The Team in Santiago

Israel, Lisset, George, Maria Ignacia, Veronica y Juan Carlos on campus at USACH
As Jesus taught us, we are asking God for more laborers for the harvest. Our staff invest their time sharing the gospel with students and primarily training students who are following Jesus to multiply their experience with God through evangelism and discipleship. This year we have experienced lots of growth in the number of students being trained, the number of students coming to faith in Christ and the number of campuses were we are working.
It is a great joy to receive Juan Carlos, his wife Veronica and Maria Ignacia into the campus team here in Santiago. They have recently completed their team of ministry parters and are now with us on campus. I appreciate their faith and enthusiasm, as they trust God to use them to start spiritual movements.

Listen

Everybody appreciates it when someone listens to them. A few months ago in a staff meeting we were considering how to more effectively engage students and share the gospel more often. One of our main conclusions was that we needed to create a space where we could listen to them. During the past month we have been using a new evangelism tool called Soularium. Soularium is a set of 50 images that help people share their experiences, hopes and beliefs. The tool is used by a facilitator (staff or student leader) who poses a question to which the audience responds using an image to help them explain themselves. In this way it helps foster authenticity and allows people to talk about things they often do not share. While you can pose a wide range of questions, the main idea is to hear what their experiences and hopes are in life, both with respect to their personal plans and their spirituality. We also ask them to talk about God. It is really pretty special to have someone share these things with you. And almost universally students tell us they appreciated the opportunity to express themselves. At the end we offer to pray for them and contact them if they are interested in talking more. www.mysoularium.com

We already knew that individualism, pluralism, relativism and pragmatism are significant influences in the minds of young people. As we hear their stories there is a sense that this generation is generally full of hope, believes in a god without religion and is pretty comfortable with the “confusion” of conflicting ideologies. Many indicate they are searching, but a search for truth is seemingly out of reach. The search is much more passive and their choices while not unreasoned seem to be based on sentiment than evidence. While there are lost of answers that might be helpful in the midst of the confusion, belief is experiential for this generation. A good argument is interesting but rarely convincing. They need to see it work.
What a great challenge! And the church is up to it, because the Holy Spirit is at work in us.

Church Planting Among the Mapuche

Each summer we spend a week training our students in a cross-cultural mission’s experience. Planting churches among the Mapuche is a challenging task. In the region where we are working there is a clear need for a person who will disciple local church leadership. A couple weeks ago I was able to travel up into the mountains once again, to encourage the local church leadership, share from the Word with families and get a head start on the plans for the missions experience with students in January. During the trip three people indicated a decision to trust in Jesus Christ. We also were able to visit local pastors and encourage them.

Jerry and Daniel are pastors and missionaries who are also committed to helping establish churches in this region. It is great to partner with such quality people who work with a kingdom mindset. Unfortunately others who are “serving” in the area do not have this perspective. One of the biggest problems we face in evangelism in the area is a hypocritical and religious church that is divisive within the community and does not teach the Scripture.

Another challenge in evangelization in this region is the limited ability to comprehend texts. Reading is simply not a normal way of learning for these people. The Mapuche have an oral not written tradition. They are largely ignorant of the Bible. But asking them to read it is not practical. We are trying to overcome this difficulty with the use of solar powered audio devices which allow them hear the Scripture. We will also be using an audio and DVD based tool called, “God’s Big Story”. This material gives a brief overview of the Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, helping people understand more clearly what God has done and is doing.

This summer we hope to have 6 teams of students. They will spend significant time with families who are open to the message. Rather than visiting a family for a couple hours and asking them to come to a film showing, our evangelism will be based on two or three days teaching the Bible from start to finish with families who are open. In this way we hope to help these families know Christ and get involved in a local church that teaches the Scriptures.