Filed under: Andrea Mullins
New Hope is helping our parent company, WMU®, explore a new resource for believers who care about a lost world. Take this survey and be entered in a drawing to win a $250 Visa gift card. Please CLICK HERE to take the survey and become eligible for the drawing.
Somewhere close to you are people wondering how they’ll make it through this holiday season. Someone is out of work, or a single mom trying to take care of her children, or on a limited income, or trapped in generations of poverty that have influenced they hope that someone or anyone cares.
To learn more about WMU visit http://www.wmu.com.
The survey ends at midnight on November 13. The drawing will be held November 19. If your email address is selected, WMU will contact you to get your name and mailing address. If we do not receive your reply within 7 calendar days, we will choose an alternate winner. WMU staff members and their families are not eligible. Thank you for your help.
Filed under: Andrea Mullins
Fact or fiction?
- North Korea is the greatest offender against the Church.
- Christians may be beheaded or stoned in Saudi Arabia for practicing their faith.
- Over 90% of Christians in China worship in hidden house churches.
- There is only one Christian church left in the Gaza Strip.
- Iran is the third worst persecutor of Christians in the world.
- Open preaching in Sudan is punishable by beatings or imprisonment.
Today, November 8, is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. In recognition of the sacrifice many make for the gospel, I am posting one chapter of the first book from a new series of novels about the persecuted church. No Greater Love by Kathi Macias is a story of love, danger, sacrifice, and suspense set in South Africa. This is the first book in a series of four that will encourage, inspire, and challenge readers to deeper concern and prayer commitment for those who stand for Christ in all places where the Church is under attack.
We invite you to interact with the content and the characters, and then leave your comments with any suggestions or other comments. The first 25 to offer their comments on my blog will receive a free copy of Kathi’s book at its release.
Filed under: Andrea Mullins
Each week we watch the rise and fall of financial indicators. When the numbers rise, we hope to see a positive impact on our personal portfolio. When they fall, we fear for our retirement. This is where our concerns often stop. We seldom consider the impact these indicators have for the poorest of the poor in our world.
A few years ago I became responsible for a fair trade company and quickly discovered the impact of my personal decisions on the poor in this world. Unlike most of the publishing choices we make, fair trade decisions free people from the bondage of extreme poverty. A father may be turned from seeing his young daughter as a valuable commodity to be traded. A teenager may be rescued from a life a crime. A young woman may discover a vocation other than prostitution or the back rooms of a nightclub. Children may grow up with hope.
For many of us it is difficult to imagine that our purchasing decisions can mean a bag of rice for a starving family, or rent paid to an unforgiving landlord. We find it hard to understand the anguish of an impoverished society where a father sells his daughter to the highest bidder. Desperation and generations of poverty have serious implications for families, communities, and society.
Fair trade companies commit to providing sustainable income for the people the company serves. While a retailer may sell a fair trade product, it is only fair trade companies that have made the commitment to provide sustainable income to people in poverty. Fair trade decisions in a challenging economy are more complex than reducing a print run from 10,000 to 5,000. Instead, the question is, “If we only order 50 units instead of 500, what happens to the artisans? How many will go without food? How many will be forced into slavery or be sold to sex traffickers?”
Fair trade has deepened my realization that it isn’t just our company decisions, but our personal business choices that impact those who are far less fortunate. Whether we spend our days running our homes or a Fortune 500 company, our financial and life stewardship decisions have potential to bring hope to families, women, and children who have no representation at the table of wealth that most of us enjoy each day. We cannot separate God’s love and concern from our choices as we make purchases, give to our churches, support ministries and missions . . . .
For believers, all business is mission. Many of us are already purchasing our gifts for Christmas. Whether we have $5 or $50,000 to spend, how we use it is important to our faith and God’s purposes in this world. Our $5 is more than the majority of this world will ever have, and purchasing a gift is a luxury they seldom consider.
This Christmas look for a fair trade company that is concerned for both physical and spiritual needs, so the impoverished of this world will be set free by the Christ of Christmas.
Visit http://www.worldcraftsvillage.com to see the stories of artisans around the world whose lives depend on the sale of the beautiful crafts they make.
Filed under: Andrea Mullins
Celebrity parents are in the news daily from Angelina Jolie to Michael Jackson. Their decisions to be private or public, to adopt, or to marry the other parent, influence homes across our nation with mostly negative role models of parenting.
Because of this and in celebration of Parents’ Day on July 26 (fourth Sunday in July), I have asked Greg and Martha Singleton, authors of Setting up Stones: A Parent’s Guide to Making Your Home a Place of Worship to speak to the importance and power of our positions as parents. The Singletons have, for 29 years, met the challenges of balancing successful professional careers in journalism and marketing while raising a faith-filled family. Together, they creatively share their experiences and insights on family life at conferences, seminars, workshops, churches of various denominations, schools, organizations, and businesses. The couple resides in San Antonio, and has two adult children, Anne and Matt.
From Martha and Greg:
We’d like to take this opportunity to wish all you moms and dads a very Happy Parents’ Day! Actually, we weren’t aware that there was such a holiday until someone brought it to our attention earlier this month. But, when we found out about it, we sprang into action. We don’t let opportunities like this just slip by without appropriate fanfare, especially when we, as parents, are likely to be the beneficiaries. So we called our children, who are adults now, and let them know that we didn’t expect anything huge. Dinner on the San Antonio Riverwalk would be just fine.
It’s difficult to know how to celebrate a holiday that you don’t know that much about. Some holidays call for feasts and celebrations; some are times of solemn memorial. So that we all might be on the same page as to the tone this day’s traditions should take, we’ve done some research and personal recollection about what it means to be a parent.
Do you remember when you first held that baby in your arms? The rush of emotion at seeing that little bundle was equaled only by your thoughts of the future and that child’s potential. Before you could even get the baby home from the hospital, all the dreams about tomorrow had already begun. You couldn’t wait for those first steps across the room, or their first words to be spoken. Their first day of school will be great. And won’t it be exciting to see him on the baseball field? Just imagine what it will be like at her first dance recital.
We begin to project our hopes and expectations on that new little one. Beyond the mundane, we might even design plans for how this life will serve God, envisioning successful ministry in our child’s future. In our excitement and anticipation, we reason, “How awesome! God has presented me with a fresh new canvas here, and I’m going to create a classic work of art!”
And, it really would be so exciting if it was simply our responsibility to select all the colors and designs for that child’s life just like we wanted, and fill that canvas with beauty, just the way we had it pictured in our mind. Then we could frame it, hang it a gallery somewhere, and the whole world would pass by and tell us what a wonderful job of parenting we had done. And when the audience applauds our efforts, wouldn’t that make us feel wonderful?
But, this is the point where we just need to slow down a bit. Because, this isn’t our art project at all. Despite the biology involved, this gift from God has nothing to do with what we can create. It’s not about our ingenuity and dedication to the craft of being a parent. Parenting really has very little to do with our credentials and successes. In fact, God has already invested His work and creativity in that child’s life, before he was even born.
He has other ideas about what our role is supposed to be. When He graciously places a baby in our home, there is absolutely nothing lacking. What God asks of parents is that we discover all that He has invested in that child and direct those abilities and proclivities toward maturity. Our task is to discern the valuable gifts that God has placed there and enhance that beauty all for His glory. Then that person, our child, as an adult, can realize the potential that God had intended in his life from the very beginning of time.
We should probably view our job as parents like that of a refiner rather than that of an artist. A refiner does sweaty work and there’s usually a lot of intense labor involved. Refineries follow a process that creates a valuable resource out of a raw material that already has an inherent worth. It doesn’t happen quickly. It requires constant attention, and if any part of the process is overlooked or shortchanged, then the entire product could lose its usefulness and value.
The process is day-by-day and moment-by-moment. Rather than the grand gesture or the big lecture, it is the prayerful, careful attention to daily detail, the tone and content of our most casual conversation with our children, the consistent illustration of our character and caring that they see in us day by day, and the practical reality of our relationship with Christ lived out before them as we meet life’s challenges that will forge our children into the adults God has called them to be.
There’s just not an opportunity to take a day off. For the process to be effective, we have to stay right in there with all the heat and the stress. Paul wasn’t speaking specifically to parents but he described our duty so well. “Be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.” (2 Timothy 4:2 NIV)
So, on Parents’ Day, take a deep breath and reflect on this magnificent journey called parenthood. Now, get back to work. You’re on the clock.
On the eve of World Population Day, July 11, the state of the world is worth considering. While the information below is indeed sobering, Jesus is the answer for the world’s peoples, regardless of wealth, culture, tradition, or origin.
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst” (John 6:35–51 NASB).
Poverty
“No one knows yet what the full scale of this global economic crisis will look like. We do know that women and children in developing countries will bear the brunt of the impact. What started as a financial crisis in rich countries is now deepening into a global economic crisis that is hitting developing countries hard. It is already affecting progress toward reducing poverty.”
Although poverty has been dramatically reduced in many parts of the world, a quarter of the world’s people remain in severe poverty. Half the world’s people live on less than $2 a day. Over one billion people live on less than $1 per day. The richest 20 percent of the world population now receives 150 times the income of the poorest 20 percent.
The richest one-fifth of the world:
• Consume 45 percent of all meat and fish, the poorest fifth 5 percent.
• Consume 58 percent of total energy, the poorest fifth less than 4 percent.
• Have 74 percent of all telephone lines, the poorest fifth 1.5 percent.
• Consume 84 percent of all paper, the poorest fifth 1.1 percent.
• Own 87 percent of the world’s vehicle fleet, the poorest fifth less than 1 percent.
Women and Poverty
With nearly 7 billion people in the world, 49 percent of whom are female, there is no doubt that women living in poverty will be denied the opportunities that women in the US take for granted. Women are still the poorest of the world’s poor, representing 70 percent of the 1.3 billion people who live in absolute poverty. When nearly 900 million women have incomes of less than $1 a day, the association between gender inequality and poverty remains a harrowing reality.
Women work two-thirds of the world’s working hours, produce half of the world’s food, and yet earn only 10 percent of the world’s income and own less than 1 percent of the world’s property.
Education
Today, there are still 125 million children who never attend school. Another 150 million children of primary age start school, but drop out before they can read or write. One in four adults in the developing world—872 million people—is illiterate, and the numbers are growing. A child in Mozambique can expect to go to school for two to three years while a five-year-old European or North American child can expect to spend 17 years in formal education.
Girls account for two-thirds of the children not in school. In many schools in the developing world, the treatment of girls is tantamount to a system of apartheid.
Debt Crisis
It is estimated that the Third World pays the developed North nine times more in debt repayments than they receive in aid. Africa alone spends four times more on repaying its debts than it spends on health care.
Food & Hunger
826 million people remained undernourished in 1996-98. Hunger continues to plague an estimated 793 million people around the world, including 31 million in the US. Hunger kills. Every day, 24,000 people die from hunger and other preventable causes. Nearly 160 million children are malnourished worldwide.
Health
More than 800 million people lack access to basic healthcare, and 1.3 billion lack access to safe drinking water. Seventeen million people die each year from curable diseases, including diarrhea, malaria and tuberculosis. Five million of these people die due to water contamination.
We are not alone in this world. We share space with more than 6 billion souls, every one of them loved by God and in need of His love shown in the most basic and practical terms.
If you are ready to consider your response more fully, two excellent resources are Trolls and Truth and Plunge2Poverty by Jimmy Dorrell.
Filed under: Andrea Mullins
Eating a hot dog at a Birmingham Barons game, followed by watching some spectacular fireworks, is what you’ll likely find me doing this Independence Day. Just in case you don’t remember what this day is about, we celebrate it every July 4, commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Life wasn’t all that peaceful at the time of the signing. Our nation was under the rule of England’s King George III and there was growing unrest because of the taxes that had to be paid to England. Growing concern over “taxation without representation” led 12 of the 13 colonies to send delegates to form the First Continental Congress in 1774 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
When British troops advanced into Massachusetts in April 1775, Paul Revere sounded the warning of “The British are coming, the British are coming” as he rode his horse through the late night streets toward Lexington. This was the beginning of the American war for independence.
When all efforts for a peaceful agreement failed, a committee was formed to write a declaration of independence. On June 28, 1776, Thomas Jefferson presented a draft of the declaration to the Congress, on July 2 twelve colonies voted for independence, and on July 4 the final revised Declaration of Independence was approved, with a flourishing signature by John Hancock that the King could not miss.
Every year we celebrate this radical decision that birthed our nation and introduced us to freedoms unknown by any other nation until this time. We enjoy freedom of faith, freedom of arms, freedom of speech, and the list goes on.
Don’t forget that you also have another kind of freedom, just as radical, even more radical, than the freedoms we enjoy in the US. As the Apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians: “In [this] freedom Christ has made us free [and completely liberated us]; stand fast then, and do not be hampered and held ensnared and submit again to a yoke of slavery [which you have once put off]” (Galatians 5:1 AMP).
We have paid a high price for the freedoms we enjoy as citizens of our nation. This is what we would expect. Freedom comes with a price. But the radical nature of our freedom in Christ is that God paid the price. Our freedom is revolutionary because we have been freed to live the Great Commandment, to love others as ourselves, and this is the most radical of all freedoms.
As I eat my hotdog and watch the fireworks, I will be thankful for the gift of freedom I enjoy as an American citizen, but even more so for the freedom I have in Christ. I will pray that my life be marked by the same self-giving that led Christ to give himself for me.
July 2 is the Salvation Army Founder’s Day, the anniversary of the first tent meeting at which William Booth preached on the Quaker Burial Ground in Whitechapel, London. We hear daily of those who have spent their lives taking rather than giving—Bernie Madoff, Andrew Fastow, Michael Milken, Dennis Kozlowski, Jeff Skilling, Charles Keating, Jr., Bernard Ebbers—to name a few, so it’s good to have a day to remind us of those with Great Commandment lives. This is the radical nature of the gospel, that we give ourselves away and in return we gain everything God has to give. William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, is an example of the Christian pioneers mentioned in Hebrews 12, and his life reminds us of our accountability to live out the radical nature of the gospel, bringing Christ to the world.
Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God.
—Hebrews 12:1–2, The Message
William Booth was born in Nottingham in 1829. While working as an apprentice in a pawnbroker’s shop he became aware of the humiliation experienced by the poor. During his teenage years he became a Christian and spent much of his spare time trying to persuade other people to become Christians too.
After his marriage to Catherine Mumford in 1855 he spent several years as a Methodist minister, traveling all around the country, preaching, and sharing God’s word to all who would listen. Yet he felt that God wanted more from him, that he should be doing more to reach ordinary people. He returned to London with his family, having resigned his position as a Methodist minister.
One day in 1865 he found himself in the East End of London, preaching to crowds of people in the streets. Outside the Blind Beggar pub some missioners heard him speaking and were so impressed by his powerful preaching that they asked him to lead a series of meetings they were holding in a large tent. The date for the first meeting was set for July 2, 1865. To the poor and wretched of London’s East End, Booth brought the good news of Jesus Christ and his love for all men. Booth soon realized he had found his destiny. He formed his own movement, which he called “The Christian Mission.”
The work was hard and Booth would ’stumble home night after night haggard with fatigue, often his clothes were torn and bloody bandages swathed his head where a stone had struck’, wrote his wife. Evening meetings were held in an old warehouse where urchins threw stones and fireworks through the window. It was not until 1878 when The Christian Mission changed its name to The Salvation Army that things began to happen. The impetus changed. The idea of an Army fighting sin caught the imagination of the people and the Army began to grow rapidly. Booth’s fiery sermons and sharp imagery drove the message home and more and more people found themselves willing to leave their past behind and start a new life as a soldier in The Salvation Army. By the time of Booth’s death in 1912 the Army was at work in 58 countries.
When I took a mission team to Australia some years ago, I found that the most respected Christian group was the Salvation Army. They had gone to the hardest places to bring help and hope to those who were forgotten, oppressed, and lost. Thousands of Salvation Army witnesses were living the words of William Booth from long ago.
While women weep, as they do now, I’ll fight; while little children go hungry, as they do now, I’ll fight; while men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, I’ll fight; while there is a drunkard left, while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets, while there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I’ll fight-I’ll fight to the very end!
Every believer can choose Great Commandment living. I recommend two great books that will encourage you to be the pioneers for the next generation of Christ followers: Trolls and Truth: 14 Realities About Today’s Church that We Don’t Want to See by Jimmy Dorrell and Beyond Me: Living a You- First Life in a Me-First World by Kathi Macias.
How do you decide if someone is bad or good? It’s not always easy to keep a list of good deeds versus bad. This is the question some of my family and I discussed after seeing the new movie Slumdog Millionaire. Salim, the older brother of Jamal, is a study of human response to abject poverty.
Slumdog Millionaire not only confronts us with abject poverty and the toll it takes on human behavior, but also with the reality of our wealth against the needs of the world. The difficulties most of us are facing in this struggling economy are seen in a different light after we’ve followed children running through the slums of Mumbai, watched women washing in the river, and experienced the toilets of the poor.
From the time I read The City of Joy, a story that takes place in the slums of Calcutta, Mumbai, written by Dominique Lapierre, and then saw the movie, I knew I had to go to India, and so I went. I traveled across this nation of over a billion people for only a few days, but the poverty I saw released a flood of tears that I could not stop. Only when I went with Christ followers who live and serve in the slums of Delhi did I trust that hope is reaching out in some of the most grievous places in the world.
Books can paint a picture that carries us to faraway places; and as believers, God uses words to move us toward His plan for our lives. If the message of Q & A, the book on which Slumdog Millionaire is based, had not been “it is written,” but rather, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” how different the lives of Salim and Jamal could have been. What are you writing today that may lead someone to discover the only final word in life is the Word. How will you take that person to the place where God would have him or her go, to accomplish what God has planned for them to do? In Christ, “it is written,” indeed.
Karma, a little three-year-old girl, was quietly eating her small slice of dessert pizza at CiCi’s Pizza restaurant while I visited with one of her six brothers and sisters. It didn’t take her long to remove the lid from the Parmesan cheese jar and pour a large pile of the cheese on top of her dessert pizza. By the time I saw what she was doing, she was eating it with all the gusto her tiny body could employ!
There was a time that I would have been at least a little concerned, but my only response was to laugh with pleasure. She didn’t need my guidance to know what she liked to eat, and I had no intention of interfering.
Karma was a heavenly reminder that I don’t have to control life. I can relax and take pleasure in the chaos of living and working. God is in control. This is what I intend to take with me into the world of publishing this next week. Even though the forecasts for 2009 are dire, I want to see what God will do and laugh with pleasure at His handiwork.
