The Church in Latin America

Milton Acosta has written an article for Christianity Today that describes the church in Latin America. I think he is very accurate in his discription of the situation here. I encourage you to read the article to understand the importance of what we do en Theological Education.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/august/11.40.html

Leaders Training Encounter 09 Workshop

One of the great needs in Mexico and Latin America is the development of Bible Expositors. Around 1 % of Latin Americans pastors have finished university and many who are pastoring that have finished university have no received any formal Bible education. Most of the students who participated in the University Student Ministy do not have well trained pastors.

So when I was asked to lead a workshop on Bible Exposition, I took advantage of the opportunity. The workshop presented the basics for Bible Exposition.

1. What is the main point of the text?
2. How does the biblical author support what he is saying?
3. What results did he expect from his audience?
4. What does that mean for us today?

The first week we selected texts form 2 Timothy, and the second week we investigated Haggai (which was more difficult). Several had opportunities to preach their text in the Leadership Training Encounter.

At the end of the second week we took that last day to the coffee shop. It was a good time to talk informally about Biblical Exposition.

Leaders Training Encounter 09 Conferences

We had a great time studying Mark at the Leadership Training Encounter 09 in Valle de Bravo, Mexico. This year we had 27 attending the first week and 35 students the second. Jan and I gave talks on Mark 1-8 and Ana Miriam Peralta presented Mark 9-16.

One of the Girls Ada commented that she had not read the Gospel like what we presented in Mark. Several said that their understanding of the Gospel changed in the Encounter.

Christianity Explored

We had the pleasue of having Rico Tice with us in May to give the "Christianity Explored" course on Mark. Rico is the Pastor for Evangelism at All Souls Church, London, England. This is John R. W. Stott's church.

Rico was comissioned by John Stott to write a course on Evangelism some 15 years ago. There are a lot of issues in how we evangelize. Some emphatize the experience of the person, some decision, some the Spirit and others the Word. What creates new life in a person? This was the task Rico was given. He presented Mark's gospel as a tool for evangelism. Accoring to Rico Mark can be divided into tres parts: 1. Who is Jesus? What was Jesus' identity? 2. Why did Jesus come? What was his mission? 3. What was Jesus's call? How can we follow Jesus?

These talks are now being applied by several churches and in the student ministry to evangelize. We also presented Mark to the Univeristy students at the Leadership Training Encounter. Several became Christians as a result of the conferences.

Westmark Family Renunion

In June we attended the Westmark family reunion in Roach, Missouri. It was great to see Jan's mother, brothers (Tim and Dave) and sister (Carolyn). Cristy and Alex, and Joana got there. Unfortunately Joel and his family couldn't attend because of work. I got to meet some of our family that I had never seen before. It was a good time to be with family.