By Mark Canada, CEO of Marketplace & Development Enterprises
During the month of September, Go. Serve. Love is tickled pink to share stories and thoughts from MDE, an organization providing business, vocational, missional, and personal services to fellow believers who want to make money and make disciples in unreached communities.
By Mark Canada, CEO of Marketplace & Development Enterprises
During the month of September, Go. Serve. Love is tickled pink to share stories and thoughts from MDE, an organization providing business, vocational, missional, and personal services to fellow believers who want to make money and make disciples in unreached communities.
During the month of September, Go. Serve. Love is tickled pink to share stories and thoughts from MDE, an organization providing business, vocational, missional, and personal services to fellow believers who want to make money and make disciples in unreached communities.
In light of the 4.13 billion unreached–and the need for the solution of an equal size–MDE is looking for Christians who truly want to be in the workplace, either as employees or entrepreneurs, and who truly want to be intentional about developing authentic relationships.
They’re looking for a few good men (and women) to take both the presence and the message of Jesus to co-workers and neighbors.
We heart this new, ongoing series–a virtual trip to the coffee shop with organizations to help you go there, serve Him, and love them even better.
(For more thoughts about why you might join an agency–and a handful of reasons you might not–make sure to check out He Said/She Said/You Say? “Should I go overseas with an organization?”, both the pros and the cons.)
photo credit IMB.org photo library
My husband and I sat with a friend who’d spent years in Japan as a businessman. (He helped me with Go. Serve. Love’s post, Unreached People Group Focus: Japanese.)
We spoke of the culture of conformity of the Japanese. And my friend related a proverb–loosely translated, “The nail that sticks up gets pounded down.”
Let’s be honest. Support-raising propels you to still cultivate relationships with that friend from high school; that relative you usually only see once a year; that couple you’ve talked with only a few times at church, but you know they love the country you’re going to.
At times, this may feel false to you: I wouldn’t be pursuing this if there wasn’t money involved.
But you realize this is about more than money–and that the mission is greater than your discomfort. You also realize you’ve gotta persist in asking until the goal is reached.
Our family’s support raising journey chaos adventure fell around the birth of our first child. By the time he was 13 months old, we’d hauled him to 13 states. We’d lift him into his carseat again, and he’d start wailing. Poor kid.
I know that for a lot of us, the path is long and uphill.
Say you’ve got a fundraising trip scheduled to an area with lots of personal contacts–but not that much time. Would it be better to have a large dinner or dessert? You could present to a church and ask them for members to support. You could present to a Sunday School class. Bada-bing, bada-boom. Done.
What’s the best option?
Ever lost a job?
Years ago, after a frequent series of layoffs in my company, the axe finally fell on me.
The identity issues were thick, hairy, and real. But for all I thought I was contributing, it was the first lesson of many for this overachiever: You are dispensable.