“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” Romans 10:14-15 Students from around the UK are taking a serious step of faith RIGHT NOW by being part of one of Agapé’s Summer Projects. Travel with us and help change history. Be part of a dynamic discipleship community. Reach students who know nothing of God’s love for them. This summer, we have teams heading to St. Petersburg and Deep Russia, and to the Middle East.
Issue #2 A zine for radicals brought to you by Agapé
Go and Make Disciples There are many arguments that can be given as to why a Christian should be involved in missions. “Why do you have to go on a trip to do mission work?
Isn’t there enough work around here?” The answer to that question
is, of course, a resounding yes. There is a ton of mission work to be done in our local area. The problem is that it is difficult to get people to be fully involved at home; their lives are so full of other activities. However, if you take them on a trip and get them out of their normal environment, they
can experience being
part of a serving community without all
the distractions of home.
The concept of short-term missions has grown increasingly popular around the student population. People are not excited about sending their money off to faceless mission agencies; they want to become personally involved. Encouraged by testimonies of others, they want to “do missions” themselves.
Knowing God cannot be separated
from being involved
with His
work: as we share in His heart, we
become more deeply concerned with His purposes. As we become more involved with His purposes we enter more deeply into His heart. And God
has called
us to ´Go and make disciples´.
Count Nicolaus Ludwig Von Zinzendorf and the Community Spirit
The 30Years War left a lot of carnage. Peoples were uprooted and there were lots of refugees. One such group of people were of Moravia and Bohemia (now the Czech Republic), following Jesus. Their way of life was destroyed in the war and they became scattered and obscure.
A century later a young aristocratic man in Saxony (Germany) was having an epiphany in an art gallery. He looked at the painting Ecce Homo (“Behold the Man”) of Jesus with the thorns on His head. The words written on the painting: “All this I did for you; what will you do for Me?”. Count Nikolaus Ludwig Von Zinzendorf resolved that all of his means, belongings and life should belong to Jesus from now on.
Zinzendorf took the responsibility to intervene. Through a process of examining the Bible, he drew up The Brotherly Agreement. A constitution of basic biblical beliefs and behaviours. Each member of the community agreed on it, and they went forwards. Having settled together on what was important, there was a sense of humility and repentance. That summer was called the Golden Summer. It was filled with gatherings that lasted all night, and with the leaving behind of old baggage.
He walked away from career as a diplomat and instead became a landowner and he started supporting a group of the Moravian and Bohemian believers.
Two movements grew out of that time. The first was a movement of prayer. Prayer had grown in their lives. It had become the arena for all their purpose and activity. A scheme was made up for a continuous prayer meeting. Extraordinarily, this prayer meeting continued non-stop for the days and nights of one hundred years. One hundred years…
Over the next ten years they grew to about three hundred, and they had built the village of Herrnhut. There was a sense that great things were afoot, but instead there were big problems. The Moravian wanderers had been in exile in different places and persecution had made them cling onto various dogmas and doctrines. All sense of unity was gone and the community was on the brink of collapse.
The second movement came from the first: a mission movement. It was the very beginning of the modern mission movement. Zinzendorf met an ex-slave from the West Indies named Anthony Ulrich. Ulrich had recently become a believer and was desperate to find people to pass on the Gospel to other slaves. Zinzendorf took this back to the community and two men stepped up
to the task. They worked alongside the slaves and shared the gospel. These were the first missionaries of the modern mission movement.
During the one hundred year prayer meeting, more than three hundred missionaries were sent from that small community. It was a chance meeting with some Moravian missionaries on a stormbattered ship to America that changed the life of John Wesley, before his work changed Britain.
And so it was, through prayer and community, that Count Zinzendorf and a little village changed history. In his own words:
There can be no Christianity without community,”
Life Changing Experience. There are many reasons for wanting to go on a missions trip. It may be a 'stepping stone’ to serve others, you may just want a change of holiday and a new experience, you may feel called by God to go. Any way you go, you´ll see some amazing things. Mission trips are a life changing experience. They separate us from the cares of everyday life and show us the needs of people in completely different situations. Within a relatively short period of time, your own life and others can be powerfully changed through the desire to reach out to others. Your presence speaks more than a thousand words through your simple love. Christians have been called to preach the gospel to the ends of the earth. This call sends many on trips around the world to reach people with the gospel. The lives of those you meet are impacted in many ways, but your own life is changed forever. The most significant change is a new understanding of the compassion that God feels toward the people of this earth. Throughout history some men and women have stepped up to a life less ordinary. They sought to be a part of God´s plan in history; they sought to be a part of God’s plan for the future. There's no better way to understand God's love for his world and his global plan to reach everyone than to become a part of it, wherever you are!
University of the King / Look out for germs! Introducing the thesis of these pieces of audio faeces: A Lament for the human species. Afflicted by this most contageous and evil of diseases. My decaying carcass wheezes. Dying a day at a time till evetually I’m a body in a box. Because the King says: “The wages of sin is death.” (Romans8:13)
I thought i’d learn kung-fu to battle all the sadness and the badness in this place but it’s only good on big stuff ‘cos unless im out in space there’s a million micro-organisms chewing at my face Maybe if I cover myself from head to foot in a high-density titanium anti-hazard suit I can hold onto my loot and live forever.
Allow me the great pleasure of introducing you to Zang Productions. They are a Birmingham based, independent record label who look and sound far more professional than they really are. Just visit their website at www. zangproductions.co.uk and you will see what I mean. These guys take the gun of their immense musical talent and point it straight at their collective, commercial foot. An important part of their website is the eyebrow-raising abundance of free music. There’s no messing about - these musicians love and fear God, love their spouses and appreciate rich tea biscuits and fart jokes. Zang had humble beginnings - I struggle to follow the story but I know it involved some home-made internet cartoons and four-tracks. Zang didn’t take its current shape until Rob (Greybeard), David (Benjamin Blower) and Kev (Kev) created a short collection of strange coverversions of 50’s classics called the Huckleberry 5000 EP. They created the record label to accommodate this release. David tells me that if you pay close attention to the movie Wayne’s World, Zang is Cantonese for “Excellent”.
These humble beginnings did not last however, soon this trio - now known as University of the King - had released, what David describes as “the second greatest album of all time after American Recordings 1 by Johnny Cash”. This was a full length album called “Look Out for Germs” and gave us the grand perspectives on life of a golf-ball, a poisoned garden shop worker and an aspiring blues guitarist asking the advice of Robert Johnson.
Selina simply replied, “Maybe that’s not their main problem but they’re real magic.”
I’ll skip out the middle bit so that you can do your own research - no one’s going to get the definitive Zang history out of me! Suffice to say that time has passed and growth has happened. Zang now has a roster of artists that will play just about any genre or instrument. Their releases go from the acoustic delights of Bethan Marshall to the multi layered vocal wonder of Selina Blakeney all the way through to the Apocalyptic Cowboy music of Benjamin Blower, the late-80’s computer game beeping and tubas of Greybeard and the progressive hip hop of the Custodians.
But I’ll let you make your own mind up.
When I was trying to explain the greatness of Zang music I said, “Their main problem is that they’re too hip hop for indie people and they’re too indie for hip hop people.”
I have to agree. If you’re looking for some straight-laced rap or acoustics or indie or pop or rock then you’re going to be disappointed. If, however, you have an open ear and want something to blow your socks off with its sheer audacity and power then look no further.
www.zangproductions.co.uk/free.php May I particularly recommend the new Custodian’s EP - part one is free now.