Here is the first stop for Missions Learning Resources
I love this resource by Catalyst Services. It is current and has some awesome ideas. Start here!
Helps for Church Mission Leadership Teams
Catalyst Services
This organization helps more than just church mission teams, but the articles here are some of the best I have ever read for those serving on the team. Click on the “for churches” tab and look at the past issues of “Postings”. You can also sign up to get a free subscription to future postings which I strongly recommend.
David Mays
I know. It doesn’t sound like an organization and it isn’t. He worked for the MissioNexus before his death, but has some of the best articles. Check out his “Stuff” CD as well as his “Developing a Strategy that Fits Your Church” resource.
LearnCareGo
LearnCareGo can inspire your fellowship to organize eight hands-on ways to advance the gospel around the world. LEARN is educating adults and children about missions. CARE involves the jobs that aid the missionaries that are serving. GO is equipping people to reach out to every tribe, tongue and nation.
Missions Assessment Profile
MAP your church’s journey to maximum effectiveness in missions.The Missions Assessment Profile from ACMC (Advancing Churches in Missions Commitment) is a culmination of years of experience with thousands of churches. We hope you find it useful and challenging to your church missions vision and ministries. 11″ x 17″ poster.
People Group Information and Adoption Websites
1615 Ministries
1615 Ministries primarily does consulting to help churches be able to come up with a plan for focused ministry among an unreached people group.
Joshua Project
Joshua Project is an organization that does a lot of things in the area of missions mobilization. They are a great group to call in the event your church is considering adopting an unreached people group and you want to find out who else is working among them and if there are any networks already in place for a particular group.
People Group Website
Search more than 11,000 people groups by name, country, religion, language, or status of evangelization. You can download a list of all the world’s people groups as well as related tables and charts.
Doing research? You gotta check Strategy Leader out. Also, lots of stuff on lesson 9 and 10 of Perspectives.
IMB Research Page
Click on the above button to have access to a starter page put together by the IMB. I hear it’s quite good.
World Christian Database
The World Christian Database includes detailed information on 34,000 Christian denominations and on religions in every country of the world. Extensive data are available on 238 countries and 13,000 ethno-linguistic peoples, as well as data on 7,000 cities and 3,000 provinces.
Etnopedia
Its sort of like wikipedia, but for unreached people groups.
Missions Books, Videos, Curriculum and Other Resources
Virtual Book Table was developed by a Perspectives Supervisor to give additional resources for Perspectives students to communicate some of the truths from the course. There are books, videos, pdf’s and other resources. Definitely worth the visit.
Authentic Publishing publishes a number of excellent missions books. You can also get quantity pricing.
BlueFishTV
Do a search on missions inside their website to see some great short video clips.
Deidox
Some really well done videos of all sorts, but seem to have some great stuff for missions. Each film tells the simple compelling story of a single person and how they live out their faith.
Global Frontier Missions has produced some relative short, informative videos. Here is a great little video if you want to get a current view of the world and how we are doing with obeying the great commission. Check out the other videos put out by this organization. They are a great summary of some of the Perspectives lessons.
Mobilization.org
You might want to check out www.mobilization.org for some awesome resources for envisioning your church as well as training potential cross-cultural workers. I really like their 7-week bible study entitled “Xplore”.
Dispatches from the front
The journal format of each episode underscores the daily unfolding of God’s activity on the “frontlines,” bringing viewers up-close with sights and sounds from distant corners of the world. I don’t know the people that put it together but it seems like its well done.
Different Missions Curricula for Churches and Individuals
Check out the new, free Mission of God Bible study which walks through Scripture, showing God’s desire to see all people groups come to faith in Jesus Christ. Another option; there is a free, 30-day YouVersion Bible reading plan on Completing the Great Commission from Frontiers. Also available are the following study books; God’s Heart for the Nations, by Jeff Lewis, and Missions: God’s Heart for the World, by Paul Borthwick.
Create International
This is a great place to get missions-oriented videos. I love this place. The videos are shipped from Australia, but they arrive here surprisingly fast and the shipping rate is not very expensive.
Faith Visuals
Just type “mission” into the search engine and there will be a nice list of clips.
The Future of the Global Church
It includes the full eBook, tons of graphics and many of the data tables that undergird Patrick Johnstone’s analyses. If you download the digital collection, you get access to powerpoint presentations that you can reuse, maps and lots of other incredibly useful information. It is A LOT of stuff, so you can’t go through it quickly.
Missions Books READING LIST
Want to know our favorites? Click on the link above and find out.
SermonSpice
Check out a video short called “Heart of God”. Really powerful. Also, type “mission” in their search engine. They have some winners.
The Work of the People
The Work of the People has great videos though some are a bit longer than at sermonspice and bluefish.
I had never seen this video before. Nice way to get folks praying for Muslims around the world.
Church Planting Movements
Beyond.org has some of the best videos on the whole disciple making movement overseas. Check out Beyond.org. I like the one called Beyond CPM (English).
VIDEOS IN 900 LANGUAGES
Check out the new web site for the World Christian Video Directory. It lists over 900 languages of Christian videos and resellers, organized by title, organization, language and country. It’s an attempt to list evangelistic, apologetic, discipleship and informational Christian videos in all the languages of the world.
Vision Video has some terrific missions-oriented videos.
William Carey Library has probably the broadest selection of missions books and videos out there.
World Christian News is another great place to get books and other missions resources.
African-American Involvement
Great Commission Global Ministries
Ambassadors Fellowship International
Kids and Missions
Click Church-Mission-Curricula-Checklist for a list of great curricula for kids and missions (adults too!). This is from a presentation given by Karen Lederleitner of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College.
Caravan Friends website on peoples of South Asia from the International Mission Board. Includes many cultural and prayer activities for peoples of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Plenty of stories, cultural activities, and prayer requests.
Quest for Compassion website on poverty from Compassion International. Kids design their own travel buddy and can visit the countries of Bangladesh, Brazil, El Salvador, and Ghana.
DiscipleZone is the online portion of DiscipleLand Curriculum. Use the dials to choose Grade 1, Quarter A, and Lesson 1. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the WorldWatch icon. You will see Part 1 of a 12-part continuing story on an unreached people group. Go back and click on Lesson 2 to see the second part of the story. Four stories (one for each quarter) are provided for each grade level. That’s 24 people groups to learn about and pray for.
SIM Kids website on missions in South America (Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Peru); Africa (Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Niger, Nigeria); and Asia (China, India Pakistan, and Philippines). Loads of stories, activities, and prayer requests.
Sonlight Curriculum has an online section called “My Passport to India” with video clips, family devotions, crafts, games, and recipes. Travel with Chris to India through short video segments. Then do related activities. Includes family devotions and prayer requests.
Stand4Kids website has a fun way to pray for unreached kids and children at risk around the world. Includes photos of children and prayer requests, one for every day of the month.
“Today” is a 4-minute video that will inspire you. It’s the story of God’s heart for children, challenges that children face today, and how children who trust Jesus are serving in God’s kingdom. I highly recommend this for anyone serving in children’s ministry.
Weave is a great little website for families. So if you are looking for a few ideas on how to bring your own kids up with an eye toward the nations, there are some fun ideas and activities here.
Pioneers has developed a neat new resource for teaching children about missions and the unreached world. Check here for more information about “Worldviews”. They have both a regular version and a junior version.
General Missions Information
Brigada
If you subscribe, they will send you a weekly (or sometimes more frequently) email with some pertinent missions news or point you to some new resource. Much of what I have on my links page I have found through past Brigada emails. No one wants to get more email (except maybe my 11 year old daughter) but this is definitely worth subscribing to.
ChartsBin
ChartsBin offers online interactive world maps, each one offering statistics for a wide range of topics. These are very helpful, both for research, or for a presentation in a seminar. You can save any map as a complete web page, and it will work offline to demonstrate later. Check, for instance, web users, mobile phone subscriptions, infant mortality, numbers of feature films produced annually, and much more. Another great site for these sorts of world maps is world mapper. Oh, I found another one too. The Global Research Group for the International Mission Board has a wonderful site that has everything from maps and charts to research to a world view survey.
More Maps
Check out the CIA site, or the global mapping international site (go to the links at the bottom). You can also generate your own maps on missions info bank. If you are a Patrick Johnstone fan like I am, go to his site and you’ll see how to purchase the digital collection. And if you are ever interested in generating those cool floor maps, check out 4K maps. Also, the IMB is letting you use their maps too.
Church Planting Movements If you ask me, this is some of the most exciting developments in the world today. Click on the link above and see if you agree.
Compass Direct offers current news about the persecuted Church around the world.
Evangelical Missions Information Service offers a bi-weekly missions newsletter (Pulse) and a quarterly magazine that has an in-depth examination of missions topics (EMQ – Evanglical Missions Quarterly).
Finishers Project provides information, challenge and pathways for people to enter the missions enterprise from their careers – post college through post-retirement.
Global Media Outreach. OK, I know this doesn’t really fit here. I just love what these guys are doing and it is a great way to do outreach via the internet internationally. Check them out. Also, you gotta see the map where folks are coming to the Lord real-time.
Global Mapping International is the place to get missions oriented maps and graphs.
Intervarsity is the organization that organizes the Urbana missions conference which is held every three years (which comes up again this December 2009. A great conference for college students and twenty-somethings to attend. IV also produces some great videos (type in “missions” in the search box).
Mislinks offers articles about a variety of missions topics, including regional news and issues in missions.
Mission Network News is a great place to get news on what is happening in the missions world throughout the world.
Mobilizer Magazine has some wonderful articles. Lots of subjects on everything from strategy, to congregational education to children’s education. A wonderful resource for mobilizers.
Network for Strategic Missions is a web-site that features a collection of over 10,000 missions articles.
www.Oscar.org is a UK based source for missions news.
U.S. Center for World Missions has been at the forefront of missions mobilization for the last twenty-five years. Most notable is the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement class which is offered throughout the country (and the world for that matter). Check their web-site to see if there is a class in your area.
Unveiling Glory
These guys do a tremendous seminar that really helps people think through their priorities and their walk with God. Wonderfully, they are headquartered in Richmond and have a number of trained teachers. Check out their web-site at
Church Missions Websites – Fantastic article on how churches can produce great websites for missions
Business as Mission
Business as Mission article with tons of great links. Be patient. It takes awhile to load because its actually a magazine.
YWAM has a great little website devoted to BAM called Business as Mission
Business as Mission Network is a great place to stay current on what is going on with this movement. You can also have regular email updates sent to you by emailing justin@businessasmissionnetwork.com.
Bammatch is a great place to connect around BAM with like minded professionals. BAMconnect can help you solve problems, foster BAM discussions, network with leading BAM thinkers, and interact with BAM practitioners worldwide.
Reaching out to Internationals and Refugees in your area
Find out what organizations are working in your area by clicking here.
Check out this video called Unreached Peoples and Least Reached Places.
Look at this great refugee outreach going on in Dallas.
If you are in Baltimore, there is this Salaam Center outreach which is not far the refugee resettlement center.
For religion information on a particular area, click here. This site is rich with all kinds of research.
For my particular state which happens to be Maryland, this is what I found. I know that other states have agencies that have put together data in a similar fashion.
This map allows you to search for specific people groups in your area and/or see what groups are already reaching certain people groups.
A Better Country: Embracing the Refugees in our Midst, by Cindy Wu. Two different people have recommended this book to me in the last week. This study aims to help Christians in the US think theologically and practically about the global refugee crisis. It’s set up as a workbook for personal or group study but could also be used as a reference work, being particularly strong on data, with history, facts, charts, quotes, etc., and sources carefully cited. Includes up-to-date lists of refugee advocacy and assistance organizations as well as recommended books, articles, simulations, and documentaries (20 of them!) about refugees.
The Reach of One is an e-book written by Lani Willbanks of Fairfax Community Church in Virginia about their first year experience with a Syrian family. Being the first church in Northern Virginia to sponsor a Syrian family through Lutheran Social Services, they found themselves being asked by other congregations how they did it. A great resource for churches and community groups, sharing best practices along with hyperlinks to the resources they found along their journey. It is their hope to update it every 6 months, especially considering the current and ever-changing climate. Get it on Amazon for .99 or for free at this link.
Great video introducing folks to the refugee crisis. Watch “An Introduction to the Refugee Highway”.
International Student Outreach – check out ISI. Check out the local DC branch by going to their website.
Need Bibles in other languages? Try these different sites: www.multilanguage.com, www.missionresources.com/placesbible.html, www.findabible.net, www.worldbibles.org.
International Students studying in your state.
Internationals broken down by enthnicity living in your area.
Want to reach immigrant communities in your area. I love this organization; Global Gates.
The Persecuted Church
BarnabusFund is a UK based organization that specializes in research and aid to the persecuted church in the Muslim world.
OpenDoors has been around for years and was famous back in the days of the U.S.S.R. for smuggling Bibles. Now they are very active in aiding the persecuted church and raising awareness.
Voice of the Martyrs has some great resources and interesting ways to get people aware and involved.
International Day of Prayer is a time set apart for us to remember thousands of our Christian brothers and sisters around the world who suffer persecution, simply because they confess Jesus Christ as Lord. This site is more than just info about that particular day.
Missions Prayer
24-7Prayer.com is a site you need to check out. They are based in the U.K. and are an exciting movement of younger adults praying with a refreshing zeal and commitment.
Joel News has great international prayer information.
Waymakers specializes in helping people do prayer walks and has a number of other prayer resources.
4KWorldMap.com makes these HUGE maps that you can walk on for some incredible prayer times. They aren’t cheap but what a way to get people praying for the world.
Missionary Training
The Trail Guide Map Download Otherwise known as a “missions mentor on a poster.” The Trail – a two-sided poster showing different paths to missions involvement, steps to getting where God is leading, and how to avoid pitfalls. Chock full of vital information to help anyone in their missions journey.
Training Ordinary Apprentices to Go (TOAG) is a 10 to 12-month, after-work-hours community of ordinary people who are serious about first living over here what they seek to eventually live out in a distant land.
Short-term Mission-Curricula Scan through this document for a list of great curricula for preparing, training and debriefing short-term workers. In addition to the short-term stuff, they have curricula for adults and children too. This is from a presentation given by Karen Lederleitner of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College.
Missionary Care
We want our missionaries to be as emotionally healthy as they can be. Tap a large database of 800 articles and books on more than 100 topics. There is also a site that has a number of member care resources that never mention the word “missionary”, though it is openly Christian. You also want to check this other site which has a bunch of great resources.
What if you Need a Real Trained Psychologist to help an MK? Where would you go? Well now there’s an answer. Kelly and Michèle O’Donnell recently passed along this great resource site. Just go there and pick someone from a country and/or state near you and you’ll find a pro’ therapist with specific training and experience with working with MK’s! Spend a little time at MK Safety Net for specific info about MK’s and healing from abuse.
Third Culture kids may only feel comfortable on an airplane. They realize they are different from the people they lived among on the field. They also don’t feel comfortable among their home culture either. Or, there are just significant issues anyone would face with living in transition. Check out Youth Compass. Adolescence for a third culture kid can be quite daunting. Click here for a resource for the child and here for one for the parent.
There is also an awesome book out that you can download put out by the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI). Its called Raising Relient MK’s. Click here to download.
Attention Korean missionaries (and those who send them). There are some member care oriented resources available by going to this site. I’d like to tell you that I have read them and think they are awesome but that would require me learning Korean first.
Missionary Support Raising
The Body Builders have nothing to do with increasing the size of your biceps. They do offer “boot camps” around the country for folks who are endeavoring to raise support for their ministry.
People Raising is another group that offers tips and classes on support raising. Bill Dillon, the founder, has written a book by that same name.
Don’t feel like traveling somewhere to take a support raising class? Try doing it online. I have heard good things from a friend about Kingdom Come Training.
Short-Term Missions Resources
You gotta check out this list of books about short-term missions. This is the most comprehensive list I have ever seen for this sort of thing.
Short-term Mission-Curricula Scan through this document for a list of great curricula for preparing, training and debriefing short-term workers. In addition to the short-term stuff, they have curricula for adults and children too. This is from a presentation given by Karen Lederleitner of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College.
The STM Toolbox App provides fingertip access to their mission-trip resources (which might be just the ticket to get your grounded short-term idea off the runway) and also access to free stuff, training materials, and periodicals like Brigada, Mission Network News, and Missions Catalyst!
I have heard good things about Round Trip Curriculum. Check them out.
Looking for a software package that helps you actually manage short-term missions? I am sure there are a few, but the only one I know of is Managed Missions.