Because of how busy we have been, it has been challenging to keep up with our blog. We had two pretty major workshops here in Chihuahua this past summer, and I wanted to share with you about those because of how important they are to the work of tribal church planting.
CLA Consultant Training (June)
The last two weeks of June we had some consultant training for consultants on our field that work with missionaries in training and those studying the national language (Spanish) or a tribal language here in Mexico.
Because we are looking to share the Gospel, disciple believers, teach through the Scriptures in a chronological and foundational way, and translate the Scriptures, our missionaries need to reach a high level of language ability and cultural understanding. One of our convictions as an organization is that our missionaries speak the language and understand the culture of the people they seek to serve. After all, communication is how we have relationships! The depth of one’s language ability and cultural understanding directly impacts the depth of their relationships in the community.
For this reason, we have CLA Consultants. CLA is an acronym we use that means Culture & Language Acquisition. Our consultants come alongside people just starting out in language and culture study and help them become relevant in their new context, functioning as a trusted part of their new community. These consultants have had success learning one or more foreign languages and understand the sacrifice and discipline it takes to reach a high level in ability.
This training was a huge answer to prayer for the field of Mexico as we have been in need of further training to know how to best be able to come alongside our missionaries studying language & culture.
Foundational Bible Teaching Workshop (July)
The first two weeks of July, the field of Mexico hosted a Latin-American Foundational Bible Teaching workshop for our national training staff- those in each of our Latin-American countries with a cross-cultural ministry training program. We had representatives from our training programs in several other Spanish-speaking Latin-American countries, including some trainers from Brazil.
One of our convictions as an organization worldwide is the value and importance of chronological, foundation Bible teaching. Our church planters working among the world’s least-reached people groups start by teaching the Scriptures from Genesis and then work their way through the main, overarching story of the Bible, from Creation to the future return of Jesus Christ. It systematically lays the groundwork for the Gospel, and then later continues to build as we disciple believers, from birth to maturity. Our hope is to see a thriving church among every people, and foundational Bible teaching is one of the ways we move towards that goal.
This workshop focused on the rationale of why we teach the way we do, what part language, culture and worldview play in lesson development, and how to faithfully capture what the Scriptures teach so that the God’s message is clearly understand by the hearer.
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