New Wilmington Mission Conference

I was excited to hear the other day that the denominations mission corps is budgeted to increase in size the next couple years. It appears the General Assembly still needs to approve these budgets, but you can read all about it on the PCUSA website.

Hopefully this is a step forward returning towards the rich tradition of Presbyterians in mission.

I just wanted to pass on an update on the Korean Missionaries who are being held hostage in Afghanistan.  Sadly, a second missionary was executed early this morning.  The PCUSA reports that the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea has requested the U.S. and Afghan governments take the lead in negotiating the release of the hostages. 

CNN reported that the families of the missionaries are pleading for the United States "to be more actively involved".  This reminded me of something I heard last week at conference (I think it was Rob Bradford's message the morning I visited the high school Bible Hour, but apologize if I'm wrong).  He spoke of a well-off church that wanted to partner with a city neighborhood as reading tutors.  After some time, the neighborhood's leaders told the church that they could read and teach their youth how to, but what they really needed was for the church to use its socio-political connections and influence to give the neighborhood a greater voice.  Well, this is our chance to use our influence as U.S. citizens to assist our brothers and sisters.

I've been cynical and relatively inactive in politics since shortly after majoring in Political Science in college.  Today, that has started to change.  I've written my House Representative and Senators.  I'm not convinced my singular letters will make a difference themselves, but believe this is an important action to coupled with continued prayer.  I'll conclude with my letter's text (feel free to use it) and instructions on how to your representatives in Congress.  All three times really don't take that long, I've done most of the work finding out how and linking below.

Dear xxxx,

I am writing to request U.S. intervention on behalf of the Korean missionaries held hostage in Afghanistan.  While I don't pretend to know everything involved, I strongly believe it is a mistake for us to stand by without offering the requested intervention.  As their families said, "Please don't use force. Please save them through peaceful and humanitarian ways. Please help."  Failing to give peaceful assistance against terrorism when called upon plays into the hands of the aggressors.

Sincerely,
Andrew J. Dawson

To Contact your Senators:

1. Find BOTH of your Senators in the list on this page.
2. Click on the "Web Form" link at the bottom of each entry.
3. Fill out the form with your message and submit it.
   

To Contact your Representative:

1. Look up your representative by entering your address information (requires zip + 4)
2. I had to click on the "you are represented by" link to my representative's website then find his contact page on the menu
3. Fill out the form one last time.
   

PS - Select "Foreign Relations" / "International Relations" if it asks for a topic (some of them had a lot).

A lot more than this happened today, but here's what I saw at conference today.  The video quality is better, but now it just shows I need to work on my editing skills.  I'll keep working on them, but it's bedtime now.  Let me know if there's anything you want to see.

Andrew

Tim Carriker, a PCUSA missionary in Brazil, has been a number of posts to his blog on the pros and cons of short term mission.  The post I linked to is a summary of the ones so far.  I've really had my eyes opened to some of the downsides recently.  Tim has given us a

Most of them are in a case study format (and a bit long for me), but I really liked the section he recently added on Myers Park Presbyterian Church.  As I was skimming over the pictures, I noticed a former pastor of mine, Bob Breed.  Bob is now the Pastor of Mission at Myers Park.  Seeing Bob got me to take a closer look at the article.  The best part of the post is the comment Tim adds at the end summarizing what made the Myers Park short term mission trip successful.  It's nice and succinct, just the way I like it.

Check these great resources out.  They're just a click away. 

There are two pieces of PCUSA mission news I've been delinquent in passing on recently.  Rev. Hunter Farrell has been named the head of the denomination's World Mission area.  Read the details on the PCUSA site.

This October, the PCUSA is running a program called 2007 Mission Challenge.  The plan is to send 30 missionaries to a different presbytery for a week of programs each week in October.  So far, 107 presbyteries have signed up.  The ultimate goal is to get more individual congregations supporting missionaries directly.

This site still isn't all that big or popular in the grand scheme of things, but I've been spending wasting too much time deleting spam comments and accounts recently.  I was tired of deleting 20 comments each day and the spam accounts were more irritating because I couldn't be certain which ones they were.  A few days ago I decided it was time to take action and hack my Community Server skins to add a little bot catcher.  It was surprisingly easy, taking just half an hour changing only two files.

Trying to be quick, easy and effective, I started with Jeff Atwood's advice on CAPTCHA and decided to just require a standard value to be entered each time.  I didn't even use a picture or challenging font like he did.  Those are bridges I'll cross if and when they are needed.  All I wanted to do was stop bots targeting the Community Server platform from plaguing me.  Here's how I did it.  The code looks ugly, but it copies and pastes fine.

I edited the Skin-CreateUser.ascx file found in the Themes\default\Skins folder by adding the following code just before the table row containing the time zone information.

    <tr>
        <td align="right">Type NWMC here:</td>
        <td>
            <div class="CommonFormField">
                <asp:TextBox ID="botTest" runat="server" onKeyUp="validateForm(this);"></asp:TextBox>
                <asp:CompareValidator ID="botTestVal" runat="server" ControlToValidate="botTest" ValueToCompare="NWMC" ErrorMessage="Please type NWMC in the specified box."></asp:CompareValidator>
                <asp:RequiredFieldValidator runat="server" ErrorMessage="*" ControlToValidate="botTest" ID="botTestReq" />
            </div>
        </td>
    </tr>

I also added the following line to validateForm javascript function near the end of the file.  I placed it at the end of the group of "if(state)" lines.

if(state){ state = ($('<%= botTest.ClientID %>').value == 'NWMC');}

 

The second step was to add the following two lines to the Skin-CommentForm.ascx file in the Themes\Blogs\default\Skins folder.  I chose to add it just after the line with the url textbox.

<dt>

<label for="<%=botTest.ClientID %>">Please Type the words 'Web Mission' in the box below:</label>
<em>(<CS:ResourceControl ID="ResourceControl2" runat="server" ResourceName="Required" /></em>)
<asp:CompareValidator runat="server" ErrorMessage="*" ControlToValidate="botTest" ID="botTestValueVal" Type="string" ValueToCompare="Web Mission" />
<asp:RequiredFieldValidator runat="server" ErrorMessage="*" ControlToValidate="botTest" ID="botTestReq" />

</dt>
<dd><asp:TextBox id="botTest" runat="server" CssClass="smallbox" /></dd>

That's it.  I'm pleased to say my decisions have been effective since I immediately stopped getting all comments and account registrations.  A new account was registered today, so I'm pleased to see typing NWMC isn't too much of a deterrent.  Now I just need someone to post a comment . . . 

Now that I've gotten online registration up and running, I strongly recommend you take a look at it and give it a try.  If you have suggestions, let me know and I'll see what I can do.  I just ask for patience.  Unfortunately, it kept me from blogging, but I wanted to get back on board a let people know some of my thoughts for the site.  I was asked to write up some notes for the board meeting over the weekend, so I'll just post some of the highlights here to let you know where I see the site going.  Please let me know what you think with comments or email.  As always, I'm not an official voice of the conference, just the guy who works on the website.

NWMCmission.org has been transitioning slowly but steadily this past year.  People are also beginning to explore the site more extensively.  We’ve finally made the significant step of landing on the first page of results on Google for the term mission conference that we’ve been targeting.  Online registration is finally available.  Registration forms have been downloaded 300 times and Spot videos have been viewed nearly 1400 times.  We are beginning to carve a niche for ourselves online.  With continued efforts, I believe NWMCmission.org can become the place to go online for Presbyterian mission.

Leading up to this year’s conference, my next goal is to begin creating a NWMC “widget” that people could include in their personal or church web pages and possibly even on their desktop.  It will probably start with just a conference countdown, but I’d like to make it configurable so people can display new pictures, blog or forum posts, announcements podcasts and/or any other ideas people have.  People, churches and organizations will use it to put NWMC information on their sites and link to it from theirs, raising awareness of those who don’t even visit the site.  Like registration, it will take some time and effort, but I think it’s doable and worthwhile.

At conference, I have a couple goals.  For one thing, I’m going to try to blog my experience.  I’m not the greatest writer, so it’s probably a good idea to try to get at least one or two others who would be interested in sharing their experiences online throughout the week (Contact me if you're interested).  I want to post pictures throughout each day and post podcasts to the website within the hour.  Next year, I hope to add the ability to purchase bricks, register for the golf tournament,  and sell other supporting items to registration and online payments next year.

There are a few ways we can all work to strengthen our online presence.  Tell people about the site through conversations, links and adding the widget to your site in the near future.  We need to update links to use the new name or at least the term “mission conference” inside of the link so search engines have a better understanding of what we’re really about.  Finally, there is nothing more powerful than prayer.  Pray that we will be discerning with our limited resources and that we’ll present valuable mission resources and a wholesome and desirable destination for youth.

Moving forward, I am extremely excited by the ways conference can use the web to serve the Lord, but don’t want to pretend I have all the answers.  Our site targets a unique and challenging pair of audiences: youth and missional-focused Christians, so please contact me with questions or suggestions.  I’m energized by new ideas.  I just ask for patience as I only have nights and weekends to work on the site.  Finally, I want to thank my wife Jill, the Courtneys and the others who have struggled with me over the past year to improve the site.  It has not been easy, but I fully believe our labors have made the site better than any of us could have on our own.  There is much work to be done, but I trust the harvest will be plentiful.

 

I've been holding onto some things to mention for a while and still don't have any time to give them due diligence, so here's a quick rundown.

The PGF Outbox has an update from the Ellington family which is serving in Egypt.

The PCUSA website has a new letter from Ellen Dozier in Guatemala where our Summer Service mission team will be traveling this summer.  They post letters from a large number of PCUSA missionaries.  I wish they made it a little more open for other websites (such as this one) to publicize them more easily, but I'm trying to drop that one.

Unfortunately, it appears 3 members of a mission team from Atlanta were killed in Honduras over the weekend.  I'd strongly recommending reading this well-considered post on risk in our lives as Christians.  Please keep this situation in your prayers.

Tim Carriker has also added two new posts about evaluating mission trips from different perspectives.  The first is a case study of a mission trip from the perspective of the person receiving the mission team.  The second looks at mission trips from the perspective of the sending party in the form of a top 35 list.  I just wish he'd made the posts shorter since I'm so short on time and energy, but I've been looking forward to what he has to offer and continue to do so.

Now all I have to do is finish touching up the home page and get to bed.  To steak a conference phrase, "Good Night".