Author: Steinar Opheim

Don’t Let Your eMails Get You in Trouble

/ Steinar Opheim

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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.

Risk management for tentmakers

/ Steinar Opheim

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The UN has just published a new report focusing on risk management for humanitarian workers. The document contains much valuable information also for tentmakers and business as mission people working in sensitive areas.

Humanitarian workers are under threat as ever before according to the UN report named “To stay and deliver”. The report says that the number of lethal attacks on humanitarian workers have tripled the past years. Currently an average of 100 workers are killed on the job every year. The situation is worst in Afghanistan where there have been 180 major attacks on humanitarian workers since 2005. Sudan (150 attacks) and Somalia (100 attacks) follow as number two and three.

– There are no places where humanitarian organizations should not go or cannot go. Instead of asking what does it take to leave, we should ask what does it take to stay in Mazar-i-Sharif and other such places. Risk management means you adapt to the circumstances, said Jan Egeland when the report was presented in New York in the middle of April. Egeland who is the director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, has led the research group behind the UN report.

The report contains information on best practices for agencies working in conflict areas. Many tentmakers are involved in such relief work. The content is also valuable for tentmakers and business people operating in such areas. For instance it is underlining how important it is to develop plans for security including evacuation plans.

 181 new house churches planted by tentmakers

/ Steinar Opheim

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Steinar Opheim

African tentmakers who have gone through the tentmaking course developed by Global Opportunities and Tent have started at least 181 new prayer groups and house churches the past six years.

According to detailed reports presented by Africa-director Tiowa Diarra in Tentmakers International (TI), 3,751 persons have now gone through a limited version of the GO Equipped TENTmaking course. The course participants have reached out to 15,100 people with the gospel and 181 new, Christian fellowships have been started.

– We are still missing reports from several nations, so the real numbers of people being reached and fellowships being started is even higher than this, says Tiowa Diarra.

He has been a leading figure in the African tentmaking movement that has been emerging the past six years. In 2004 he made connections with Global Opportunities European sister agency, Tent, in order to arrange a tentmaking course in his home country Mali. Since then the development of the movement has been like an adventure. In 2007 Mali hosted the first ever All Africa Tentmaking conference with participants from 17 nations. The second All Africa Tentmaking conference was held in Cameroon last summer. At present TI has national representatives in the majority of the African nations. The tentmaking course has been recorded in both French and English and is now distributed on DVDs to the national leaders in the movement.

– The tentmaking strategy is a good fit for the churches in Africa. Through tentmaking even churches that have small resources can take part in the worldwide misson task, says Tiowa Diarra.

He is now making plans for a third All Africa Tentmaking conference that will be held in Tanzania in 2013.

– By arranging these international events in different parts of the continent, we can introduce even more people to the tentmaking idea, says Tiowa Diarra.