TONY'S NEWSLETTER
OCTOBER 2006
Dear EAPE World Changers,
We've found a way to get our message out far and wide without it costing us any money. It's called "podcasting." To tell the truth, I never even heard of podcasting until a month ago, but since then I've learned that it is one of the newest things going on the internet.
Mark Lowry, the prominent Christian singer and comedian, and one time member of Bill Gaither's Vocal Band, introduced me to podcasting, and now we do a weekly show called "Saturdays with Mark and Tony." If you have a computer, you can see and hear our weekly shows by logging on to www.marklowry.com.
The two of us will do our best to deal with the major themes of the Bible as well as promoting our various EAPE programs. Since podcasting is something that young people are into big time, I fully expect that it will become a major means for recruiting them for our various ministries. I'm very hopeful about this. The shows will be new each week and they will be accessible worldwide. The first few programs we've done have gained us an audience of thousands.
The programs are interactive. That means that you can ask us questions and we will do our best to answer them. We're doing our best to make these programs entertaining, but our real purpose is to get out the message of what God is doing in the world, and specifically what God is doing through EAPE.
Another of my recent commitments has been to provide energy and direction to the graduate program in urban economic development that EAPE hopes to develop in cooperation with Eastern University. This program is designed to raise up a new generation of missionaries who will work among the poor in urban America. You may recall that in the past we helped create a program to train economic development workers to go to the Third World and create small businesses and cottage industries which poor people can own and run for themselves. Sadly, you don't have to go to the Third World anymore. It's right in our own backyard–in the derelict neighborhoods of American cities.
While the American economy has grown, too many poor, unskilled people with limited education have been left behind. EAPE, in conjunction with Eastern, is committed to reaching these people with hope. Through faith-based entrepreneurial enterprises, the graduates of our new program will provide the kinds of jobs that will enable such brothers and sisters to escape from their poverty on an ongoing basis, and with their dignity intact. Combined with a gospel message, which will help the economically disadvantaged to redefine themselves as empowered children of God, the new missionaries we deploy will make a new kind of difference in inner-city America.
This is a bold initiative, but it is desperately needed if EAPE is to fulfill its calling to work for social transformation on behalf of the poor and oppressed.
Please pray for us! So much needs to be done to make this program work.
Also, recommend young people to come and study with us. There are many heroic young people who are looking for viable ways to change the world. Send them our way.
And finally, keep supporting our work with your gifts! Together we can and should expect great things from God.
(Correction to September newsletter: You can listen to Tony Campolo's weekly radio show, "Across the Pond," on Premier Christian Radio at www.premier.org.uk. Log on and listen Saturdays at 6:30 pm, Sundays at 12:00 pm, or Mondays at 9:00 pm, EST.)
Sincerely,
Tony Campolo
ABOUT TONY + October 2006