer, a local non-profit organization (Austin Area Interreligious Ministries) hosts a 6-week program for newly arrived refugee children to prepare them for their first experience with U.S. schools. When refugee children arrive here, they usually know no English and have different educational backgrounds. Some may have never attended school; others could have had their education interrupted year after year because of civil war. Nothing in their backgrounds prepares them for what it's like to be a student in the Austin Independent School District. From transportation, to proper behavior; from study skills, to computer literacy; from social interaction to attire - everything is confusing to a newly arrived refugee. And to complicate matters, they don't know enough English to ask questions.
The goal of AAIM's refugee youth summer program is to make the first year of school less intimidating for the refugee children who have come from very different educational environments. The children are taught by volunteer teams led by professional teachers with experience in teaching English as a Second Language. The curriculum stresses English, basic math and school skills, plus the program offers the children opportunities to learn more about Austin through some field trips.
Volunteer Needs...
• 10-15 adult volunteers a day for each week of the program.
• Adults with the availability and a heart to serve our local refugee [KEEP READING]
If you are interested in being a GOER, SENDER, or MOBILIZER with the Austin Stone, then check out our new 100 People Network website!
Carl Medearis will be speaking for us at the upcoming Muslim World Connection Event (April 30, May 1). Below is a book review of Ted Dekker and Carl Medearis's new book, Tea with Hezbollah, by Austin Stone 100 People Network Intern Brittney Taylor.
What did Jesus really mean when he said to love your neighbor as yourself? Is it really possible to love your enemies? Is it possible to live according to the parable of the Good Samaritan? These are the questions that Ted Dekker and Carl Medearis explore in their book Tea With Hezbollah.
In Tea With Hezbollah Ted and Carl take a heart-pounding journey through the Middle East, visiting countries such as Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. Within these countries Ted and Carl meet with those who many in the United States would consider to be our enemies, such as the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah.
Carl and Ted sat down and interviewed many leaders in the Arab world to explore one central teaching...to love our enemies and to love our neighbors as ourselves. In each interview recorded in the book they explore this teaching and ask if they believe in what Jesus taught. What they begin to find is that this teaching is just as hard to live out now as it was 2000 years ago.
Throughout the book I began to wonder...does the Good Samaritan still exist? Is there anyone following this teaching? Did Jesus give us an impossible teaching? What was interesting to me is that every Arab leader they interviewed believed and respected [KEEP READING]
Jaeson Ma, 2007 Rez Week speaker, is coming to UT again to share about what God is doing in the 1040 window. It is a film screening, followed by music, and a message about missional communities and overseas missions. Seating is limited and there is a cost of $10-12.
See more about the event at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=118601081485954
See more about the movie at http://1040movie.com/
Carl Medearis will be speaking for us at the upcoming Muslim World Connection Event (April 30, May 1). Below is a book review of Medearis's book, Muslims, Christians, and Jesus (Bethany House, 2008) by Frontiers Mobilization Representative Travis Sheppard. Every person attending the Muslim World Connection will receive a copy of this book.Below is a review of the book
Have you ever heard "Muslim" or "Islam" and in your mind wrestled with the questions, "so...who are these people?" "Where are they from again?" "And, what as a follower of Jesus do I have to do with them?"
I have.
If you think about it, we ask ourselves these questions about everybody, right? Why is that? I think because God has placed in you and me the capacity to understand a greater fullness of Himself through the ways He's diversely created people. The struggle for many of us (me included) who sincerely desire to follow the way of Jesus is that Muslims have become dehumanized to many of us. Therefore, they've yet to become dear and near to us as people.
In his book, Muslims, Christians, and Jesus, Carl Medearis helps bring Muslims near to you. This is a beautiful thing! It's unlike most other books I've read on the topic of Muslims and Islam in that you won't find it to be overly technical and information intensive. It was actually birthed out of real life relationships Carl has built as he's been learning to follow Jesus alongside his many Muslim friends (you'll get to meet some of them!). You will [KEEP READING]
This Sunday is the International Day of Prayer for Turkey.
Here are some specific ways that you can pray for Turkey and the work of the people of the Austin Stone there:
- Pray for Austin Stone partners working in Turkey. They are engaged in sports ministry as well as college ministry. Pray for their endurance, for spiritual fruit in their personal lives, and for people they are serving to know the love of Christ! Some of our Austin Stone partners there are currently a part of one of the most fruitful programs in the nation!
- Pray for more Austin Stone partners to move to Turkey for the glory of God! There are many opportunities to serve in Turkey! For information, email makedisciples@austinstone.org.
- Thank God for the tremendous success of the Malatya Film. Pray for the many that will be watching or re-watching the film this year. Pray that people will be stirred to prayer as a result of watching the film.
- Pray for the St. Paul Cultural Center. Pray for more laborers for their summer camp this summer!
PRAYFORTURKEY English from Nolan Dean on Vimeo.
On behalf of the body of Christ in Turkey
Alliance of Protestan Churches (Turkey)
01.03.2010
From the body of Christ in Turkey, to our holy and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ around the world, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
We are writing to you from Turkey - from the land of Noah, of Abraham, of Paul, of Mt. Ararat and Harran, of Antioch, Ephesus, Galatia and the Seven Churches of Revelation.
Yet today in our land of 72 million, which is 99.8% Muslim, the size of Christ's flock is only a handful. We are writing to ask, indeed to plead for your prayers.
As Turkish Christians we love our country very much. Pray for God’s will to be done, and for His Kingdom to come!
Pray that the Lord’s hand will be with us and a great number of people will believe and turn to the Lord.
We, the church in Turkey, have invited the worldwide church to pray for the land and the church of Turkey this day, Sunday, April 18, 2010. We [KEEP READING]
Do you work in, have skills in, or interested in serving in the fields of...
Healthcare?
Business?
Sports?
Education?
College Ministry?
Orphan care?
At this Austin Stone 100 People Network/Frontiers Event: Muslim World Connection, you will hear stories of how God uses people in these fields of work to impact Muslim peoples for Christ! You will have the incredible opportunity to connect with ministries to specific Muslim people groups from all over the world that need people in these fields of work to join them!
You will also hear from Carl Medearis, an international expert in Muslim-Christian relations and author of Muslims, Christians, and Jesus as well as Tea With Hezbollah (with Ted Dekker). Carl has had an incredible ministry in the realm of politics and development among Muslims. He will speak on what God is doing in the Muslim world.
REGISTER HERE! You may also register at the door by cash or check on Friday evening.
Dates: Friday, Apr 30: 6:30 PM - 9:30PM
Saturday, May 1: 8:00AM- 5:00 PM
Location: Westlake Hills Presbyterian Church (Google Map Directions)
Registration Cost: $30 per person
WHO SHOULD COME?
You should come to this event if you fit any of the following descriptions:
- You feel God may be calling you (and your family) to GO to the nations to serve
- You feel God may be calling you to increase your role as a SENDER of others to the nations.
- You are looking for opportunities to GET PLUGGED IN with God's work in the Muslim world [KEEP READING]
profile written by Philip Edsel for the 100 people project
At the prospect of being on camera, Clark Johnson* says he is nervous - but when it comes to talking about the Lord's call on his life to move to Central Asia, he is nothing but resolute. Meet Clark, a recent graduate of the business program at the University of Texas, and the third of 100 missionaries being sent out from The Austin Stone to reach the nations.
A self-proclaimed outdoorsman with a love for backpacking, hunting and fishing, it's no surprise that Clark sports well-worn leather cowboy boots. But these are no ordinary cowboy boots. Nineteen years ago, Clark's father bought those boots and wore them so much that the soles have been replaced seven or eight times. Just a few years ago, his father gave them to Clark when his entire family left their home in Dallas and moved to the Middle East. So how did Clark, son of a pig farmer-turned Middle-East-businessman, feel a similar call to leave his life in Austin to take the Gospel to the nations?
"My freshman year I caught the vision for high-intensity environments. Right after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, I took a couple of trips to help with the reconstruction effort there. Just being around the devastation and destruction of New Orleans and trying to breathe new life into the community by resurrecting their culture really got me interested in doing that as a career," recounts Clark. "Just few months ago, I got an email asking for those interested in [KEEP READING]
