Beginning Discipleship and Church Formation
Now that we have new believers who have been through follow-up and baptism we are beginning discipleship and laying the foundation for church formation. This is how we think it is going to look:
1. Discipleship: Every other week Grant will meet with the new believers of Kilimary and Besatra and teach them the stories of the Bible using the ST4T method. He will start with the stories from the evangelism set and add more in depth stories as he goes along, adding the stories that teach principles of church formation. With each story, he will teach it in Mahafaly, then they will talk about the story using the 7 questions from ST4T (What do you learn about God? What do you like in this story? What is confusing in this story? etc) They will then memorize the stories orally and practice retelling them. They will be asked to share the story throughout the week and there will be a time of accountability.
2. Church Formation: During their follow-up teaching they learned about the importance of the Church body. Grant challenged them to meet together weekly as believers in Christ. They identified prayer and studying the Bible as principles they felt should be incorporated into their weekly time together. As reading the Bible is not possible for most of the people they will have one person read a short passage of scripture, and then he will explain it in Mahafaly (as the whole Bible is only translated in Official Malagasy). Most of their Bible time will be in retelling the stories they have been learning in discipleship and discussing the principles they have learned. This will be a good opportunity for people who may have missed the discipleship time to learn the stories, as well as for them to hold each other accountable for sharing the stories.
3. Evangelism: Each village will intentionally focus on a nearby village. They will take the story set they are learning and teach the stories in the new village (similar to when Grant came and shared the evangelism set). Our hope is that this time of intentional evangelism will lead to the start of new churches in these villages, which can in turn reproduce the method. Both villages already have in mind a village they would like to reach with the Gospel and have begun praying about it.
1. Discipleship: Every other week Grant will meet with the new believers of Kilimary and Besatra and teach them the stories of the Bible using the ST4T method. He will start with the stories from the evangelism set and add more in depth stories as he goes along, adding the stories that teach principles of church formation. With each story, he will teach it in Mahafaly, then they will talk about the story using the 7 questions from ST4T (What do you learn about God? What do you like in this story? What is confusing in this story? etc) They will then memorize the stories orally and practice retelling them. They will be asked to share the story throughout the week and there will be a time of accountability.
2. Church Formation: During their follow-up teaching they learned about the importance of the Church body. Grant challenged them to meet together weekly as believers in Christ. They identified prayer and studying the Bible as principles they felt should be incorporated into their weekly time together. As reading the Bible is not possible for most of the people they will have one person read a short passage of scripture, and then he will explain it in Mahafaly (as the whole Bible is only translated in Official Malagasy). Most of their Bible time will be in retelling the stories they have been learning in discipleship and discussing the principles they have learned. This will be a good opportunity for people who may have missed the discipleship time to learn the stories, as well as for them to hold each other accountable for sharing the stories.
3. Evangelism: Each village will intentionally focus on a nearby village. They will take the story set they are learning and teach the stories in the new village (similar to when Grant came and shared the evangelism set). Our hope is that this time of intentional evangelism will lead to the start of new churches in these villages, which can in turn reproduce the method. Both villages already have in mind a village they would like to reach with the Gospel and have begun praying about it.
Comments
Love and miss you.
debbie