Every Southern Baptist church needs to “take at least one mission trip, with the pastor being part of that trip, over the next year.” That is the message of Southern Baptist Convention President Bryant Wright, according to a report in SBC Life. Bryant said the impact on the churches that go on mission trips is powerful. “When people are going through weeks of discipleship training, learning how to have a better quiet time, learning how to share their faith with a different people group cross-culturally, they come back better Christians from the experiences they had.” Bryant challenged Baptists to sacrificially give towards missions as well as make a radical commitment to go on mission in larger numbers.
In Kenya, there is an ongoing problem with internally-displaced persons (IDP) as a result of the 2007 elections there, according to a blog post by AIM Missionary Nick Hindes. These are Kenyan nationals who are part of smaller tribes that have been discriminated against for some time. “They have been forced from their homes, had everything taken from them, and some have even been murdered in the process,” Hindes writes. Today these people live in tent camps or in small brick homes built by Habitat for Humanity.
“Pray around the world,” is the focus of Wesleyan Church Women, who have a goal of prayer walking 24,901 miles—the number of miles it takes to encircle the globe. They are seeking to get others to pray as they walk and then log their miles on a special website: http://www.wesleyan.org/ww/prayer.
New Zealand, the self-proclaimed “most secular nation in the world,” is starting to see people attend church, according to Foursquare Church Missionary Ron Brown in a Foursquare.org feature story. The denomination has planted 12 churches in the country, all within the past seven years. “Fewer than seven percent of New Zealanders will attend church even once during the course of a year,” said Brown. The ministry there got a big boost last year when a short-term mission team came from the States. “The team was a tremendous assistance, with spiritual fruit continuing for months following their return to the U.S.,” Brown exclaimed.