Weekly Web Roundup (12/17/16)

Photo Credit: varunshiv

Here are some interesting items that I saw across the web over this past week:

9 Things You Should Know About Aleppo and the Syrian Crisis by Joe Carter (The Gospel Coalition)

"The battle for Aleppo began in mid-July 2012, when anti-government rebels gained control of several districts within the city. Since then the city has been divided between the government-held west and rebel-held east. Beginning at the end of 2013, the Syrian government began aerial bombing of the eastern sections of the city, a tactic that has caused a humanitarian crisis that has disproportionately affected the city’s children."

Sending out Leaders Creates More Leaders (or the genius of launching multiple movements) by Tim Casteel

Tim Casteel, Cru director at the University of Arkansas, explains how he has seen his the growth of his team's influence on campus (and beyond) by releasing people to focus on reaching out to specific groups on campus. Tim quotes JD Greear, “But here’s a principle we’ve learned that sustains us when our courage flags: sending out leaders creates more leaders. What you send out inevitably comes back to you in multiplied form.”

Colleges Really Need to Rethink the Career Advice They Deliver by Emily Deruy (The Atlantic)

"Colleges and universities are spending too much time admitting students and not enough time on the exit process after the last finals are handed in and the graduation caps tossed. And as more students who see college as a step toward upward economic mobility pursue higher education, the risk that young people will be left flailing in an economy where post-secondary education is more critical than ever stands to grow. That’s particularly true for young people who come from families unfamiliar with the process."

Black And White Americans View Historical Events Very Differently by Erin Schumaker (The Huffington Post)

"In fact, not only do many white Americans believe the U.S. is a post-racial society, but according to a study published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science in 2011, there’s an emerging belief among some whites that anti-white bias is more prevalent than anti-black bias. (For real-world examples of this, you needn’t look any further than President-elect Donald Trump’s rallies in the lead-up to the election.) And while this might not be particularly surprising to anyone who followed the 2016 election, it’s important that we measure and talk about racial bias. As Sendhil Mullainathan, a Harvard economics professor who sent out identical resumes with stereotypically black- and white-sounding names to measure which race got better response rates (Spoiler: white-sounding names did), wrote in The Upshot last year, “The key to ‘fast thinking’ discrimination is that we all share it. Good intentions do not guarantee immunity.”"

Hype-Tape Superstar Sam McGuffie's Crazy Journey from CFB to NFL to...Olympics? by Adam Kramer (Bleacher Report)

Former Michigan and Rice running back Sam McGuffie has recently found success in both bobsledding and rugby. This article tracks his journey from high school YouTube sensation to college athlete to potential Olympian.

Christmas Food Court Flash Mob, Hallelujah Chorus

This video is several years old but still gives me goosebumps when I watch it.

40 Maps That Explain The World

Photo Credit: WashingtonPost.com

Max Fisher of The Washington Post has created a sampling of forty different maps that demonstrate the differences in our world. The maps examine such things as religion, racial tolerance, economic realities, views on sexuality, population and languages spoken. Take a few moments to view the maps here and see the ways that people across the world are similar and which ways we are different.

(HT: Cody Lorance for the link.)

Which Countries Send The Most Christian Missionaries?

Photo Credit: TransformGrace

From Christianity Today:

"The Center for the Study of Global Christian (CSGC) at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary calculates that Christians sent out approximately 400,000 international missionaries in 2010. And nearly half of the world's top missionary-sending countries are now located in the global South. 

The CSGC reports that "of the ten countries sending the most missionaries in 2010, three were in the global South: Brazil, South Korea, and India." Other notable missionary senders included South Africa, the Philippines, Mexico, China, Colombia, and Nigeria. 

However, the United States still tops the chart by far in terms of total missionaries, sending 127,000 in 2010 compared to the 34,000 sent by No. 2-ranked Brazil. 

But examine the data differently—in terms of missionaries sent per million church members—and Palestine comes out on top at 3,401 sent, followed by Ireland, Malta, and Samoa (Interestingly, South Korea ranks No. 5 at 1,014 missionaries sent per million church members, a sign of the continued strength of its missions movement compared to the No. 9-ranked United States at 614 missionaries sent). 

The CSGC says U.S. dominance is part of a persistent missions imbalance: "The 10 countries that sent the most international missionaries in 2010 were home to 32 percent of the world's church members but sent almost 73 percent of all international missionaries." 

Meanwhile, most missionaries continue to go to mostly Christian nations. "The 'top nine' receiving countries were home to only 3.5% of the world's non-Christians but received more than 34% of all international missionaries," notes the CSGC. "All nine have Christian majorities, and they were home to over 34% of the world's Christians in 2010." 

By contrast, "The ten countries with the most non-Christians in 2010 were home to 73% of all non-Christians globally. Because many of them restrict or deny missionary access, however, they received only 9% of all international missionaries," notes the CSGC. The lion's share are in China, India, and Nigiera, where "large numbers of home missionaries also work among non-Christians." 

The country that received the most missionaries in 2010? The United States, with 32,400 sent from other nations."

To read the rest of the article please click here.

If There Were Only 100 People In the World...

Photo Credit: United Nations Photo

If there were only 100 people in the world, this is how those 100 people could be broken down:

- There would be 50 women and 50 men.

- There would be 26 children and 74 adults.

- There would be 33 Christians, 22 Muslims, 14 Hindus, 7 Buddhists, 12 people from some other religion and 12 people without a religious affiliation.

- 83 people would be able to read and write; 17 people would be unable to read and write.

- Only 22 people would have access to a computer and a mere 7 would have a college degree.

- 21 would be overweight, 63 would have adequate nutrition, 15 would be undernourished and 1 would be starving.

- 87 would have safe drinking water and 13 would not have access to clean water.

- 77 would have shelter and 23 would not have a roof over their head.

- The primary language for 12 would be Chinese, 5 Spanish, 5 English, 3 Arabic, 3 Hindi, 3 Bengali, 3 Portuguese, 2 Russian, 2 Japanese and 62 would have some other language as their primary form of communication.

- 60 would be from Asia, 15 from Africa, 14 from the Americas, and 11 from Europe.

You can find a cool infographic with this information here.

(h/t to Scot McKnight for the link.)

Why Americans Might Not Be As Normal As We Think We Are

Photo Credit: Freddycat1

Nearly twenty years ago, UCLA anthropology grad student Joe Henrich decided to do among a behavioral experiment among the Machiguenga people of Peru. After doing this experiment, Henrich realized that most of the social science research that is done in order to help predict human behavior is actually quite culturally biased and is often based on North American and European cultural assumptions.

Pacific Standard reports on his findings in a lengthy, but intriguing article found here. Writer Ethan Watters comments:

"A modern liberal arts education gives lots of lip service to the idea of cultural diversity. It’s generally agreed that all of us see the world in ways that are sometimes socially and culturally constructed, that pluralism is good, and that ethnocentrism is bad. But beyond that the ideas get muddy. That we should welcome and celebrate people of all backgrounds seems obvious, but the implied corollary—that people from different ethno-cultural origins have particular attributes that add spice to the body politic—becomes more problematic. To avoid stereotyping, it is rarely stated bluntly just exactly what those culturally derived qualities might be. Challenge liberal arts graduates on their appreciation of cultural diversity and you’ll often find them retreating to the anodyne notion that under the skin everyone is really alike. 

If you take a broad look at the social science curriculum of the last few decades, it becomes a little more clear why modern graduates are so un-moored. The last generation or two of undergraduates have largely been taught by a cohort of social scientists busily doing penance for the racism and Euro-centrism of their predecessors, albeit in different ways. Many anthropologists took to the navel gazing of postmodernism and swore off attempts at rationality and science, which were disparaged as weapons of cultural imperialism. 

Economists and psychologists, for their part, did an end run around the issue with the convenient assumption that their job was to study the human mind stripped of culture. The human brain is genetically comparable around the globe, it was agreed, so human hardwiring for much behavior, perception, and cognition should be similarly universal. No need, in that case, to look beyond the convenient population of undergraduates for test subjects. A 2008 survey of the top six psychology journals dramatically shows how common that assumption was: more than 96 percent of the subjects tested in psychological studies from 2003 to 2007 were Westerners—with nearly 70 percent from the United States alone. Put another way: 96 percent of human subjects in these studies came from countries that represent only 12 percent of the world’s population. 

Henrich’s work with the ultimatum game was an example of a small but growing countertrend in the social sciences, one in which researchers look straight at the question of how deeply culture shapes human cognition. His new colleagues in the psychology department, Heine and Norenzayan, were also part of this trend. Heine focused on the different ways people in Western and Eastern cultures perceived the world, reasoned, and understood themselves in relationship to others. Norenzayan’s research focused on the ways religious belief influenced bonding and behavior. The three began to compile examples of cross-cultural research that, like Henrich’s work with the Machiguenga, challenged long-held assumptions of human psychological universality."

To read more background on Henrich's study and how it compares to other traditional forms of research, please click here.

(h/t to Sam Osterloh for the link.)

Thank You From Cru!

Thank you to those of you that partner with us in ministry to see the hope of Jesus Christ brought to people throughout the world! Please watch this short video to see some of the faces of those that represent our global ministry.

What Are The Top 20 Universities In The World?

Photo Credit: wallyg

According to The Guardian, 14 of the top 20 universities in the world are located in the United States. Here are the world's top 20 most reputable universities:

1. Harvard University, United States

2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States

3. University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

4. Stanford University, United States

5. University of California, Berkeley, United States

6. University of Oxford, United Kingdom

7. Princeton University, United States

8. University of Tokyo, Japan

9. University of California, Los Angeles, United States

10. Yale University, United States

11. California Institute of Technology, United States

12. University of Michigan, United States

13. Imperial College London, United Kingdom

14. University of Chicago, United States

15. Columbia University, United States

16. Cornell University, United States

17. University of Toronto, Canada

18. Johns Hopkins University, United States

19. University of Pennsylvania, United States

20. Kyoto University, Japan

To see the complete list of the world's top 100 universities please click here.

(h/t to my friend Trae for the link.)

Are Short-Term Mission Trips A Thing Of The Past?

Photo Credit: jeremy.wilburn

Do short-term mission trips really make the difference that we may think they do? Darren Carlson offers a challenging perspective on whether our good intentions end up resulting in what we had hoped for. He says this:

"I have seen with my own eyes or know of houses in Latin America that have been painted 20 times by 20 different short-term teams; fake orphanages in Uganda erected to get Westerners to give money; internet centers in India whose primary purpose is to ask Westerners for money; children in African countries purposefully mutilated by their parents so they would solicit sympathy while they beg; a New England-style church built by a Western team in Cameroon that is never used except when the team comes to visit; and slums filled with big-screen TVs and cell phone towers. 

I have seen or know of teams of grandmothers who go to African countries and hold baby orphans for a week every year but don't send a dime to help them otherwise; teams who build houses that never get used; teams that bring the best vacation Bible school material for evangelism when the national church can never bring people back to church unless they have the expensive Western material; teams that lead evangelistic crusades claiming commitments to Christ topping 5,000 every year in the same location with the same people attending."

As one that has participated on a number of short-term missions teams, I do believe that these ministry opportunities can have lasting value. I've also experienced the other side as one that has received short-term missionaries into an unfamiliar ministry environment for them. I've dealt firsthand with the challenges of seeking to accommodate these well-meaning but inexperienced missionaries while also trying not to push away the people that will remain long after the missionaries return home.

In order for short-term mission trips to have the type of impact that most of us hope for, it is important for us to examine our motives and intentions in taking part in such endeavors. Before participating in a short-term mission trip, we would do well to ask ourselves several questions. These questions could include the following:

1. Is this trip about me or about the people I'm supposedly going to serve? Do I project the posture of a tourist or that of a servant? 

2. Has our team already identified the needs of those we'll be serving without first talking to leaders in that community? Or have we sought their input on what will be most helpful for them? 

3. Is our team contributing to an unhealthy dependence on outside resources when the ability to generate those resources might already exist among those we'll be serving? 

4. Will we be eating the foods they eat, living in similar housing and respecting their customs and culture? Or will we refuse to identify with them while carrying a "superior" attitude? 

5. Do we acknowledge that there are things that the people we'll be meeting have things to teach us and that they can be a blessing to us even as we hope to be a blessing to them?

It is true that short-term mission trips can be unhelpful in some circumstances. But that doesn't have to be the case. When we approach others with a humble and teachable heart in which we are willing to serve and not be served, then we are helping to lay the groundwork for a positive experience for both short-term missionaries and those to whom they will be ministering.

To read the rest of Darren Carlson's eye-opening post on the Gospel Coalition blog please click here.

Putting the Mission Back Into Missional

Photo Credit: ToastyKen

Jonathan K. Dodson has written a splendid piece for The Gospel Coalition entitled, "Why the Missional Church Isn't Enough," where he advocates for the need to continually look beyond our own borders even as we seek to reach those in our own community.

Here's a highlight:

"Church historian Kenneth Latourette (1884-1963) noted that the church has a history of advance and retreat, what he called "the pulsations in the life of Christianity." Lautorette points out that the history of the church is a history of oscillating influence, spreading the gospel across the globe over the centuries. This has resulted in new expressions of the Christian faith over time and across cultures. It is amazing to consider the diversity and uniqueness of the gospel throughout space and time among the peoples of history! Today, expressions of the gospel are exploding in Africa and Asia. 

These new expressions of Christian faith are more than intriguing. They are, in fact, an expansion of God's glory. You might think that God's glory un-expandable and already complete. Not according to Jonathan Edwards. In The History of Redemption, Edwards argues that God's glory is incomplete: 

God looks on the communication of himself, and the emanation of the infinite glory and good that are in himself to belong to the fullness and completeness of himself, as though he were not in his most complete and glorious state without it. Thus the church of Christ is called the fullness of Christ: as though he were not in his complete state without her. 

God's glory in an incomplete state? His glory is not full? Sounds awfully unorthodox. What is Edwards saying? 

If Edwards is correct, the full expression of God's glory can only be completed through the history of redemption. The history of redemption cannot be completed until "the end has come," and the end will not come until "the gospel of the kingdom has been preached throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations" (Matt 24:14). God's glory is expanded when the gospel is translated into the many cultures of the world, entering new ethnicities, idioms, and habits. It will take the breadth of history to display the diversity of God's glory through the advance of the church. 

However, the church also retreats. Our passion for mission wanes. Even with the resurgence of missional ecclesiology, we fail in sharing and showing the gospel in our own cultures. Clearly, the missional church is not enough, not only in its scope of mission, but also in its motivation for mission. When the motivation of the church is mission, we are destined to retreat, tire out, and fail. What, then, should we do? Throw up our arms in surrender and blend fully into our cultures with the hope of missional memory loss? 

We need a greater, more captivating motivation than "missional church." When the motivation for mission is mission, people will revert to consumerism. However, if our missional endeavors are motivated by something greater, more certain, than our oscillating passion for the advance of the gospel, then there is hope. If the history of redemption will not come to a close until God's glory has been completed, then the assurance of mission starts and ends, not with the church, but with God! God's commitment to his own glorious expansion throughout space and time is the hope of the world. The hope of mission is not the church; it is Jesus committed to ushering his full, redemptive reign over all space and time, including every people."

To read the complete article please click here.

What The Kony 2012 Video Got Right

Photo Credit: k-ideas

A couple of weeks ago, most of us didn't know who Joseph Kony was, nor were we aware of all that has been going on in Uganda and the surrounding African countries in recent years. But due to a clever marketing effort and a well-made video, tens of millions of people were exposed to a campaign "to end Africa's longest-running armed conflict." (~ from Invisible Children)

The Kony 2012 video, which was uploaded to YouTube on March 5, 2012, has over 81,000,000 YouTube views as of this post. That is a staggering number for a video that has only been up for less than two weeks.

Since this video went viral, there has been a number of concerns raised about the Kony 2012 efforts. Questions have been brought forth concerning the veracity of the facts presented in the video, where the money is going that is raised and whether this approach is the best way to help the people of that region of Africa.

Since I don't know enough about Invisible Children or the current realities in the areas which Kony's reach has spread, I won't attempt to pontificate on this organization or the work being done in Uganda and nearby countries. I will leave that to those that are much more familiar with the situation than I am.

What I would like to do is draw out some principles from the video for those of that serve in the non-profit world and consider how those principles might apply to the work that we do.

Here is what I think the Kony 2012 video got right:

1. A need is exposed. People are being killed. Children are being enlisted to fight in the army at a young age. Terror is ravaging a country. These were the types of things that were highlighted in the video. We live in a world of injustice and sin and surfacing a specific need in a specific place for a specific people captures the heart of those that care about wrongs in the world. 

2. The need is personalized. Filmmaker Jason Russell, who narrated the film, introduces us to his son Gavin and shares some of the story through his eyes. He then lets us meet Jacob, a Ugandan young man whose family has been affected by Kony's army. For those of us on another continent, these brutalities may be too distant to really hit home for us. But realizing that it is children that are suffering and to be able to meet one of those children helps our hearts to become engaged in the story. 

3. A solution is offered. Stop Joseph Kony by letting everyone in the world know who he is and what he has done. The video tells us that if Kony (and others like him) can be stopped from the reigns of terror, than children will stop suffering and the world will be a better place for future generations.  

4. People of influence are invited to become part of the solution. Termed in the video as "Culture Makers" and "Policy Makers", key celebrities and politicians are targeted to use their influence to let the world know about the Kony 2012 campaign. By strategically targeting these influential people, the word spreads rapidly, seemingly overnight. 

5. WE are invited to become part of the solution. Buy an action kit and wear a bracelet. Tell some friends. Give a few bucks. Spread the word in your community. The video doesn't just expose the need and offer a solution, it tells us that we can play a part. It tells us that we can change the world if we all do what we can.

The effectiveness of the Kony 2012 campaign has yet to be determined. Mammoth amounts of YouTube views doesn't necessarily result in changing the world. Piano playing cats and double rainbows can tell us that. And the concerns about the video need to be addressed before many people will engage beyond watching the video or tweeting about the campaign.

However, there's much that can be learned with the approach that has been taken here as it relates to whatever cause we are each a part of. That doesn't necessarily mean that we all need to make a slick 30 minute video. But we can apply some of the principles contained in the video for the causes that we feel most passionately about.

A Missionary Call For All Christians

Photo Credit: rimabek

Robert Speer was a leader of The Student Volunteer Movement that began in the late 1800's and continued onto the mid 1900's. Speer's commitment to world missions and his faithful calling of others to this noble pursuit is admirable.

He had the following to say when asked how someone could know they had a special call from God to go to the mission field:

"What constitutes a missionary call? It is a good sign that men ask this question. First, because it suggests that they think of the missionary enterprise as singularly related to the will of God. Second, because it indicates that they believe their lives are owned by a Person who has a right to direct them and whose call they must await. But when we have said these two things, I think we have said everything that can be said in favor of the question because, far too often, it is asked for thoroughly un-Christian reasons. 

For instance, Christians will pursue a profession here in the United States having demanded far less positive assurance that this is God's will than it is for them to go out into the mission field. But by what right do they make such distinctions? Christianity contends that the whole of life and all services are to be consecrated; no man should dare to do anything but the will of God. And before he adopts a course of action, a man should know nothing less nor more than that it is God's will for him to pursue it. 

If men are going to draw lines of division between different kinds of service, what preposterous reasoning leads them to think that it requires less divine sanction for a man to spend his life easily among Christians than it requires for him to go out as a missionary to the [lost]? If men are to have special calls for anything, they ought to have special calls to go about their own business, to have a nice time all their lives, to choose the soft places, to make money, and to gratify their own ambitions. 

How can any honest Christian say he must have a special call not to do that sort of thing? How can he say that, unless he gets some specific call of God to preach the Gospel to the [lost], he has a perfect right to spend his life lining his pockets with money? Is it not absurd to suggest that a special call is necessary to become a missionary, but no call is required to gratify his own will or personal ambitions? 

There is a general obligation resting upon Christians to see that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is preached to the world. You and I need no special call to apply that general call of God to our lives. We do need a special call to exempt us from its application to our lives. In other words, every one of us stands under a presumptive obligation to give his life to the world unless we have some special exemption. 

This whole business of asking for special calls to missionary work does violence to the Bible. There is the command, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." We say, "That means other people." There is the promise, "Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest." We say, "That means me." We must have a special divine indication that we fall under the command; we do not ask any special divine indication that we fall under the blessing. By what right do we draw this line of distinction between the obligations of Christianity and its privileges? By what right do we accept the privileges as applying to every Christian and relegate its obligations to the conscience of the few?"

Of course, if all of us went to the mission field there would be no one left to help missionaries get to the field. So the question we have to ask ourselves as Christ-followers and as it pertains to world missions is this: Does God want me to go or does he want me to be someone that helps send others? May all those who call Christ Lord consider the role that He desires for them in the advancement of His kingdom.

The Whole Church Bringing The Whole Gospel To The Whole World

Whiteboard-Whole Church Whole Gospel Whole World from mariners church on Vimeo.

(h/t to Sandy Ovalle for the link)

The War On Christians That You Don't Know About

Photo Credit: Imagens Cristãs

With a significant amount of coverage in the news recently concerning claims of discrimination against Christians in the United States, one might think that American Christians have it pretty rough.

While it is true that many of us are rightly concerned about churches getting kicked out of NYC public schools, government requirements regarding health care and contraception, and campus groups losing their charters on college campuses because of their beliefs, we must also realize that many of our brothers and sisters in other places are facing far greater challenges.

Even with the appearance of the lack of concern for the rights of Christians in the U.S., the treatment of Christians in my home country is far from the worst in the world. In a recent Newsweek cover story, Ayaan Hirsi Ali sheds some light on what is happening to some Christians in other parts of the world:

"We hear so often about Muslims as victims of abuse in the West and combatants in the Arab Spring’s fight against tyranny. But, in fact, a wholly different kind of war is underway—an unrecognized battle costing thousands of lives. Christians are being killed in the Islamic world because of their religion. It is a rising genocide that ought to provoke global alarm.

The portrayal of Muslims as victims or heroes is at best partially accurate. In recent years the violent oppression of Christian minorities has become the norm in Muslim-majority nations stretching from West Africa and the Middle East to South Asia and Oceania. In some countries it is governments and their agents that have burned churches and imprisoned parishioners. In others, rebel groups and vigilantes have taken matters into their own hands, murdering Christians and driving them from regions where their roots go back centuries. 

The media’s reticence on the subject no doubt has several sources. One may be fear of provoking additional violence. Another is most likely the influence of lobbying groups such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation—a kind of United Nations of Islam centered in Saudi Arabia—and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Over the past decade, these and similar groups have been remarkably successful in persuading leading public figures and journalists in the West to think of each and every example of perceived anti-Muslim discrimination as an expression of a systematic and sinister derangement called “Islamophobia”—a term that is meant to elicit the same moral disapproval as xenophobia or homophobia. 

But a fair-minded assessment of recent events and trends leads to the conclusion that the scale and severity of Islamophobia pales in comparison with the bloody Christophobia currently coursing through Muslim-majority nations from one end of the globe to the other. The conspiracy of silence surrounding this violent expression of religious intolerance has to stop. Nothing less than the fate of Christianity—and ultimately of all religious minorities—in the Islamic world is at stake."

While it is true that Christians should be concerned about the mistreatment of any persons no matter what faith they subscribe to, we mustn't minimize the very real suffering and persecution that Christians around the world face everyday -- whether the mainstream media covers it or not. Kudos to Newsweek for bringing further attention to this matter.

To read the rest of the article please click here.

Worldwide Religious Persecution On The Rise

Photo Credit: shashish

From CNN.com:

"Nearly a third of the world's people live in nations where practicing religion freely is becoming increasingly difficult, according to a new study released Tuesday.

The Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life said government restrictions and religiously motivated hostility rose significantly between mid-2006 and mid-2009, when the research was conducted.

Only 1% of the world's population lives in countries where the trend was the opposite.

"The increasing levels of social hostilities is a definite trend that needs to be watched carefully," said Brian Grim, the primary researcher for the study.

Grim said the Pew Center's report on 198 countries found those that were already restrictive or abusive in the previous report continued their decline. Those that were tolerant became more so. The study found that 101 governments used force against religious groups or individuals.

He said Christians and Muslims, who make up more than half of the world's population, were harassed in the most number of countries, though that did not reflect the intensity of the persecution.

The Middle East and North Africa had the largest proportion of nations where curbs on religion went up, the study found. Nearly a third of those nations imposed greater restrictions. It was particularly bad in Egypt, the study said."

According to the Conference on the Persecution of Christians, religious persecution affects over 100 million Christians each year and, although people of all faiths face persecution, three out of every four religion-based hate crimes that lead to death are directed towards Christians.

To read the complete CNN.com article please click here.

How A Small Minority Can Change The World

Photo Credit: garryknight

It has been said that it only takes a small group of committed individuals to start a movement that can change the world. There is now some research that seems to back this up.

From Emily Sohn on Discovery.com:

"To change the beliefs of an entire community, only 10 percent of the population needs to become convinced of a new or different opinion, suggests a new study done at the Social Cognitive Networks Academic Research Center (SCNARC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. At that tipping point, the idea can spread through social networks and alter behaviors on a large scale.

The research is still in its early stages, and it's uncertain if the results will apply to all kinds of beliefs, particularly in tense political situations.

But the findings do provide insight into how opinions spread through communities. The model may also help experts more effectively quell misconceptions and influence the choices people make about public health behaviors and related issues.

"This is really a starting point to understand how you can cause fast change in a population," said Sameet Sreenivasan, a statistical physicist and one of the co-authors of the study which included two graduate students and three senior faculty.

"The real world has a lot more complexity, obviously," he added. "But one of the things you can take away is that if you want to cause a fast change, there is an upper bound to how many people really need to commit."

To read the rest of the article please click here.

(h/t to Phil Cooke for the link)

God's World is Bigger Than Ours

I have had the privilege this weekend of being one of the speakers at a missions conference at Crossroads Community Church in China, Michigan. Pastor Mike Cadrette and his wife, Sharon, have been good friends to Lori and I over the years and it is always a pleasure to get to visit with their congregation. There are several of us missionaries that the church supports here and I really do enjoy getting to hear the updates from what God is doing through other ministries and in different parts of the world.

For all of us, I think it is good for us to get periodic reminders that the God we serve is much bigger than the little churches that we are a part of or the ministries in which we work. It is comforting to me to know that God is always at work in the world. There may be times that I may not feel like I’m experiencing that reality, but the fact remains that He is in the business of changing lives and He doesn’t show partiality in doing so.

While reflecting on these truths, I can’t help but think about the current election season that we Americans are in. It seems like the petty narrow-mindedness is entering new levels and, to be honest with you, I’m disgusted by it. Unfortunately, it appears that some that are leading this wave of negativity identify themselves as Christ followers. The extreme religious right is losing its grip on the young evangelical vote and it looks like desperation is setting in.

I don’t claim to know how Jesus would vote if he were alive in the U.S. today or how he would campaign were He running for office, but I’m fairly certain that He wouldn’t engage in the spreading of rumors, intentionally lying or below-the-belt name calling. And please don’t feel that my words are only for the far right because those on the extreme left are just as guilty. No matter what perspective you may be coming from, deceitful and mean behavior is never acceptable for those that name Christ as their Lord.

The trouble with some of us Christians is that we think we have the corner on the market of truth when it comes to faith and, therefore, we know everything about all things. Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on how you look at it), this is not the case. We are prone to the same kind of unfair judgments, biases and prejudices as anybody else. My hope is that we are each growing in our relationship with God to the point that we listen more to what He has to say than what Rush Limbaugh or Keith Olbermann tells us to think.

God’s world is much bigger than our own. While I’m pretty sure that He cares about the U.S. election, He also is concerned with who runs other countries as well. I doubt He is in heaven right now wringing His hands over who gets elected. His plan has been in motion for thousands of years and though He does invite us to make a difference in our world, He is ultimately the King of all. And a vote for King Jesus is one that I’ll cast every year.

How American Christians are Perceived Around the World

There were some interesting findings at a recent gathering of pastors from throughout the world. Here is a press release on the event:

"DALLAS, Oct. 1, 2008 – Christian leaders from around the country heard a wake-up call this week on how they are perceived by believers in the Global South. Speakers came from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America – the parts of the world experiencing the most growth in Christianity.

One hundred twenty-five pastors from a broad spectrum of American churches gathered for the North American Pastors’ Consultation on “The Changing Role of the American Church in World Evangelization,” held at Park Cities Presbyterian Church in Dallas, Sept. 22-23. Similar meetings will be held around the world, leading up to The Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, to be held in Cape Town, South Africa, Oct. 16-25, 2010.

“The purpose of this consultation was to discuss the changing role of the American Church in world evangelization,” said the Rev. Doug Birdsall, executive chair of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization. “In recent years, many international church leaders have been asking, ‘Is the American Church still with us? Does the American Church have the humility to learn from us, to work together in authentic partnership?’ We answered several of those questions during the week.”

While American missions have done a lot of good in spreading the Gospel throughout the globe in the last 100 years, several speakers said that the time has come for a change. Theological educator and evangelist Dr. Peter Kuzmic of Croatia said that U.S. Christians must stop acting as if “salvation is in the hands of Americans.” He said that Western Christians have, along with the good, also done damage to the image of Christ around the world. He recalled the era following the fall of the Berlin Wall, when Eastern Europe was first open to Christianity. So many different branches of Christianity came in to share the Gospel, Dr. Kuzmic said, that people were confused. “How many Jesuses are there in the West?” they asked, after being introduced to the Baptist Jesus, the Presbyterian Jesus, the Pentecostal Jesus, etc.
Africa was represented by the Rev. Reuben Ezemadu of Nigeria, continental director of the Movement of African National Initiatives. He said African Christians have appreciated the historic leadership of the United States in mission efforts, but in the last 15-20 years, it has seemed as if U.S. Christians were imposing their structures on the Global South, and they just did not work in that context. American participation in support roles is still needed, but Africans themselves can more appropriately take leadership roles. They ask that Americans recognize the maturity and intelligence of other cultures.

David Ruiz of Guatemala, associate director of the World Evangelical Alliance Mission Commission, presented the Hispanic perspective. He said Latin American Christians have felt ignored or overlooked, and want to see more humility from Western Christians about Latin America’s potential for reshaping Christianity worldwide. “Will North American Christians listen to their brothers and sisters from the South?” he asked.

Dr. Patrick Fung, a physician and theologian from China and general director of OMF International (formerly the Overseas Missionary Fellowship), addressed Asian perceptions of American missions. He recalled the story of missions in China in the years following 1949, when all missionaries had to withdraw. Despite no missionary presence, the church grew and thrived. Now the Chinese Church globally is the largest church in the world.

Dr. Fung said that America is still perceived as a Christian nation, so when America acts “un-Christianly,” it reflects poorly on the Gospel, as has happened on the homosexual agenda. Asian Christians want to work shoulder to shoulder with U.S. Christians and to feel that they have been given an equal listening ear. A highly significant role Western believers can play is in reaching out to millions of Asian students studying in American and European universities, he said.

Following each presentation, the pastors discussed in roundtables what their “take away” should be. The group consensus was that the role of Western Christians in the increasingly "glocal" (simultaneously global and local) world is changing dramatically. Partnership will be key to establishing stronger, mutually supportive links.

A high point for many of the attendees was Tim Keller’s discussion on Christianity in America today, and the tension between evangelism and social justice issues. He suggested that Christians can neither try to change culture through social activism, withdraw from the culture, nor try to accommodate themselves to culture as cultural relevants to the extent that their own values are compromised. He said evangelism must remain the priority, and that only hearts that are truly changed will lead to cultural transformation. The solution, he said, is “gracious, truthful presence in culture.”

One purpose of the conference was to encourage pastors to think about the role they and their church will play in the upcoming Cape Town 2010 congress. It will include 4,000 participants from around the world, of which 400 of these will be from the United States. Churches will be invited to participate via the Internet and to host local gatherings, making it a truly global event and the first of its kind. Program Chairman Ramez Atallah reminded those present that the whole world participated in the Olympics, from their own living rooms. He has the same hope for Cape Town 2010.

The original Lausanne Congress was held in 1974, bringing Christians from around the globe to focus on world evangelization. A second congress followed in 1989. The fast pace of change in every sphere – from technology to communication and transportation – calls for a new Lausanne Congress to equip the Church for the next decade. It is sponsored by the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization in collaboration with the World Evangelical Alliance.

The Lausanne Movement seeks to serve leaders worldwide by providing a place for theological discussion and the development of practical strategies for world evangelization. Lausanne seeks to encourage and stimulate the involvement of churches, denominations, ministries, networks and individuals."