Fresh From twitter.com/Collaborators

Read the July Partnership eNewsletter http://conta.cc/bNEUcv How vision and mission can happen natually, locally, and collaboratively

Fresh From twitter.com/visionsynergy

Read the July Partnership eNewsletter http://conta.cc/bNEUcv How vision and mission can happen natually, locally, and collaboratively

Orality and the Global Church

The International Orality Network (ION) assisted ministries in India and Africa this year by conducting multiple Orality consultations. visionSynergy Associate Bill Sunderland says, “The local leaders are taking ownership of this movement and are moving ahead with or without us.”

This is a welcomed development as this new but centuries-old method of sharing Christ’s message is gaining recognition by the Global Church. On the North American front, ION has taken a huge step forward in its development as more task forces have been formed to take on critical projects.

The research task force will be looking at the impact of Orality on Church Growth. A new task force, Music and Arts, will explore the impact of all culturally-appropriate arts in Oral-based cultures.

Network growth in Muslim regions

Efforts to use the Internet for evangelism among followers of one of the world’s largest unreached religions have been rising almost unnoticed in recent years across a huge swath of ministries.

Initially, very little collaboration among these ministries was taking place until an enterprising group of internet evangelism ministries formed an alliance to bring together in a neutral atmosphere many of these practitioners.

This Muslim Internet Evangelism Alliance (which goes by a different name we won’t list here for security reasons), now in its fifth year with continuous visionSynergy counsel, is a glowing success. It has practical work groups moving forward strategic but commonly-shared concerns, such as media-to-ground follow-up and security.

Many partnerships have flowed out of the alliance-advancing the gospel in powerful ways.

Some Networks are Itching to be Born

Efforts to use the Internet for evangelism among followers of one of the world’s largest unreached religions have been rising almost unnoticed in recent years across a huge swath of ministries. Very little collaboration was taking place. An enterprising group of internet evangelism ministries convened an alliance to bring together these practitioners in a neutral atmosphere with good facilitation. That alliance, now in its fifth year, is a glowing success with practical work groups formed to move forward strategic, but commonly shared, concerns. Many partnerships have resulted – and the gospel is advanced in powerful ways.

Regional Efforts Aided by a Network “Tune-Up”

Even regional evangelism partnerships that have been running for many years can discover that, in fact, participation by regional partner organizations has slipped, connections with funders are fractured, and the need for a large overhaul is necessary. One regional strategic evangelism partnership among an unreached people group is experiencing new life as it rebuilds its network aspects: attaining new levels of openness, jettisoning over control in some areas, and broadening its leadership structure.

Embrace and Extend: Far Better than Duplication

The creative team of a media outreach ministry spent considerable funds and time developing a mobile downloadable Bible in an unreached language – that is, a complete Bible that can be read on a cell phone. A strong effort… except that basic research would have shown them that working models of this had already been done by several other ministries. The gap has prompted a concerted effort for mobile evangelism ministries and agencies to be in touch with each other. A network has been formed – with a large email list group – focused on connecting practitioners in this rapidly expanding field of international digital evangelism.

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