Breaking Molds
11/03/19 16:03
Mold #1: Discipleship = Bible Study
We met again on Thursday with the leaders from Shobol Llin Llin. I'm not only teaching them Bible, but also icebreakers, because they have told me that many members of their groups are withdraw and don't participate. So the icebreakers are to "loosen up" the group. Also, rather than teach "doctrine," we are using a piece of paper folded into 8 pages in order to summarize the bible story. We need to understand that we are part of that story.
Mold #2: Being a Christian = Being Western
On Saturday, the FLET group was glad to have finished the book on Jeremiah. They learned a lot even though it was very challenging. Now we are studying the life of Paul. In Paul's day, his battle was to convince the Jews that a Gentile Christian didn't have to become a Jew in order to be a Christian. We began to discuss how much of our church in Ecuador is really Western. We have yet to see a truly "Indigenous Church." The Quichua have so adopted the Western model and theology that they don't realize how Western they really are. To break that mold is going to take time. One of my interests was confirmed in the discussion: They had traditions of praying while sowing their crops, but the Western church hasn't confirmed that tradition. Western theology was developed in a different context. Our theology books don't talk about the God who controls the sun, wind, and rain, and who makes the seeds spout, grow, and produce. Yet the Bible is full of these illustrations.
