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TRAINING
& CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
Four modules have been designed to assist in training Christians for
work among Tibetan, Theravada, Mahayana, and Neo-Buddhists. Our training has
included missionaries, former Buddhists, missionary candidates,
tentmakers, Church leaders and educational professionals.
From the
field...One missionary Doctor in Central Asia pointed out, "The
knowledge and insight my wife and I gained in Sonrise Center's course on
Christian Mission to Buddhists has been of great value to us in our work
among Buddhist peoples in Central Asia. We were inspired by the
interaction with key people in the field, and guided by the resources
and staff at SCBS. We were able to immerse ourselves in studies and fill
every minute with valuable learning."
Additionally,
our courses have inspired other independently run
courses in Bhutan, Denmark, Nepal, Mongolia
and the C.I.S.
CONSULTING
We have assisted a number of professors from Christian seminaries that
teach courses on World Religions. We have been called upon by The Jesus
Film Project to advise them in developing a contextual introduction to
the version used among Tibetan Buddhists. With the spawning of sister
organizations such as the UK Christian Centre for Buddhist Studies, we
have been called upon in helping in systems development. We have also
consulted various churches that are working with ethnically diverse
neighborhoods in developing outreach programs for training their
congregations.
From a Christian
Seminary...Professor John-Jefferson Davis commented, "As one
who teaches in the area of world religions at Gordon-Conwell Theological
Seminary, I have profited from the database that James has compiled on
Buddhist organizations in the United States and resources for the study
of Buddhism in Christian Colleges and seminaries. Such information is
not easily available from other sources, if at all.."
INTERNET
Some of our writing has been published over the Internet. The exponential increase in our e-mail has demanded more
and more of our time in providing strategic information with a rapid
turnaround.
From the
Internet...One Christian Japanese lawyer whose mother is a Buddhist,
searching the Internet wrote, "I read, with interest, the
information on Internet, Set Free parts I and II, about your conversion
from NSA to Christ. Thank you for the witness you provided on the
Internet." She had come to Christ after the devastating loss of her
fiancee and her little sister who were killed in an automobile accident.
PRINT
MATERIAL
We have developed written materials, including curriculum,
charts, maps, graphs, bibliographies, a special
issue of the International Journal of Frontier
Missions, on Buddhism in July 1993 ; tracts for
reaching Buddhists; a number of articles; a chapter
in a book and a newsletter. Many of our materials
have already been translated into various languages,
including Korean, Chinese, Russian, and Spanish.
Because of the diversity of our constituency we
are in the development stage of more extensive electronic
publishing on our website which will serve as a
resource 24 hours a day.
http://www.sonrisecenter.org/PrintMaterial.htm
AUDIO-CASSETTES
& RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT
We developed a resource list that is available for those who inquire
about more information which includes approximately 95 audio cassettes http://www.sonrisecenter.org/MP3AudioFileListing.htm
for
teaching, among other items such as maps, charts and graphs.
We are
presently developing materials that will serve in a church based
resource distribution program. During the spring of 1998, I was
privileged to be able to interview the staff at Word of Grace
Ministries, who provided a very appropriate model of running a
ministry that produces materials to help the church through books,
cassettes, and now CD-ROM's.
From a
tentmaker...An executive with Boeing Corporation working in Japan,
commented on the fact that we were the only organization that he
found that could direct him to cross cultural materials that gave
valuable preparation to share his faith while on a work assignment
there for one year.
VIDEO
MATERIAL
We currently are in the development phase of a series of multimedia
projects that we believe will be of major interest to the church.
"Who Do
Men Say That I Am?" which points to the uniqueness of Jesus
Christ in a pluralistic environment, which is based upon 27 hours of
video tape interviews at the World Parliament of Religions in
Chicago in 1993. We showed a preliminary cut of this film this
summer at "Surprised by Joy: An Evening of Testimony" at
Fuller Theological Seminary's Travis Auditorium.
Hong Kong 1997
is a record of interviews with Hong Kong leaders in
1995 prior to the Hong Kong Handover. We also conducted nterviews of Christian leaders from around the world
which we filmed at the 1995 Global Consultation on World
Evangelization in Seoul, Korea that was made possible from a grant from Dr.
& Mrs. B.. who financed the production team's trip, gathering
of material, organizational operating expenses and computer hardware
and software purchases.
In the summer
of 1996, we also interviewed Tibetan Buddhists who were building the sand mandala,
filmed the Dalai Lama receiving the Key to the City of Pasadena, giving his address to City Council and
his
acceptance of the Simon Weisenthal Peace Prize at the Museum of
Tolerance. You can find three of our sample videos on YouTube at> http://youtube.com/EpicycleMedia
The highlight
though, was our eighth anniversary celebration held at Travis
Auditorium at Fuller School of World Mission where eight former
Buddhists
shared their personal testimonies.
Our July 2000
training in Washington, D.C. and attendance at the
Smithsonian's Folklife Festival allowed us to capture two days of
film on the "Tibetan Land Beyond the Snows" exhibit.
We plan on producing a short report on this event for helping the
Church become aware of Tibetan Buddhism's inroads in America.
From the
Christian Broadcast Network...Senior Producer, Stan Jeter,
commented, "Thanks so much for providing video and
information about the Dalai Lama's visit to Pasadena. We were able
to put together a brief report using some of the best video, for
the August 4th edition of Christian World News."
LIBRARY
COLLECTION
Information Services will take you to our collection at Biola University.
J. Isamu Yamamoto, former book editor for Christianity Today,
advised us early on to build a library of resources for a successful work. He
began by
giving us the publishing rights for re-printing 1,000
copies of his
helpful book, Beyond Buddhism. Since then the Lord has enabled us to
build a library over 6,000 items through the gracious donation of
$7,000 from Ms. Beth Brunemier and many other devout
missionaries and Christian friends.
Among these have been Dr. Arthur Glasser, professor and Dean
Emeritus of Fuller School of World Mission, his collection on Asia
and from the Heimbach Family, a collection from the library of the
late Dr. Ernie Heimbach, Director of Ethnic Ministries of OMF
America. We have also collected a wide variety of slides, cassettes,
videos, magazines, journals, Buddhist dictionaries, files, and
bibliographies. Our major preservation concern at present is the digitization of nearly thirty file drawers of information that would be available to subscribers on our website through which we can provide
greater access to the valuable storehouse of materials at SCBS.
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