Archive

Children naturally have lots of questions and a healthy curiosity “Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning,” so said William Arthur Ward, one of America’s most quoted writers. Albert Einstein said, “I have no special talents. I am only passionately...

Trying something new

During this global pandemic, I am attending many video conferences and webinars. A clear message of “be creative” and “try something new” keeps surfacing. We were founded on the principle of being creative and trying new things.

Proclaiming the Good News through Story in Oral Cultures

God’s Word, shared through stories and the Oral Arts (storytelling and dialogue, drama, poetry, song and dance), continues to touch hearts and minds of oral preference learners around the world, even during this global pandemic. See how local leaders are pr...

Reaching across language barriers

by Wycliffe UK

One challenge that many Bible college graduates have is forgetting their mother tongue. Perhaps they were identified as intelligent and talented from as young as twelve years of age so they were sent to boarding school for the sake of their education. This ...

Times of Crises can Foster Unity and Mobilize the Body of Christ

From reports, we are hearing from around the world, God’s people are putting aside minor or secondary differences for the greater purposes of God. This is nothing new, and hopefully can be used for greater impact in advancing the Kingdom of God. When crise...

Lessons from the Original Jesus Movement

Consider how the Gospel spread throughout the entire populated world in the First Century, before the invention of the radio, television, the internet, or the printing press. Think about how God preserved the accuracy of His message in predominantly Oral C...

The Storms of Life

We all encounter the storms of life; difficulties, problems and crisis situations. Who do you go to during those storms of life? How do you respond in the bad times? These are important questions and reveal a lot about our relationship with and walk wit...

Missionary died thinking he was a failure

by ion-admin

In 1912, medical missionary Dr. William Leslie went to live and minister to tribal people in a remote corner of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. After 17 years he returned to the U.S. a discouraged man – believing he failed to make an impact for Christ...

Living Water – for the Body and the Soul

A few years ago I visited a region in East Africa where the people had experienced a severe drought for several years; most of the water wells in that region were dry. I was told that 30,000 people were getting water from that one well, and in addition to t...

Flourishing, Growing, and Bearing Fruit

In 1975 Pat Zondervan delivered an eight point message about the characteristics of the Palm Tree, from Psalms 92:12-14. He compared the Palm Tree to the believer’s life in Christ. One of the points he made was how the fruit of the Palm Tree is sweeter wit...

Sowing and Reaping, and the Law of Averages

I first learned about the Law of Averages selling books door-to-door for several summers during my college years. I found that if I gave my sales talk about 30 times a day, that on average, I could expect to make 3 or 4 sales, sometimes more. It was hard ...

Communicating Truth — By All Means

We all have influence on other people, whether we realize it or not. We are all influenced by others, in more ways than we might be aware of. Many of the influences in our lives are out of our control. However, we certainly can control many of them by our...

The Stewardship of Influence

Oral Learning People Groups in the US: Refugees and Immigrants

Did you know that it is estimated that there are about 350 unreached people groups (UPGs) living in the United States? The majority of UPGs learn and pass on their history, heritage, faith and culture through oral communication. “We must welcome the unreach...

The Many Benefits and Applications of Orality Training

It is amazing, and sometimes surprising, how many people are receptive to discussing what it means to have a relationship with the Lord and become a follower of Jesus. So many people today seem to be resistant to institutional religion, even institutionaliz...

When You Are Not Enough

Following Jesus and making disciples of all nations is a privilege. And yet while seasons of sweetness, victory and answered prayer are a very real experience for those living on mission and pursuing Jesus wholeheartedly, they’re also not the whole story.

The Way of the Cross

Over the past few days, I read a book by Elisabeth Elliot. She was a linguist among unreached peoples in Ecuador, serving alongside her husband, Jim Elliot, to make Christ known where He was not yet known.

Oral Learning People Groups in the US: Refugees and Immigrants

There is an incredible opportunity in missions right here in the US, at our own doorsteps! As you probably know, there are many thousands of unreached people throughout our country who have come as refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants from some of the mo...

Comprehensive Oral Bible Strategies: Essential to Effective Kingdom Building

It is a fact that many of the unengaged and least-reached people groups in the world live in hard-to-access places and belong to traditional, oral cultures. Books and printed materials are not part of their everyday experience.

Characteristics of “Healthy” Oral Bible House Churches

As the leader of SIU, I often am asked what I consider a success in terms of new church plants. What is a “healthy” oral Bible house church? It's most important to seek out those who live, breathe and participate in these oral Bible house churches in the fi...

Simple. Organic. Reproducible.

As I traveled to a number of missions conferences last year, I so enjoyed meeting missionaries with different personality types and ages. They were each unique and their callings different, yet they had learned many similar patterns in their journey with Go...

Getting Resources to the Least Reached

I’m shocked and saddened when I hear that less than 1/100 of .1% (which equates to .0001) of the world’s annual charitable giving goes to places in the world needing the gospel the most. Did you hear that?

Discovering God’s Truth Through Story

Have you ever had one of those moments in which you get so excited about discovering a new truth that it causes you to look at things entirely differently? Your pulse quickens, your eyes light up and something that seemed so distant and non-personal suddenl...

Contagious, Passionate Disciples, Where are They?

Contagious, passionate followers of Jesus! Have you ever met one? You know it when you do. Recently one of our pioneering SIU partners from Nepal came through town to visit our team. He is a soft-spoken, humble “Man of Peace” who smiles often. The light of ...

Biblical Content for a Movement

by ion-admin

My first two visits to a small group that was trying to multiply disciples in a diverse international city were filled with anticipation. My heart thrilled to see them organize their time into looking back for worship, encouragement, celebration and account...

Oral Disciple Making: A Return to First Principles

When it comes to following and obeying Jesus, it sometimes takes time to clarify exactly what that means. With 2,000 years of history and church traditions, there is a very real need to rethink, re-evaluate and rediscover the most important thing about what...

A Skeptic Starts A Strong Movement of Disciple Making

by ion-admin

A pastor named Roba came to Agali and expressed serious doubts that existing churches could change to become disciple making movements. Agali did not argue but challenged Roba to start the process in his community. Roba took the challenge and went to his c...

Seeking and Finding Commonalities

Common ground, common sense and common courtesy are pretty important these days. In many ways and in many places, they seem to be in short supply. Having traveled, served and ministered in many countries and in diverse cultures, I've noticed that there are ...

5 Lessons Learned While Living on Mission

The American culture trains us to be devastatingly independent with a front-runner, do it your own way approach. The Lord, however, desires us to humble ourselves to be willing to learn from each other and those who have gone before us. Here are five import...

I Must Multiply

by StoryRunners

We met him in Zimbabwe in October of 2012. Having no interest in his brother Nhamo’s Christianity, John poured his passion into his job as a big game-hunting guide. Nhamo told our training team, “I keep telling John he’s been caught in Jesus’s net-he just d...

Loving across languages

Love is in the air… at least, it is in the grocery store where I can venture past an aisle of chocolates and breeze through balloons and roses on my way to the deli. I’m not seeing very many expressions of love on social media, though. We must not take our...

Essentials 24 Translation

by Jaime Chambers

The Essentials 24 website has 24 lessons that take people on a journey from basic Biblical knowledge to more in-depth learning. We are looking to translate our materials into a number of different languages, to assist more people growing in their knowledge ...

Connecting for Change — Experiencing Chance Encounters

What we might think of as chance encounters, may be better described as God’s redemptive connections. Years ago I came across a small booklet titled “There are no accidents with God.” Another author who has had a significant influence in my life is DeVern F...

Accountability

Pastors occasionally connect with me about evangelism and discipleship for their church. It was great talking with a church planter / preacher in another state recently regarding his attempt to preach hoping to disciple his congregation. Together, we contra...

Stop! In the name of Love

The Supremes’ lead singer, Diana Ross, pleaded with her man not to leave her and go to another woman. The lyrics of that 1965 hit cried, “Stop! In the name of love before you break my heart. Baby baby, I’m aware of where you go / Each time you leave my door...

Who should be in your storying group?

Donald McGavran, a missiologist, defined the Homogeneous Unit Principle as “a section of society in which all members have some characteristic in common.” The global work in missions for people groups was built around the HUP. IMB defines a people group as ...

Going for Local

A missionary artist in West Africa taught me how to walk into a local market empty-handed and walk out with indigenous materials. She would look for scraps of fabric, discarded candy wrappers, plants with staining qualities useful for painting, and newsprin...