Paradigm Shift is a featured Christian organization tackling poverty in November’s cover story for Breakaway!

The current issue of Breakaway Magazine’s cover is entitled “The Face of Poverty”.

It is a great article that puts some perspective on the dire needs of the 3 billion living on less than $2 a day.

Check out the article and notice that Paradigm Shift is featured as a way to effectively and strategically tackle poverty alongside other organizations like World Vision, Compassion International, Samaritan’s Purse, Youth Partners Net, and Heifer International!

During the Paradigm Shift Research trip, we quickly became acutely aware that we were, at the age of 27, by far, the youngest missionaries in almost every place we researched. Furthermore, we found very few missionaries in total compared to the amount we always imagined were flooding the world with the Gospel.

So, it follows to ask the question – where are all the missionaries – in particular, where are the well educated, highly skilled, YOUNG missionaries?

With a little bit of research, the statistics one finds are astounding…
- In 1950, there were 100,000 missionaries
- Since 1950, we have lost 1,000 missionaries per year
- On average, only 50 take their place
- Today, there are approximately 29,000 missionaries worldwide

With only 10% of the world professing Evangelical Christianity and the Great Commission clearly mandating followers of Christ to reach "the ends of the earth" with the Gospel of Christ, it’s hard to believe that even despite the difficulties, why there aren’t more missionaries and why the Church hasn’t encouraged more young people to go into full-time missions.

Strangely, when we spoke to a Missions Pastor of one of the largest churches on the East Coast of the US, she matter-of-factly, unashamedly stated, "Our short-term missions program is not intended to encourage young people to become full-time missionaries. We only want them to be energized by what they’ve seen oversees so they can come back and serve in our local community. But we don’t ever encourage them to be full-time missionaries."

Interesting.

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Just an update: The recent press release went out on the newswires.

Check out its appearance on:

Reuters

Forbes

CNBC

Marketwatch

MICROFINANCE MEETS CHURCH

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO – Paradigm Shift, a Colorado non-profit, is training South African churches to fight poverty in their communities by utilizing the highly successful tool of microfinance.

Forty-two percent of South Africa’s children live in homes where both parents are unemployed, making entrepreneurship the only hope of survival for millions. Nobel Peace Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus has often said, “Humans are not born to suffer the misery of hunger and poverty; they suffer now as they did in the past because we turn our heads away from this issue.”

Middle-class South African churches agree, and they are beginning to realize that handouts do not eradicate poverty. Now, instead of giving out free food and clothes, churches are being empowered by Paradigm Shift to lead practical courses on business skills, offer microloans and provide mentoring—all to train the poor to grow their businesses and provide for their own families.
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