A Multinational Workshop

After all the months of training before going to the field, there are still areas that require further training as missionaries prepare to plant a church. One of those areas is Bible lesson development. How do you write lessons that incorporate the culture and understanding of the people with whom you work while bringing the listeners to a full understanding of God and His plans? That question brought more than 100 men and women from 13 countries and five tribal groups to the missionary training centre in Bolivia for the Foundational Bible Teaching Workshop. Because of that international flavour, all the teaching was in Spanish.

Learn to Teach

The staff at the missionary training centre in Bolivia and the presenters had been working for months in preparation for the workshop.

The main focus of the workshop was to train those involved in writing lessons in a cross-cultural setting. It is vital that Bible lessons be written in such a way that teaching can take place at a worldview level to change an animistic worldview to one that is biblical and therefore able to overcome syncretism.

Teach to Maturity

Jonathan Willcock from England, one of the multinational presenters, said that an important aspect of the workshop was to see lesson development as an essential part of the discipleship process, moving the church on to maturity.

“By focusing on beliefs and values rather than on actions, as well as by modelling our own dependence on God’s Spirit to guide us in our daily walk, we can expect to see those we are teaching grow in their understanding of who God is and the joy that is found in knowing Him,” he said. Pray for those who are writing and developing lessons that they may write clearly and effectively.