Month: May 2015

Posted on

America’s Changing Religious Landscape – Pew Research and additional thoughts

Changing Religious LandscapeA couple of my mission leaders, friends and mentors were part of a discussion about the study released this week by Pew Research entitled:
America’s Changing Religious Landscape: http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/

Posted and first thought by John Ward 

Mobilizers, we have an important role to play in helping the church in North America embrace a vision for local and global mission.
Follow-up from Jay Bell
I decided to chime in some thoughts as well:
Thanks John for sharing and Jay for adding Stetzer’s thoughts to the discussion.One of the article around the Pew Research was on CNN “Millennials leaving church in droves, study says” – http://ow.ly/3xS14A 

The last sentence of the article gave me GREAT Encouragement that we don’t need a more nominal faith, but a more radical & risky faith to reach our world.

“If it is the case that millennials are less ‘atheists’ than they are ‘bored,’ then serious engagements with Christian social innovation, and with deep intellectual reflection (and these two things are connected), would offer promising signs of hope,” Jones said.

May the Lord make us radical and influence those millennials in our spheres to be serious in their engagement with Jesus and taking Him to the nations!

Posted on

May Mobilization Update on Iraq, Chad, Communications and more from @MikeJentes

Newsletter-header-Encompass

Mobilizing the Church for the Sake of the Least Reached

May 2015

April held a special time for our family…as we got to take a special vacation. While we all looked pretty dapper, we got a family pic:

We are so blessed! Thanks for praying for us and standing with our family over many years!

Networks

Last month, I shared about being involved in creating, facilitating and resourcing networks for Great Commission good. Two of the networks had special events in the month of April. I thought I would share those events with you:

Connect & Equip

  1. Communicators Network: This isn’t one I started, but a group of Grace Brethren communications folks have been getting together for a while now. They asked me to plan their April get together…and it was a very insightful time. I wrote a blog post with a recap, so if you are interested in more info about the Church & Social Media check it out: Communicators Communal Learning with special guest DJ Chuang.
  2. Northern Iraq Summit:  A variety of churches and ministries were called together around their work in this region to a one-day Summit at our Encompass headquarters in Atlanta. We had 13 people from 8 different churches and 7 different states for the day. Many stories were told and prayers were lifted for the peoples of this region.  If your church is involved in Iraq and wants to know more, send me a message!

Great people are involved in each of these networks and I’m so privileged to be able to connect and resource so many great efforts!

Chad and Coalitions

A short-term vision trip team is heading to Chad this month (but not me this time). The team consists of several pastors (who represent churches considering partnering with Chad), Encompass leadership, and individuals that are considering long-term work in Chad.

The overall goals of the trip are:
1. For Encompass leadership to meet with, encourage, and teach Chadian church leaders and evangelists and to discuss together the direction of the ministry.
2. To visit different ministries in the capital and to brainstorm how churches can partner with in N’Djamena.
3. For 3 prospective people to get a first taste of Chad and to pursue God as to whether or not he is calling them there full time.
4. For partners to be cultivated for 2-3 different coalitions to work together with the national church for greater fruitfulness!

I am very excited about this team of 18 people! (Special Note: this is the largest short term team Encompass has ever sent to Chad)

I want to encourage you to join with a some of my colleagues in a 10 day journey of daily prayer for this trip. They will send out daily prayer requests specific to each day beginning on May 6th and ending May 15th. Please make the commitment to praying for this trip by joining the  email group “10 Days of Prayer for Vision” by clicking here: 10 Days of Prayer for Vision.

Donate nowThanks for your support!

I wanted to thank you for your prayers, they make all the difference! Also, if you want to continue to mobilize the church for the sake of the least reached, you can make a tax-deductible donation to support my work using the Donate button.

Press on,
Mike
—
Mike Jentes

Coordinator of Mobilization Initiatives
Encompass World Partners
Posted on

Communicators Communal Learning with special guest @DJChuang

connect&equip-FGBCcommunicators

In my role of Mobilization with Encompass, I’m heavily involved in creating, facilitating and resourcing networks for Great Commission good. On April 22, there was a special event I was able to facilitate with Grace Brethren communications folks who have been getting together for a while now. They asked me to plan the next get together…and so I did.  We called it Connect & Equip for FGBC Communicators.

We had communicators from all over, so we gathered online via GoTo Meeting:

Thankful to connect with other leaders. @graceconnect #FGBC

A photo posted by Scott Feather (@esfeather) on

Our first 45 minutes we did introductions and also shared one tool that we were using to help us in communications in our work.

Thankfully someone wrote them all down… Thanks Steve Koontz!
 Here are the websites that were mentioned.

Doodle.com – schedule meetings
https://www.dollarphotoclub.com
https://www.designcuts.com/
http://unsplash.com – random, free photos once a week
http://www.freepik.com/ – free vectors
https://www.lightstock.com/ – faith-based photos
latergram.me – schedule Instagram
https://attendify.com/ Application builder
http://mobivity.com/ – texting
viviotech.com – webhosting
https://feedly.com blog reader for auto alerts

Email
mailchimp.com
tinyletter.com
constantcontact.com

 djchuang-webby

After this we had a time with church social media guru DJ Chuang. He has been instrumental in my even starting this website! You can find out tons about my fellow Southern Californian online.

DJ took on the topic “Fresh things he has been learning about churches and social media.”  My friend and participant Aaron Scantlen shared some of his notes on our Facebook event page:

I had a great time and got two pages of valuable info. Thanks to everyone for sharing what they are using right now and to DJ Chuang for sharing great stuff with us about the church and social media. I’m sharing with our Pastoral Leadership Team at Winona Lake Grace Brethren Churchtomorrow morning about the highlights of our gathering.

Highlights:
1. Social Media is about People – It’s easy to get caught up in all the new platforms and technology, but we have to remember that it is relational at it’s core. – DJ Chuang

2. Be Authentic – People can tell if you are only on there to “sell” them something or if you actually use the platform regularly. Each platform is different, so use the ones for your church that you know and are using and then use them as intended, or people will ignore you. – Andy Jewett Also, follow your church members and interact with what THEY are posting about rather than always trying to make them see YOUR posts. – DJ Chuang

3. Communication is about Content – We should be giving people content/value, not just telling them information. 90% of what we share and post should be story and adding value and 10% can then be an announcement or sale. We have lots of content already, especially through sermons, that we just need to package and give away. – DJ Chuang

4. Find a Reverse Mentor – Find a someone from the next generation to mentor you in how they are using social media. What platforms are they using, how do they work, and how do they use them with their friends. Don’t do this just one time. Social media is constantly changing. Once you get on the treadmill, you have to keep up. – DJ Chuang

 

Even if you weren’t there live, this rich time was recorded and is available for you to listen or download off my Dropbox at: ConnectEquipCommunicators2015April22    ENJOY!