In This Month's Issue:
DAILY MISSIONS
Growing a member mission network in Tanzania
RESOURCES
FOR MEDITATION
Diverse voices with a common concern
MM SHORTS
Street Pastors
wearing collars wait
outside the pubs in
Bristol, England to see
that heavy drinkers get
home safely.
For discussion/debate:
“A Christian’s primary
job is to make every part
of his/her daily life more
loving and more just
with God’s help.”
What are its values?
What does it lack?
Give MMNews “legs”
Jessica heard about us
through her daughter’s
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connected with one of
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Watch Member Mission Presents on YouTube!
See:
Mickey helps children visit parents in prison
Keep Member Mission Around!
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May 2012
Member Mission Newsletter #104
In the Spirit
(Click here for a printable version)
(Click here to view this email in your browser)
Hint – Seminarians’ prep for workshop and your own
Prof. Bob Hughes’ Evangelism and Conversion class at Sewanee prepared for their workshop on “Living the Gospel: Connecting Faith and Daily Life,” March 3-4, 2012 by interviewing a church member on “What have you done in the last few weeks to make any area of your daily life more loving and more just?” The member chose an area and described what was done answering (as the class member made notes):
– What was happening there?
– What did you see or believe was needed?
– What did you do or say?
– What was the result?
– Do you see or believe God was at work in any way during this experience? If yes, how was God at work?
– How do you feel about being asked all these questions?
All fourteen class members came to the first session already clued in to what the workshop was about. Enthusiasm was high and remained high to the end on the next day.
Why not adapt this idea for your church’s next member mission group?
For a Day of Pentecost hint: see last page
STORIES OF MISSIONS
Growing a member mission network in Tanzania
Raymond M. Mulegi was one of almost 100 trainees at our Member Mission Workshop June 2010 at the Canaan Spiritual Centre in Dar es Salaam Tanzania. Since then, he has drawn in a local pastor who has asked for multiple copies of the Swahili version of the workbook; trained the nearby leader of a Pentecostal denomination who has requested further training for his leaders; and has traveled to Mwanza to orient and train leaders there. Meanwhile, Charles Mwihambi, Academic Dean at Msalato Theological College in Dodoma, includes member mission ideas in his courses in Ethics, Pastoral Ministry, and Old Testament; and has preached about member mission practices in 15 parishes including preaching twice at the Anglican Cathedral in Dodoma.
Contacts: makunja@yahoo.com (Raymond); charlesmwihambi@yahoo.com
A bank teller on mission
“Good morning. How are you today? What can I do for you?” and “Have a good day” were 
standard for all tellers at Anna’s bank. Anna took the further step of responding to customers who seemed to be under stress: “Are you upset?” Hearing yes, Anna locked her cash box and invited the customer to a quiet corner to hear his or her story such as “My mother’s health is deteriorating rapidly.” Tears dried, the customers left relieved.
Later, applying for part-time work at another bank, the manager asked how she felt about selling the bank’s products such as checking accounts and wealth management to customers at her teller’s window. She answered, “I have no problem with that so long as I feel that the customer can benefit from the product.”
Anna, knowing that the tellers had to make goals and quotas that would determine their “incentive pay” and that of the manager, she went on, “I am not going to sell a product when I don’t think the customer can benefit from it. I will sense whether the customer has trouble with figures and could not use the product effectively.” She was thinking, “Hire me based on my principles of integrity or don’t hire me at all.” She did not get the job. She did apply to another bank and was accepted.
Did you see God at work in your decision to risk being honest during the interview?
“To me, the prayer about God as the one in whom ‘we live, and move, and have our being’ told me to put getting a job in God’s hands. It’s hard. I want to be in control. Yet, God has always provided for me so why should I worry.”
How did God give you the courage to take this risk?
“I was raised with a sense of integrity.”
Contact: membermission@aol.com
“The Hunger Games” – more than an adventure story (a mission of the wider world)? This movie and the triology of 
books behind it attract so much teen and young adult interest that it has become a cultural event we cannot escape. Use the following references for your own thinking and work with all age groups.
1. Begin with the comments of the author, Suzanne Collins, at the end of the Audible Books e-book version (www.audible.com). She cites being inspired by the Theseus stories, Spartacus, and the oppressive Roman empire that pacified its people with gladiatorial combat. She concludes with questions she hopes it raises with readers: what will you do about hunger; and what will you do to build a more just world.
2. Then, read Ann Duncan and Amy Langford’s article (The Christian Century, 4/4/12, pp. 12-13) who see the three books as a hero story for teens and young adults who value heroic action to change the world. They see it expressing the virtues of sacrifice, love, and resistance to oppression which are central for Christians. They also draw biblical parallels. See http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2012-03/teen-hero?print.
3. Find the brutality of the film discussed in a Christian Century blog, “The Hunger Games contradiction” by Janet Potter. She concentrates on the adventure and violence of the movie without the in-depth treatment of Duncan and Langford. You can judge how helpful she is. See http://www.christiancentury.org/blogs/archive/2012-03/hunger-games-contradiction?print
Social Media (a mission at church) – is a way the church can interact with non-members as well as members. It can: open channels to shut-ins unable to go to church; and enhance bulletins and newsletters from your church. Further, social media sites can enable a church to create a web site with its own identity. A committee can create a site to fit a church’s “personality” to enable everyone – non-members as well as members – to get times of services, directions to the church, inspirational workshops, pot lucks for the local community and other related activities. Among the wide variety of resources:
1. Search Google.com or YouTube.com using The Church and Social Media.
2. See www.facebook.com/digitalformation
3. See http://www.ctepiscopal.org/images/customer-files//SocialMediaGuidelines.pdf
4. For all denominations (the content is not as specific as the title), see “Social Media and the Episcopal Church: A New Way to Tell a 2,000-Year-Old Story” with its six best practices. See http://gaepiscopal.org/docs/Social_Media_and_the_Episcopal_Church.pdf
5. See http://digitalformation.eventbrite.com/ for a webinar June 11 on “Skype and Spiritual Formation.”
Diverse voices with a common concern
From the Prophet Muhammad:
“Whosoever of you sees an evil action, let him change it with his hand; and if he is not able to do so, then with his tongue; and if he is not able to do so, then with his heart.”
(NY Times 5/5/12, p. A19)
From the late John R. W. Stott, an evangelical leader, :
“My hope is that in the future, evangelical leaders will ensure that their social agenda includes such vital but controversial topics as halting climate change, eradicating poverty, abolishing armories of mass destruction, responding adequately to the AIDS pandemic, and asserting the human rights of women and children in all cultures. I hope our agenda does not remain too narrow.”
(The Living Church, 8/28/11, p. 26)
YouTube Brings You Members on Mission
Mickey helps children visit parents in prison
Click the link or image above to watch this story and learn more about the personal impact of Member Mission.
Watch Member Mission Presents on YouTube!
* * *
For the day of Pentecost, if you teach or preach,
describe Baptism as joining Jesus' mission;
we are called to move beyond coming to church for personal support
to being agents of Jesus' mission to make each area of our daily lives
more loving and more just.
Whenever you teach about baptism, talk about member mission as
"living out your baptism in your daily life."
[Pentecost season and the summer could be just the time for a pilot group using the workbook, Living the Gospel; see pp. 11-12 of the workbook (order Living the Gospel by clicking here) for ideas for doing it in 5, 8, or 12 sessions.]
* * *
Tell us about your work with member mission at info@membermission.org or phone 802-482-7743. You continue on this list because of past interest and / or work together with the Member Mission vision. If you missed or lost any past newsletters, you will find them on the website under Newsletter > Archive.
* * *
New address for the MM Press and Network and A. Wayne Schwab:
PO Box 628
Hinesburg, VT 05461
Phone
802-482-7743
and add this email
membermission@aol.com
God is most interested in how we live from Monday to Saturday.
Sunday – all of church life – helps us to do it better.