To take a fairly well known verse out of context, this has become my method of teaching for our small Bible Training Course. While France may be known for its intellectualism and philosophy, in reality, most people never even attend what we call High School. After ‘Junior High’, most people go into trade or professional schools. Here they learn how ‘to do’ rather than how ‘to think’.
In our church, out of 20-30 people, I can think of only one who went to regular High School. And my group of guys fit this pattern. This is not to say they are not intelligent, they are sharp guys, especially in their fields. If you need a printer, a mechanic or a dock worker, they’ve got you covered.
But they have never been taught how to analyze, how to take notes, or how to read a text and think their way through it. So our course of learning is slow, steady progress each week rather than short, modular courses.
Since January we have been going over ‘How to Study and Understand the Bible’ (context, context, context!!), ‘What is the Gospel? and How to Communicate it’ , and now ‘How to Prepare a Message’. At the same time the passages I choose for examples are those which give us a good theological basis. Sometimes I see them drifting a bit sideways, even if they are still going in the right direction. So I have to be patient with them. My greatest encouragement is to see them using what they have learned.
At church we have been preaching through Acts, which has given me a chance to show the importance of understanding the contexts and how to interpret and apply historical books. This has become an issue as we come into close contact with several other churches participating in the upcoming evangelism campaign.
On Vicki’s side, she just finished leading an 8-week English course with some ladies from the neighborhood. Christine a middle-aged French divorcee and Layla, a young North African lady from a Muslim family. The one-hour sessions never lasted less than 2-3 hours.The ladies really enjoyed the time with Vicki
Her next gig is playing the guitar I made for her at one of the evangelism campaign concerts.
As we have mentioned this year our ministry took a detour, as the ministry we anticipated was sidelined and we have been trying to better prepare Point Bible for our departure this summer. We just returned from our annual conference with France Mission and were informed of some ministry opportunities here in France, one of which would be in a university town in an area of France with almost no Gospel witness. So we have set up some meetings with our leaders and pastors to further investigate these needs.
This is our greatest prayer request right now as we discuss our future ministry. We have been in Marseille for 8 years now and are seeking God’s direction... wherever that may take us.
The Summer Basketball Outreach is just around the corner and we have begun the preparations and meetings with the mayor and other city officials involved. So please be praying for this as we attempt two camps at the same time!
