Cook Partners

Internet Evangelism Day Is Almost Here!

April 26 is designated as Internet Evangelism Day, and you may wish to promote your evangelism resources on your Web site as part of this international celebration. Take advantage of the Communication Channel on Internet Evangelism Day's website, or obtain a free leaflet on the potential of digital evangelism (available for downloads in Word or as a PDF).

Also, check out the Lausanne World Pulse article on the opportunities for digital ministry around the world.

Singapore: "Tracts Are Like Da Vinci Code"

From The Straits Times:

A woman on trial for distributing seditious evangelical tracts yesterday said she saw no difference between the materials she had distributed and other widely available books, including bestseller The Da Vinci Code.

... Linking extracts of The Little Bride [a Chick tract] with one of them, God Is Not Great, Chan said that both publications criticised Islam.

'It's not just the fact that the two publications have the same criticism of the religion, but anyone who reads these two books would not know that such criticisms are not allowed in Singapore,' Chan said.

Read more here.

Singapore: Christian Tract Distributors Facing Jail Time

The Straits Times in Singapore reports:

Ong Kian Cheong, 49, and his 45-year-old wife, Dorothy Chan Hien Leng, are currently on trial for sedition. They have both claimed trial.

They are accused of distributing comic tracts - titled The Little Bride and Who Is Allah? [published by U.S.-based Chick Publications] - which prosecutors say promote feelings of ill will and hostility between Christians and Muslims.

Distributing a seditious publication can attract a $5,000 fine and up to three years' in jail.

Are We Seeing More Christians?

Christianity Today offers a web-only review of Brand Jesus: Christianity in a Consumerist Age, by Tyler Wigg Stevenson (Seabury Books, an imprint of Church Publishing Incorporated):

... Stevenson asks whether we are seeing more Christians — or better Christians — as a result of the 7-billion-dollar-a-year Christian publishing industry. The figures show (Brand Jesus cites Ron Sider and others for evidence) the answer is a resounding, "Not really."

Do you agree? Are we seeing more Christians as a result of our publishing?

Stevenson's indictment is focused on the U.S., but the testimonies we at Cook International receive from publishers worldwide suggest that literature does aid in evangelism: see the January/February 2008 issue of Cook Partners on publishing and evangelism. 

Literature Evangelists for Every Congregation

Howard Faigao, director of the worldwide publishing ministry of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, wants to have 63,000 literature evangelists by 2010—that is, one in every congregation. Read more here. 

USA: Engaging Community in Dialogue on Spiritual Matters

Have you ever thought of opening up a cafe to host weekly discussions on spiritual matters?

In November of 2007, a small team of employees at Group Publishing launched Lifetree Cafe.

The concept was to draw together people from all different walks of life, interests and beliefs and present compelling topics for them to discuss in a small group format on a weekly basis.

Read more here, or see one about an effort in the Philippines. 

Spanish Christian Book Fair Supports Missions in South East Asia

Every year, Spanish-language Christian publishers, distributors, and retailers from Latin America, Spain, and the U.S. gather in Miami for a book fair: Expolit. And this year, a press release from ChristianEditing.com tells how the industry event will also bless South East Asia:

Expolit, the international Christian music and literature exhibition, has donated $22,000 to missionary programs in Cambodia and Thailand.

Half of the money will go to a children's treatment and rehabilitation program [and the rest] towards the construction of a church at the Myanmar-Thailand border.

... This initiative started after a visit by David Ecklebarger and Luis Fernandez to Cambodia and Thailand. Ecklerbarger and Fernandez are president and vice president, respectively, of Unilit, the organization that is in charge of preparing the exhibition.

... The leaders of the missionary organization Operation Mobilization expressed their gratitude to Expolit and to all who were involved for the support provided to this cause. In spite of the current economical difficulties, Expolit organizers expressed their intention to continue helping missions in 2009.

Greece: Proselytism Acquittal

Mission Network News reports that Argyris Petrou, a missionary with AMG International who supervised the distribution of copies of the Gospel of Luke at a youth outreach event, was charged with proselytism in Greece in 2004 and acquitted in 2008.

Change People's Lives Through Tracts

Have you ever experienced the power of tracts? An article in the Los Angeles Times says:

Interested in changing people's lives? Forget writing a book or teaching a class! Consider being the author of a tract instead...

Tracts are brilliant in their simplicity, using the absolute minimum of resources to communicate a message via the printed word. Inexpensive to produce and easy to distribute, they can be stuck under windshield wipers, left behind at restaurants, given to friends or tucked into magazines at the newsstand. Tracts are insistently physical objects in a time of electronic communication, straightforward and plain-spoken, unadorned and direct. For pennies apiece a proselytizer can put his or her message directly into the hands of a recipient. A tract may be reread, cherished or passed on.

Christian Comics for Africa

Comix35, a Christian ministry organized to provide international Christian comics training and consulting, is "launching a new pan-African Christian Comics Project, to be written and drawn by Christians from all over Africa for an audience of unbelieving African readers."