Teaching preaching

Sunrise in Poipet - yes, we were up early enough to see the sun rise. This morning was a repeat of yesterday so today's blog tells the story of Jim's preaching seminar group. There are 8 members of the CHO staff who are beginning to work on a project called UMOJA. This is a community project that develops a number of areas of community life, including church planting. The staff need to understand how churches grow and how to preach the Bible in these villages.

We have looked at 6 Bible passages with a view to helping the CHO staff preach these for themselves. We've started with gospel stories, asking the same question of all of them: 'what is happening in this story?' and have had conversations about these passages. Jim has then given some background to the passage and an outline of a sermon for each. The plan is to leave them with outlines for a lot of sermons by the end of next week, but also to give them the tools by which they can study any passage and preach it.

Today we also talked about whether we sit or stand; how to use notes - if they have no notes people assume they have not prepared and so won't trust what they say, so how do we use notes in the right way?

One of the good things about the group is that they have begun to help each other find answers to their own questions. Yesterday, Bunhan asked 'where was Jesus' spirit between Good Friday and Easter Sunday?' By that stage on a hot afternoon, Jim's mind wasn't working too well and there wasn't much of an answer. Today Bunhan came back with his own answer, from exactly the Bible verses he needed to read! So pleasing to see. There is more of this come, 2 hours, morning and afternoon, Monday to Wednesday. Pray for us, God is at work in these good people.