Archive for November, 2009
Thanksgiving
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
From Dan Brokke
I am so grateful for the mercy of God and His ministry to us. My prayer leading up to our Day Set Apart was that God would meet with us in His way. Yesterday morning I got a report that on several Christian college campuses and at IHOP in Kansas City, God had really met with students. There were extended times of prayer, repentance, spiritual and physical healing, and outpouring of the Holy Spirit. After our DSA I got a report that similar things have occurred in Australia. Many have been praying for revival and spiritual renewal. What we experienced is something God is doing elsewhere as well.
This is a time when we are being called to holiness, toward pursuit of God, into prayer and intercession, and to humility and unity with each other. Someone prayed today that through Thanksgiving week and then as we head into the holiday/Christmas season we will stay steady in our posture and heart of devotion to God. It is easy to slack off, to get distracted, or to grow numb with all the busyness. God is at work…let’s keep pursuing.
Bethany’s History
Just a reminder: Bethany’s History Book has been posted online. You can view it here.
God bless you and your families with His presence, peace, and provision this week!
Set Yourself Apart
Monday, November 16th, 2009
President Dan Brokke’s Weekly Report
I was struck this week with Jesus’ approach to His calling and mission in Israel. In Matthew 9:35-58 we read the account of this process. 1. He walked through all the towns and villages. 2. He preached the good news of the Kingdom. 3. He healed every disease and sickness. 4. He was moved with compassion for the people. The condition of the people as “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” was identified as a “field white for harvest.” His fifth action was to call for workers through a call to prayer.
The STEM team report (below) tells of a team that is prayer walking through the towns and villages of one particular province in Asia. It is as we see and engage that God gives us a heart of compassion. In chapel on Wednesday we heard about the persecuted church; this is real and it is today. It helps to engage our hearts and stir in us compassion for people who are harassed and for the cultures that are held in darkness. In the weeks ahead we will bring virtual “walks” through unreached people groups where the gospel is not known and there is not a church to evangelize their own people.
On Thursday noon we held a “Lunch in the Bindery” awareness gathering to introduce people to the vision and ministry of Bethany. We had about 100 individuals attend. Some were business people throughout the Twin City area and others were current donors and partners in ministry. Mike Beard shared of the impact of Bethany’s training in his life. I shared of how God is leading Bethany and His work through missionaries and partners to reach the unreached around the world.
Day Set Apart
Thursday, November 19 we will have a “Day Set Apart” to worship, fast and pray. I encourage you (wherever you are in the world) to take time with the Lord to pray, listen to His Word, and to worship. We trust that God will speak and bring revelation, work in us, unite us, and strengthen us in His will. All students, interns, volunteers, staff and retirees will meet together on campus.
Bethany History Available Online
The Bethany history book, “With Eternity’s Values in View” is available as a PDF document. To get your copy, click this link.
Classes
Nita Steiner is visiting campus and teaching a Kingdom Lifestyle course to the August students, while the January students are taking Old Testament I with Tom Shetler.
Paradox
Last week we had 24 prospective students and 13 parents on campus for our fourth bi-annual Paradox College Visit Days. We have received great feedback about the campus and campus life. Thursday night Waylon C. preached the message of the Gospel, giving the current and prospective students an opportunity to respond. Friday there were seminars telling the students about different aspects of the college. The next Paradox will be in the spring.
Kenya
Tim F. is in Kenya this week with Matt H. and Mike N. Tim writes, “Yesterday was our big partnership day here in Nairobi. We started out meeting with E. J. who is the GlobeServe Hub leader for East Africa. They are trying to start a national trainers school here and are hoping to open classes in April. After that we went to visit B. A. to talk about GlobeServe but also to share with each other about the progress of reaching the unreached here in Kenya. These were all excellent meetings and gave us good perspective on ministry among unreached peoples in this country.” On Wednesday we drove up to BCOM’s Global Internship site where we will meet with another GlobeServe partner.
Next week Tim will be in Ethiopia to meet with GlobeServe partners who are in the process of starting the first three of eight new missionary training schools.
Prayer Team
The Prayer Support Team has gone through a lot of changes in the last few months and is working on ways to help you engage in intercession on campus.
There are different kinds of atmospheres in the prayer room:
- live devotional times led by one or two individuals
- ministering to the Lord times with music and verses
- instrumental music times and prayer
- praise times led by music teams.
To get more information about the prayer vision and for a look at the schedule visit the website: http://www.bethanyinternational.org/pray
If you have any prayer requests or would like to be involved in leading prayer meetings in the prayer room, please email: bethanyprayer@gmail.com.
STEM
STEM has a team in Asia, working in partnership with other organizations whose goal is to walk through every town and village in a certain province praying for God to bless each one. Here’s an excerpt from an email the team sent us.
“Today was our first day walking through villages. To our knowledge, we are the first people to ever set foot in these villages with the intent to pray onsite. The people are quite curious since these are not normally places where tourists visit.
Our team has already had opportunities to pray with and minister to long-term workers there. Please continue to pray for them and for God’s guidance and strategy in prayer.”
Introducing Bethany This Week
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
This Thursday, November 12, more than 100 guests will join us in the Bethany Press bindery for a luncheon where they will be introduced to Bethany and its mission.
The Uniqueness of Christ
The Ethne conference (Bogota, Colombia) was a tremendously encouraging and envisioning time for Dan Brokke, with about 350 ministry and mission leaders from around the world in attendance. Dan was challenged by reports of how God is raising up the church to take the gospel to unreached people groups.
A major theme throughout the conference was the centrality of Christ and how He alone is the answer in this world. Jesus is bringing revelation of His love through Christians who respond to disasters, through dreams or through small portions of scripture that speak specifically into someone’s unique situation. A watching world notices when followers of Jesus express His love and lay down their comforts to serve.
This Week’s Chapel Speaker - Kent Martin, Betel UK
Betel is a ministry of WEC helping the homeless and addicts in many places throughout the world. They run residential communities and businesses. In the UK there are 13 residences housing 260 people. We have had Bethany interns serving there for the past couple of years in Birmingham, UK. This has been a powerful ministry in tough settings.
Betel residents learn to work in furniture restoration or landscape gardening businesses. Ninety percent of the income to run the ministry is raised through these businesses and ten percent comes through gifts.
Thanks to Kent for sharing with us and for being a part of Bethany’s training by hosting interns.
Manuscript Submission Service Partners with BelieversPress
Publishers face an enormous challenge, hunting through mountains of submissions to find the few that meet their editorial needs. Finding new voices in this environment can feel impossible. Christian Manuscript Submissions (CMS), a program of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA), is the only proposal submission website designed at the request of the top Christian publishers to provide a solution to these problems. In collaboration with ECPA, BelieversPress (a subsidiary of Bethany Press International), is pleased to offer authors the opportunity to have their proposals professionally critiqued and edited before submission on the CMS website for viewing by Christian publishers. These proposals will feature a BelieversPress badge enabling publishers to easily find these high quality submissions.
STEM
- STEM has taken a team (Nov 7-21) to participate in a project coordinated by multiple agencies with the goal of covering a province in an Asian country with people prayer walking on site in every town and village.
- The team met on the Bethany campus for training and orientation Nov 7.
- The team is an interesting mix: 2 from Utah, 1 from Ohio, 1 from PA, 1 from MO, 1 from MN.
- Please pray for team unity, health, safety while traveling around the province, for divine appointments, and for creative strategy in prayer battle.
A Change in Focus
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
There was a discussion in the BCOM staff meeting last week about Bethany’s founding coming out of a life transforming message-The Message of the Cross. Through the years we have described facets of it as sanctification, victorious Christian living, death to self, identification with Christ, alive to God, crucified with Christ, minding the things of the Spirit, the three aspects of the cross: Christ died once for us, and as us, and in us daily. All this was to fulfill God’s eternal purpose for man. About ten years ago a team of leaders and board members expressed the core of Bethany as a “message” that “led to our mission.” It wasn’t our task first, it was a message first. It was Jesus and His purpose…His cross…His victory first. Our ministry must flow out of His life.
We know this in our minds, but have we truly grasped and embraced it with our whole lives. Any message can become second nature and instinctive. It can cease to be life, but rather a theology or framework of thinking and acting. God has more for us than a “theology” of the cross. He desires that we know the reality of a life captivated by what He has done and that we know the daily passionate reality of it…that we know Him and the glory of who He is. Habakkuk 2:14 reads, “The knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.” God desires that we reflect His glory to the world. Our lives are to be living witnesses to the powerful redemptive work of the cross to transform fallen and broken people into sons and daughters of God, a kingdom of priests to our God, and children of light who bear witness to who Jesus is and that His kingdom will not fail. We become living witnesses to the power and majesty of God as weak, foolish, and insignificant people to give glory to Jesus-to be a people who “glory in the Lord” I Cor. 1:31.
It is so easy to focus on the stuff of life-the successes, the challenges, the goals, the tasks, and the daily demands. The old hymn states, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.” The change in focus that puts all the potential distractions of life in their proper place and perspective is the focus on Jesus-His cross, His life, and His purpose. Living life “in Christ” with no other hope is the place of the greatest rest and the greatest wisdom. He has been made to us “wisdom from God.”
Let us allow God to restore in us, individually and corporately, a singleness of focus in the person of Christ and His work on the cross, and the full expression of His will for us and through us. Bethany’s DNA flows out of this message of the cross revealing “Christ crucified” as “the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Any other focus will build our kingdom, not His.
Living with eternity’s values in view is not just a slogan, it is a priority. Let us pursue God with all that we are and have; embrace His cross “let” this “mind of Christ” fill us, and empty ourselves of everything that would hinder or distract.
Ethne - Bogota, Colombia
Dan Brokke is in Bogota, Colombia to attend Ethne’s triennial conference (November 1-4). Representatives of mission networks around the world will gather to strategize on how to see unreached people groups evangelized and church planting movements begun.These mission leaders have dedicated themselves to do all they can in their lifetime to make Christ known.
A couple of weeks ago Timothy O. was on campus and spoke to students about the challenge and vision of the Nigerian church to take the gospel “back to Jerusalem” through the nations and people groups of North Africa. Timothy heads up the Mobilization committee and track for Ethne. He asked Dan Brokke to present a proposal for multiplying mission training in the Global South and East-this really is the vision of Go100. This is another great opportunity for Bethany to serve many others in what God is doing to take the gospel to those who have never heard.
Grayling T.
We recently welcomed Grayling as a new Bethany associate to minister in the area of missions mobilization. Grayling and his wife Sandra were workers with Bethany International Ministries for a number of years in France. Grayling is available to speak in churches, youth groups, alumni events and other gatherings to encourage people to walk victoriously in Christ and to challenge them with opportunities to engage the world as global Christians with a heart for missions. Sandra will work part time with Bethany beginning in December in a supporting role for the mobilization ministry.
Awareness Event
Bethany will host an Awareness Event at Bethany Press on Thursday, November 12. The purpose of the event is to inform people unfamiliar with Bethany about our mission.
Bethany Center for Global Studies
The next term in BCGS begins January 4th. If you would like to get a certificate in Cross-Cultural Studies or Masters in Intercultural Leadership, visit us online or call toll free at 877-829-2454.
