Category: Mission

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June Mobilization Update on Coalitions, Family and more from @MikeJentes

Mobilizing the Church for the Sake of the Least Reached

June 2015

I know I didn’t get this out at the beginning of the month, but since we are at the halfway point, I wanted to still send something out to you.

These last 6 weeks have held special times for our family…as we have multiple birthdays, end of the year concerts, award ceremonies, promotions, and a graduation from high school. Congrats to Kayla who graduated with honors from Los Alamitos High School.


We were blessed to have my Dad as well as Mindi’s Mom and Dad with us to celebrate several of these special milestones.

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

Coalitions

Last month I shared about a vision trip heading to Chad, and that trip was a great success.  We are actually in the process of building at least 3 coalitions to aid the indigenous work there:

1. Chad Medical Coalition: Partnering with the Chadian church leaders and evangelists and to aid their self-sustaining medical clinics and build a new surgical center where it is really needed.
2. Chad Educational Coalition: Partnering with the Chadian church to help start new Christian elementary schools and help their teachers get the training/certification they need to lead those schools.
3. Reaching the Least Reached: Relational bridge building and future church planting in the capital city of N’Djamena.

St. James Way Coalition
A unique evangelistic opportunity is afforded by thousands of pilgrims walking on the Caminho de Santiago or the St. James Way. In Western Europe, where spiritual conversations are a rarity, this experience is fertile ground for the church to relationally and spiritually connect for evangelism, discipleship and leadership training. The faithful Via Portus Cale ministry in Porto, Portugal has become a strategic dual initiative: along the caminho and in therefugio.

Because of the potential of this ministry, we have a St. James Way Coalition to help the ministry prosper for the sake of reaching the lost, discipling believers and equipping leaders.

Two different groups (one pictured above) have gone to walk the St. James Way and to serve pilgrims in this last month. I was also able to help one of the outstanding young ladies from our church, Mariah Shope, to go and serve as an intern later this month! Pray for her and for the equipping of more hosts and guides for the ministry!

Encounter SoCal

A cross-cultural experience in one of the most ethnically diverse geographic regions of the world — Southern California.When: August 10-14, 2015 (Monday 9am thru Friday 4pm)

Who: A learning community of only 20 High School Seniors, College Students, and Adults

Individual/Group Sign Up: For applications and info email Haley, or call 678-992-5313 x49.

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
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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!

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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
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April Encompass Newsletter

Newsletter-header-Encompass

Mobilizing the Church for the Sake of the Least Reached

April 2015

Sorry, it’s been a while since I sent out an update. This isn’t because the ministry is going slowly…quite the opposite!

I have changed email newsletter systems (now with Mail Chimp), so hopefully I transferred everyone’s email addresses correctly! Feel free to share this update with others so they can pray and be participators in this amazing work!

Thanks to many of you who have financially supported the work the Lord is allowing me to do. I have been fully supported each of my two full years with Encompass! Thanks!

Networks

This month I wanted to share with you some of the nitty gritty of my work (in one specific aspect). I’m heavily involved in creating, facilitating and resourcing networks for Great Commission good. I’d love to share five of them with you, so you know and can pray…and can even JUMP IN!

  1. Adoption, Orphan and Foster Care: This is one that the Bible is hot on…and we’ve been able to pull together some folks who are passionate about this into a Facebook group.  If you are interested, you should join it here!
  2. Women in Church Planting: This secret Facebook group is also a place for women involved in church planting around the world to connect, make friends, share stories, and share helpful stuff.  If you are a lady involved in church planting, this group is for you!
  3. Church Mobilizers Network: A group of nearly 30 of us gathered in Columbus, OH in February to be challenged on how we could create “pathways” for people in our church to grow as disciple-makers and to be deployed as missionaries to the least-reached!
  4. 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 the next get together…and it’s gonna be great (ok…I’m biased).  You can find out more about it at Connect & Equip for FGBC Communicators.
  5. Northern Iraq Church to Church Partnerships: Grace Community Church in Goshen, IN was tapped on the shoulder by the Lord to DO SOMETHING to help in Iraq. Their journey has been amazing and they invited Encompass (and me) to walk with them and see what might be next. We are pulling together a Summit this month in Atlanta with some highly invested churches in the region. If your church is involved in Iraq and wants to be invited, 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!

Thanks for your support!

I wanted to get this out to say thanks, and to mobilize you to pray!

I also wanted to say that our family is looking forward to a special Family Vacation next week during Spring Break! We are excited!

Press on,
Mike

—
Mike Jentes
Coordinator of Mobilization Initiatives
Encompass World Partners
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Engaging the Unengaged and Finishing The Task

FinishingTheTask2014For eight years now, a growing network of mission leaders, agencies and churches have been drawing attention to those least-reached people groups who have no known churches, pastors or mission workers. The missiological title for these people groups are “unengaged”—meaning no one is engaging them for the sake of the Gospel. The Finishing the Task network has purposed to count down to ZERO people groups who have no workers engaging them.

Encompass World Partners has been participating over the years and contributing to taking people groups off the list as we send workers to engaging these “unengaged” people groups! The annual working meeting for Finishing The Task was attended this week by our own Ed Trenner and Mike Jentes at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA.

Last year, Encompass mobilized students at Momentum and Grace College to pray for these people groups through the 533 Challenge. Mike-praying533It was exciting to see answered prayer this year as we were able to contribute one more people group taken off the list through the Encompass family! Over the course of the working meeting more than 70 people groups were taken off as we count down to zero!

Finishing The Task logoFinishing The Task is coordinated by long time Cru and Jesus Film Project leader Paul Eshleman(pictured). We encourage you and your church to check out their website and resources as you seek to reach the least reached for the sake of the Gospel.

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Children Refuse To Deny Jesus in Iraq

Below is the testimony of Cannon Andrew White on what continues to take place in Iraq with the displaced Christian communities. Remember these communities in prayer.

Thanks to my friend John Lambert who shared this information.

If you want to get involved in helping the displaced Iraqi’s, check out Grace4Iraq.com 

Grace4IRAQinfographic-FINAL

If you would like to connect with an emerging coalition to help, please contact me or Ted Rondeau

Also, you might learn from this video done by Encompass World Partners about Iraq.

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Missions and Worship

“*Missions is not the ultimate goal of the Church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.
Worship-fuel-goal600px
Design: Emi Negron

 

“Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions.It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white hot enjoyment of God’s glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God.

“The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad!” (Ps 97:1). “Let the peoples praise thee, O God; let all the peoples praise thee! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy!” (Ps 67:3-4).
“But worship is also the fuel of missions. Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can’t commend what you don’t cherish.
“Missionaries will never call out, “Let the nations be glad!” who cannot say from the heart, “I rejoice in the Lord…I will be glad and exult in thee, I will sing praise to thy name, O Most High” (Ps 104:34, 9:2). Missions begins and ends in worship.”……
Read the rest of the article Let The Nations Be Glad by John Piper
Let the Nations Be Glad!
*This Excerpt is from John Piper’s 1993 book Let The Nations Be Glad
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Sacrifice, Joy and Glory from David Livingstone

On December 4, 1857, David Livingstone, the great pioneer missionary to Africa, made a stirring appeal to the students of
Cambridge University, showing that he had learned through the years of experience what Jesus was trying to teach Peter:

“For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice
I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice, which is simply paid back as a small
part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in
healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter?

Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say, rather, it is a privilege.
Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this
life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these
are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.”

“The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.”
May this be your joy in all of life, in whatever you do – that where God has placed you is a privilege and a pleasure, because “the chief end of man is to glorify God by ENJOYING Him forever!”

–From Desiring God by John Piper

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Honor-Shame Conversation in Long Beach!

I’m so excited to learn alongside an expert on Honor-Shame cultures. I find myself interacting with many people from Asia and this conversation will help me understand them and myself much better. I hope you can be there!

Have a conversation with an expert on HonorShame cultures! Jayson Georges is the missiologist-in-residence from Encompass World Partners. He will be here from Atlanta to share some of his latest learning on HonorShame cultures and how we can better sow the Gospel and grow relationships across cultures!
Did you know that there are three major cultural worldview orientations? The one which predominates the Western world is Justice-Guilt, but the Asian world is predominantly Honor-Shame. These orientations are important to undertand as we continue to live in a globalized world. They are really important as we look to live and share the Gospel across the street and around the world! Continue reading “Honor-Shame Conversation in Long Beach!”

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How Jesus Sends YOU

I found this post from JS Shaw on the Verge site and wanted to share it:

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” (John 20:21 ESV)

As the Father sent Jesus, so Jesus has sent us. That means that if we can discover how the Father sent Jesus, then we will see how we have now been sent.

sentSo, how was Jesus sent?

Tweet this: As the Father sent Jesus, so Jesus has sent us. So, how WAS Jesus sent? @VergeNations

The Father sent Jesus. . . .

Continue reading “How Jesus Sends YOU”

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HonorShame Conversation for Happy Hour in Long Beach July 1

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HonorShame Convo for Happy Hour

Jayson Georges & Local Organizer Mike Jentes

Tuesday, July 1, 2014 from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM (PDT)

At SEKA Coffee on campus of Grace Long Beach, 3590 Elm Ave. Long Beach, CA

Have a conversation with an expert on HonorShame cultures! Jayson Georges is the missiologist-in-residence from Encompass World Partners. He will be here from Atlanta to share some of his latest learning on HonorShame cultures and how we can better sow the Gospel and grow relationships across cultures!

Continue reading “HonorShame Conversation for Happy Hour in Long Beach July 1”