Month: August 2011

Don’t Let Your eMails Get You in Trouble

/ Steinar Opheim

http://globalopps.org/tmbriefs/email.jpg

The tentmaker in the Central Asian nation was shocked when he received the email from the senior pastor in his home church. “To Our Missionary Heroes” was the headline of the email. The same greeting was also used in the subject field.

The email was sent to all the missionaries that the church was in contact with and the pastor wanted to encourage these front soldiers in God’s army. Most of them were working in areas where they could openly share the Gospel. But this tentmaker was not. Although he immediately deleted the email, he knew that it could cause harm to the ministry he had been doing for several years.

Emails and other data communication have become major sources that can harm a growing work in a sensitive area. The people who want to stay in touch with us are not trained in thinking about security. Even the people who are working in such areas are often not aware of the security issues that can harm their work.

Global Opportunities and Tent have together with current tentmakers developed some security guidelines for people working in areas where the Christian church is persecuted.  Here are some of the advices we give regarding emails:

– Remember that unencrypted emails are like postcards – everyone can read them.
  Thus we should never write things that can harm our work.

– Avoid writing about politics and religion.

– Avoid giving details about names and places.

– Make code signals you can use if there is a crisis.

– Give security guidelines to those who are going to write to you. 

– If you work in a very sensitive area, someone in your home country should scan
  through your emails and delete sensitive words before the emails are forwarded
  to you.

– Emails from people working in sensitive areas should never be forwarded without
  asking the sender.

– Never display emails from sensitive areas in public meeting places. 

Email correspondence is only one aspect you need to think through if you want to work in a sensitive area. How to plant churches in hostile environments, what to do with Bibles and other literature and how to inform your supporters back home are some other central areas of work that you will have to plan carefully.

 The World’s Mission Leaders Want Focus on Tentmaking

/ Steinar Opheim

Steinar Opheim
 

“Christians in many skills, trades, businesses and professions, can often go to places where traditional church planters and evangelists may not,” concludes the worldwide Lausanne Movement in the recently published Cape Town Commitment. The document may bring tentmaking into a new era in the global mission work.

For nearly 40 years the Lausanne Movement has been a major source of inspiration and a substantial contributor in the worldwide mission work. The Lausanne Covenant that was worked out during the world congress in 1974 has been a point of reference for nearly everyone involved in mission. The Manila Manifesto written in 1989 also contributed in forming a common understanding of the mission task among global leaders. It is therefore good reason to expect that also the document that was made during the world congress in Cape Town last fall will make its impact on the mission work in the years and decades to come.

The Cape Town Commitment concludes that tentmaking is a vital strategy if we want to reach the whole world with the whole gospel. The document therefore advises church and mission leaders to implement tentmaking in their strategies.

“We urge church leaders to understand the strategic impact of ministry in the workplace and to mobilize, equip and send out their church members as missionaries into the workplace, both in their own local communities and in countries that are closed to traditional forms of gospel witness. We urge mission leaders to integrate ‘tentmakers’ fully into the global missional strategy,” reads the document. You can download the full version of the Cape Town Commitment in several languages from Lausanne’s website at www.lausanne.org.

“The Whole Church taking the Whole Gospel to the Whole World” has been a motto for the Lausanne Movement. In Global Opportunities and Tent we have seen how the teaching on tentmaking is empowering the whole congregation to take part in the global mission task.

When we run seminars on tentmaking in the churches, people usually respond in two ways. One groups says that for the first time they will really consider to move to a new country in order be ambassadors for God’s kingdom. They have never thought of becoming missionaries. But applying for a job where they can continue to use their professions in a new culture sounds like something they could do. The other group says that they will still not consider moving abroad, but they’ve got a new vision on how they can serve God in their workplace at home.

Global Opportunities and Tent are ready to serve churches, mission agencies and private persons who want the gospel to be known in the whole world.  Don’t hesitate to contact us to find out how we can work together to fulfill the Great Commission.