Please continue to pray for Sudan and South Sudan!!  From BBC News:

Video Here

“Sudan: 150,000 flee Abyei clash, says southern minister

People have also fled areas near the border fearing the violence will spill over into the south

The number of people displaced from Sudan’s disputed Abyei region after its seizure by northern troops has reached 150,000, a southern minister says.

“The situation is terrible – they are running in fear from brutal violence, without shelter,” Humanitarian Affairs Minister James Kok Ruea said.

The BBC’s Peter Martell in Juba says the figure is a huge leap from UN estimates of between 30,000 and 40,000.

Meanwhile, the north says it can start talks on the crisis this weekend.

The northern negotiator on Abyei, Al-Dirdiri Mohammed Ahmed, told the AFP news agency he hopes the negotiations will take place in Ethiopia on Saturday hosted by the African Union mediators.

Analysts fear the dispute over the region, also claimed by South Sudan which is due to become independent in July, could reignite the north-south war in which some 1.5 million people died.

On Thursday, southern President Salva Kiir said he would not lead his people back into conflict with the north over Abyei and said talks would be the best way to resolve the dispute.

Aerial assessment

Mr Kok Ruea said people had fled from Abyei, which is believed to have an estimated population of 110,000, and border regions since northern troops took over Abyei town at the weekend.

Our correspondent says the UN’s lower figure is based on people counted through aerial surveillance.

Detection is difficult because many of those fleeing are believed to travelling off the main roads, hiding in surrounding bush for fear of aerial attack by northern aircraft, he says.

A UN assessment report released on Friday said its air and ground patrols indicated the area was empty except for a “heavy presence of armed men”.

“The air assessment mission flew over 10 villages north and south of Abyei town,” the report said.

“No displaced populations were observed… burnt tukuls [thatch huts] in several villages were reported.”

Most of those fleeing Abyei were from the Dinka Ngok, a southern ethnic group who are the permanent residents of the region.

After this week’s UN Security Council trip to Sudan, US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said the occupation of Abyei was a violation of the 2005 peace deal which ended the 22-year civil war.

“There’s real concern that the government of Sudan may have taken a decision to continue to occupy Abyei for its own political advantage for an indefinite period,” the AP news agency quotes her as saying.

The UN has said it believes militiamen from the Misseriya ethnic group were responsible for shooting at one of its helicopters on Wednesday.

The Misseriya are northern nomads and one of two groups, along with the Dinka Ngok, to claim Abyei. The Misseriya were armed by Khartoum and used to attack the south during the civil war.

Under the 2005 peace agreement, Abyei was granted special status and a joint administration was set up in 2008 to run the area until a referendum decided its fate.

That vote was due to take place in January but has now been postponed indefinitely.

The great divide across Sudan is visible even from space, as this Nasa satellite image shows. The northern states are a blanket of desert, broken only by the fertile Nile corridor. Southern Sudan is covered by green swathes of grassland, swamps and tropical forest.”

Please keep Sudan and South Sudan in your prayers! Thank You!!

From BBC News:

Sudan: Abyei seizure by North ‘act of war’, says South Sudan

In the link at the bottom of this post is a layout of the proposed facilities on R.A.U.’s 12 acres with a budget to complete the building. R.A.U.’s 12 acres can be used to strengthen the church in North Uganda, South Sudan, and Northeast Democratic Republic of Congo, to the glory of God.

Click the below link to see a map of RAU’s proposed compound and budget:

R.A.U. Compound Drawings and Budget (2)

Thank You!

“Our mandate for world evangelization is the whole Bible. It is to be found in the creation of God (because of which all human beings are responsible to him), in the character of God (as outgoing, loving, compassionate, not willing that any should perish, desiring that all should come to repentance), in the promises of God (that all nations will be blessed through Abraham’s seed and will become the Messiah’s inheritance), in the Christ of God (now exalted with universal authority, to receive universal acclaim), in the Spirit of God (who convicts of sin, witnesses to Christ, and impels the church to evangelize) and in the church of God (which is a multinational, missionary community, under orders to evangelize until Christ returns). – John Stott, “The Bible in World Evangelization” in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, edited by R.D. Winter and S.C. Hawthorne) quoted in “The Mission of God’s People” by Christopher J.H. Wright

 I stand with and am grateful for this affirmation of faith-Jacob Lee

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Missional Manifesto

Preamble

God is a sending God, a missionary God, who has called His people, the church, to be missionary agents of His love and glory. The concept missional epitomizes this idea. This manifesto seeks to serve the church by clarifying its calling and helping it theologically understand and practically live out God’s mission in the world today. Although it is frequently stated “God’s church has a mission,” according to missional theology, a more accurate expression is “God’s mission has a church” (Ephesians 3:7-13).

One of the goals of theology is to safeguard the meaning of words in order to uphold truth and articulate a biblical worldview within the community of faith. Redeeming the integrity of the word missional is especially critical. It is not our intent (or within our ability) to define words for others, but we thought it helpful to describe and define how we are using the term—and to invite others to do the same. A biblically faithful, missional understanding of God and the church is essential to the advancement of our role in His mission, and thus to the dynamism of Christianity in the world.

It is first necessary to be clear about what missional does not mean. Missional is not synonymous with movements attempting to culturally contextualize Christianity, implement church growth, or engage in social action. The word missional can encompass all of the above, but it is not limited to any one of these.

Properly understanding the meaning of missional begins with recognizing God’s missionary nature. The Father is the source of mission, the Son is the embodiment of that mission, and mission is done in the power of the Spirit. By nature, God is the “sending one” who initiates the redemption of His whole creation. Jesus consistently spoke of Himself as being “sent” in John’s gospel and subsequently commissioned His disciples for this same purpose (John 17:3, 8, 18, 21, 23, 25).  As the “sent” people of God, the church is the instrument of His mission (John 20:21).

A strong foundation in the gospel, obedience to Christ and posture to the world are critical components to both individuals and churches living missionally. A missional community is one that regards mission as both its originating impulse and organizing principle (Acts 1:8). It makes decisions accordingly, believing that Christ sends His followers into the world, just as the Father sent Him into the world.

The Church, therefore, properly encourages all believers to live out their primary calling as Christ’s ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20) to those who do not know Jesus. The ministry of reconciliation is applicable to both its native culture and in cross-cultural ministry throughout the world. In this sense, every believer is a missionary sent by the Spirit into a non-Christian culture activating the whole of his or her life in seeking to participate more fully in God’s mission.

Missional represents a significant shift in the way we understand the church. As the people of a missionary God, we are entrusted to participate in the world the same way He does—by committing to be His ambassadors. Missional is the perspective to see people as God does and to engage in the activity of reaching them. The church on mission is the church as God intended.

Affirmations

With this in mind we affirm the following:

1. Authority: As a revelation about the nature of God, we can only truly understand the mission of God by what is revealed through the Scriptures.  Therefore, our understanding of the missio Dei and the missional church must always be directed and shaped by, and cannot be contrary to, God’s revealed Word in scripture.

2. Gospel: We affirm that God, who is more holy than we can imagine, looked with compassion upon humanity made up of people who are more sinful than we will admit and sent Jesus into history to establish His kingdom and reconcile people and the world to Himself. Jesus, whose love is more extravagant than we can measure, gave His life as a substitutionary death on the cross and was physically resurrected thereby propitiating the wrath of God. Through the grace of God, when a person repents of their sin, confesses the Messiah as Lord, and believes in His resurrection, they gain what the Bible defines as new and eternal life. All believers are then joined together into the church, a covenant community working as “agents of reconciliation” to proclaim and live out the gospel.

3. Kingdom: We affirm that the gospel is the good news of God’s Kingdom. The Kingdom is the active and comprehensive rule of God over His whole creation. The sovereign reign of God brings righteousness (right relationships with God, others, and creation), restores justice, and brings healing to a broken world. The Kingdom of God has been inaugurated but is still “not yet.” It will not be fully revealed until Jesus returns. The church, birthed in the wake of the kingdom, serves as an agent of the King in the “already and not yet” of the Kingdom by proclaiming and spreading the gospel and living out its implications.

4. Mission: We affirm that the missio Dei is the mission of the triune God to glorify Himself. God does so in this world by redeeming sinful humans and, in the future, restoring corrupted creation. The Father sent the Son to accomplish this redemption and sends the Spirit to apply this redemption to the hearts of men and women. Included in God’s mission is the missio ecclesia whereby He empowers the church for witness and service that leads to witness. Believers are called to share the gospel with people so they can come to know Christ. Moving from God, through the church, to the world, God’s redemptive work results in people of every tribe, tongue and nation responding in lifelong worship of the God. Ultimately the missio Dei will encompass all of creation when God creates a new heaven and new earth.

5. Church: The church is a sign and instrument of the Kingdom of God, birthed by the gospel of the Kingdom and tasked with the mission of the Kingdom. The church is a covenant community of imperfect but redeemed believers living in our world. Followers of Christ do not live out their mission in isolation, but rather the Spirit of God enfolds believers into local Christian communities, i.e. churches. It is in and through such community their mission in the world is enhanced.

6. Christocentric: We believe that Jesus is the center of God’s plan. By extension, the church as the body of Christ is the primary medium of God’s mission to His world.  We affirm that while God’s work and presence is not limited to the church, nonetheless the proclamation of the gospel of Christ comes through the church and believers everywhere. Members of the church, living by the power of the Spirit, are being conformed into the likeness of Christ in their attitudes and actions.

7. Disciple-making: We believe that discipling of the nations is the essential aspect of the mission of God (Matthew 28:18-20). The gospel calls people to respond in faith and repentance to the good news of the Kingdom in and by the gospel’s power. The maturing of believers is inherent to the work of the church ushering those who place faith in Jesus from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity (Colossians 1:28). This means the church trains its members to be leaders in deeds of justice and ministry to the poor, as well as live out the implications of their faith in business, the arts, in politics, the academy, the home, and in all of life. As the church makes disciples, it equips them to bring their faith to bear on every area of their lives, private and public.

8. Duality: We believe the mission and responsibility of the church includes both the proclamation of the Gospel and its demonstration. From Jesus, we learn the truth is to be proclaimed with authority and lived with grace. The church must constantly evangelize, respond lovingly to human needs, as well as ”seek the welfare of the city” (Jeremiah 29:7). By living out the implications of the gospel, the missional church offers a verbal defense and a living example of its power.

9. Universality: We believe God’s mission, and thus the mission of His people, extends to every people, nation, tribe and tongue; to persons of every gender, age, education, social standing, and religious persuasion (or lack thereof). Thus a missional church will intentionally embrace diversity locally and will cross social, cultural and geographic barriers as agents of the missio Dei. God’s mission furthermore universally encompasses every aspect of life: personal, familial, social, cultural, and economic. This is grounded upon the universal authority and lordship of Jesus Christ.

10. Application: We believe the mission of the church continues in multiplying and maturing the followers of Christ (discipleship), increasing the number of congregations (church planting) dedicated to God’s kingdom (living under His lordship), extending God’s fame throughout the earth (worship), and doing good in the name of Christ (works of mercy).

Because we believe these things, we are compelled to action. We urge God’s people to align around the lordship of Jesus, the missional nature of His church, and the reality of His kingdom. We invite the body of Christ everywhere to see people and the world through the lens of God’s kingdom, to live holy lives as Jesus’ disciples, and to intentionally represent Him together as the church. We affirm that Jesus was sent to fulfill God’s purposes in the world through His perfect life, substitutionary death, and physical resurrection so that redemption could be made available to us. With Christ as our focal point, His kingdom as our destiny, and His Spirit as our empowerment, we accept the privilege and joy of His mission.