Missions

Musings and meditations about missions from a missionary.

Missionary Software Recommendations

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Note: This page will be updated regularly with new recommendations.

I (David Cox) have been a missionary for about 28 years now, and if you count the years on deputation, around 30 years. In my lifetime, I have gone from nothing electronic to speak of to using powerful desktop computers now. When I was in my schooling years (1964-2002) computers hit the scene and are now common. My education (much after school was self-taught about computers, and I even taught myself Foxpro relational database, and programmed my own software) has spanned both no-computer, and computer. So let me start off by a couple of much needed points that people need to understand.

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Using Color correctly in Slide Prentations

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First of all, these principles are basic art class principles. Color is extremely useful in presentations, but note that there are some rules to observe.

Most missionary presentations use very few title slides, but some use a background kind of effect with an image within that “frame”, and a title. The frame and title would be where you would apply the principles in this post.

There is a very useful and nice program called VideoScribe that allows you to make a whiteboard type video, where a hand actually draws the image. These color balancing tips come from their website (you don’t have to use their program to follow this tip). I will use there images and add logos of companies to illustrate what they say.

http://www.sparkol.com/blog/captivate-your-audience-with-these-pro-colour-tips/

I will summarize the rules here.

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Missionary Calling: 7 Ways to Identify your Calling

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In this brief video, Tara Sophia Mohr (not identified as a Christian) speaks in general about identifying your calling in life.

See video at end of this post…

I would note that this is just a simple motivation type talk where Tara speaks in general to anybody about their calling in life. What I took away from this is that this is exactly what you as a missionary need to understand and present to your potential missionary partners so that they understand your calling. One thing is that you are called (not all missionary candidates are called by the way), and another thing is to communicate that calling to others, especially those that support you, and those that potentially are considering supporting you. This means that you need to highly persuade them of your calling. The elements that Tara presents are very useful in this task.

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Success is a two edged Sword

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Truly, every single missionary wants success. It is extremely important to really understand “what success is for a missionary”. For many people, success can be defined as the 3 B’s: Bodies, Bucks, and Buildings. See my tract ch31 3Bs of success: buildings, bodies, and bucks In this tract I refute those elements of success. The Jack Hyles school of ministry would clearly define success in these parameters. While these things may seem to be success for Christian ministries, it is very unspiritual, and it is very much not what the Bible presents. As far as we know, Jesus had no building EVER. The money aspect of Jesus’ ministry did not appear prominent, i.e. he did not have expensive things a lot of money could buy. When at the end he entered into Jerusalem at the beginning of his final week, he had to borrow somebody else’s “wheels” (a burro, not a nice horse), and he had to borrow somebody else’s upper room. Both of these elements, as well as all the other aspects of his ministry point to a ministry devoid of “riches”. He helped the poor, but he himself and his inner circle walked wherever they went from all indications.

Even the “helping aspect” of Jesus’ ministry is something that is speaking strongly against modern success oriented ministries. Notice that Jesus fed the thousands and healed many. These things were not the appeal that Jesus put forth as his main focus. We see nowhere that Jesus nor his followers went about advertising free food or free healing. These things were not the focus. Jesus’ focus was centrally and exclusively on the Gospel. People came to hear the Gospel, not for the food. This was the advertisement Jesus and his disciples’ used if there were even an advertisement at all. Word of mouth was what would appear to be the only advertisement they used.

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