As our church prepares to dive into Acts this Spring, my wife and I are searching for good ways to communicate the geography of Luke’s volume two. The Holy Spirit is the main character, but geography plays an important support role. If you’ve got ideas, I’d love to hear them.
Clear data and information, like the geographical setting for Acts, helps us get beyond the sound bytes, first impressions and, let’s be honest, false assumptions that sometimes pepper our brains.
Migration continues to be a challenging global reality. And if you live in the US, the deeper we descend into this election cycle, the more likely we are to hear true, mistaken and sensational claims about immigration.
The following links come courtesy of the Dimitrov Research Center at the Continental Theological Seminary in Belgium. Their occasional email can’t come often enough for me.
The Migration Policy Institute provides an interactive map of data on immigration to and emigration from every country based on the country of origin for immigrants and the destination country for emigrants.
. . . an interactive map of data on refugees and asylum seekers from every country based on country of origin and destination country.
. . .an interactive map of data on the net number of migrants for every country for the years 1950 to 2020 shown in five-year increments.
A snapshot of the totalnumber of people identifying as religious, as Christians, and as Muslims in each country. . .through an interactive map.
Finally, here’s a tool to help you explore unengaged peoples in areas where you have interest or burden. I’m on my way to Phoenix today to gather with the folks spearheading that website and broader effort. We’re asking God to show us how the number of unengaged peoples might be dropped to zero by the end of 2025. I’d deeply value your prayers for that meeting. (If you’re willing, shoot me a note to let me know you’re praying. Thank you.)