Each year the Global Christian Fellowship prepares New Visions Week, a week devoted to offering mission related information and opportunities for the Houghton student body as a whole. It will be held from October 26 through November 2, and has various events tied together by this year’s theme: unreached people groups.
An unreached people group is a group without enough Christians of their own ethnicity to have evangelical influence. These can be groups who are either hostile to the gospel or have not heard it. They are mainly located in what is known as the “10/40 window,” a rectangle on the map between 10 and 40 degrees north latitude, which includes North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Although the window is not completely accurate, meaning not all groups inside it are unreached, and some unreached groups exist outside of it, it works well as a general rule.
“The Joshua Project,” a website dealing specifically with information related to unreached people, explains this in greater detail and offers maps as visual aids. The unreached people of both the “10/40 window” and areas outside of it require what GCF president, Whitney Elder, described as cross-cultural input. These are the missions New Visions Week is all about, but the ultimate goal, as the theme notes, is to plant seeds of indigenous faith in these unreached people groups so it may become their own.
The week will open with David Sitton speaking chapel and the Monday night culture fair. Sitton, who spent time working in Papua New Guinea and now is helping to operate a school in Texas that trains people to worked with unreached groups, will speak an additional five times in chapel during the remainder of the week. The culture fair is meant to “expose the average student to how God’s at work in the rest of the world,” Elder said. There they can learn about “the global church, how it’s doing.” Through this, a greater sense of connection with fellow Christians around the world can be created and students can gain a better understanding of other cultures.
Six workshops and two special interest luncheons, in addition to the post chapel lunches, will also be offered. Michael Ahland, assistant professor of linguistics and teaching english to speakers of other languages (TESOL), will speak on Linguistics, TESOL, and translation on Tuesday. His perspective will be based on his work in Ethiopia, where he, along with a Houghton student, was able to bring a local Ethiopian language into writing.
On Thursday, the lunch will look at Islam. The workshop topics range from explorations of missions (roles and settings), to TESOL, to human trafficking. There is also a workshop on how music can be used in ministry internationally.
Houghton students will not only have an opportunity to gain a better understanding of missions and the unreached people of the world, but a chance to become involved. Multiple mission organizations will be represented, from which interested students can get information. Opportunities for internships and study abroad options will also be available.
The theme verse for the 2014 New Visions Week is Romans 10:15. “And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!’”