This is the seventh training in the G-Path: Go to the nations.
Motto: Love one another – Go and make disciples
Luke 3:4 Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.
What good news is in this story?
Go through this training, praying and listening to Jesus.
Learn at least Discipleship Landmarks D1-D6 stories by heart.
Across the world it has been clearly shown that people who have learnt the stories by heart are far more effective in mission than those who have not.
It is important to visit the town chief, Imam and other key community leaders a day or two before trying to gather people to share the Gospel. Explain you want to come to heal the sick and teach stories about Jesus. We found that sometimes telling the town chief was not enough – he might fail to pass the message on to the rest of the village. So get several people to promise to spread the news of your visit.
Avoid the three C’s: Church, Christianity and Conversion.
It is important that you don’t talk about Christianity, conversion, changing their beliefs, going to church or starting a church. Many communities will either be hostile to these ideas or will have very wrong ideas about them.
Instead explain you want to help them to learn more about Jesus, so they can become better leaders who learn to listen to and obey Jesus (or Isa).
The goal is to teach the community to listen to Jesus and obey Him.
The strategy is to establish on-going Discovery Groups and/or Growth Groups in the community.
Therefore the community needs to be taught a good number of stories and be taught how to discuss them and listen to Jesus.
If you have more than one day, then take the first day to teach everyone D1(Discovery) and D2(Growth Groups). If you only have one day, teach D1-D6, following the guidelines in G9 Story Guardians.
Teach the chosen story, using the suggested conclusion questions. Do not go into too much detailed discussion, just discuss enough so they are attracted to the Good News.
If you have just taught D1 then offer to teach them three more stories (D2). They now have seven wonderful stories that they can teach each other and discuss more fully with their families and friends. Teaching D1 & D2 should take under 2 hours.
After learning the story, show the group how to pray for each other and pray for healing. Don’t do all the praying yourself – get them to pray and heal each other in Jesus’ name. Get them to write their names down for you, along with the story number and name, so you can give this a community leader.
Then have the group members take you round the community. As they go from house to house, get them to share the story they have just learnt and then pray for the people. Retelling the story will reinforce their memory and give you the opportunity to correct any small mistakes.
Arrange to meet with the group in the evening to have a GG discussion about one of the stories they have learnt. Pray that Jesus will clearly speak to each member of the group through the story.
Teach them the 4 GG Questions, the 4 GG Rules and the 4 GG Practices. Then get one of the group to lead the discussion, with you assisting and guiding.
If the group could write the story in their dialect that would be a good additional step. A community leader could collect copies of the written stories as a community treasure.
Pray that God will show you who is the most faithful person in the community. Give them the list of story guardians and explain that they are intended to be discussed in order (D1 to D6). Have a GG with this person to model the discussion, emphasising the need to listen to Jesus and obey Him.
When the community has gone through D1 to D6 you should arrange to re-visit and have a special day to teach D7- Baptism in the Spirit, and then baptise all the new believers, pray for them to be baptised in the Holy Spirit and have a big feast to celebrate this major Landmark in Discipleship.
The Baptism in the Spirit stories will probably take four GG meetings to go through. After that there are seventeen Discipleship Landmark stories in D8-D13. Hopefully by now you will have enough Story Guardians in the community for you to teach all these stories in a day or two.
