Clarity of Purpose

“Clarity is the quality of being understandable, of making sense. … I ask God for clarity on different things regularly,” wrote Barry and Denise Spor. As a church planting and development consultant, Barry wants clarity in what their goals are. “We want to see a church in each of these people groups that knows … right from wrong, how to feed from [the] Word, how to reach out and start new churches and see them grow.”

That has been and continues to be the vision of Ethnos: to see a thriving church for every people.

Time, Effort and Training

But seeing an infant church become a thriving church takes time. And effort. And training.

Take, for example, Barry and Denise’s co-worker Lindy who has started training Jhoni, one of the Bible teachers in the Guanano church, to help with the revision of the Bible lessons.

Barry says that since Jhoni is a Bible teacher, he is “familiar with taking the lessons, studying them and teaching from them. But this is the first time he is grappling with the content of the lesson and how to put it down in writing, making sure the thoughts flow logically and keeping the main point of each paragraph the main point. Learning how to do something for the first time is always rough, and we are in the rough stage.”

But Barry is quick to point out that Jhoni is highly motivated and enjoys studying the Bible with Lindy. With the Lord’s help they expect him to do well.

The End Goal

Barry is all too aware that evangelism and planting a church is only the beginning. He wants to bring clarity to the process with those with whom he works. He wants to see infant churches brought to maturity and then see them begin reaching out beyond the edge to other villages and people groups. And he recognizes that even involving believers in curriculum development by working on the Bible lesson revision is part of the process. Pray for Lindy and Jhoni as they work together on the revision.