Calvin Synod Herald, 2007 (108. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
2007-09-01 / 9-10. szám
CALVIN SYNOD HF.RALD II days as given by God. His plans will be fulfilled only with the help of God. He believes in it. God gives him happiness. He said he is not sad, not even in this situation, because God is with him and helps him a lot. Peter knows the Bible very well. At the end of the plans he always says: “Give me this, My Lord, but upon all things let it be Your will on Earth and in the Heaven too.” In my other paper, I will write how it is going with the Kuti family. It seems that they have a solution for their problems. Maybe we can find them a place on a farm. But this is unsure yet. We just hope that everything will be all right. We pray for God’s support for every homeless people. I would like to thank you for the support and I wish you love, joy and every goodness from God, His blessing on your life in the name of all who are helping the homeless-mission. Jenő Lako Felor School Mission Dear American Friends, In this presentation we try to reflect our work with the children from our community in the summer holyday, July-August 2007. Every Saturday and Sunday in our Christian community, my father and I present different stories from the Bible to the children and together learned Christians songs too. In July and in August, from Monday till Friday, we organised activities for children in the new building (Christian School). It is not yet finished, but we like to show the parents and their children how it will be here the study system. This is the daily program during these two months: 9:00 a.m. - We start the day with Bible study, praying, singing together. 10:00 a.m. - Drawing: the children draw the story that they hear and read from the Bible. 10:30 a.m. - English lesson. 11:00-11:30 - Break for eating (We give for them snacks, tea, milk and fruits.) 11:30-12:30 - Cultural activity: geography, history, biology, music, computers, world. 12:30-13:00 - Sport activity: football, basketball, folk-dancing lesson, funny games. In this program we respect the time, but we try to make lovely and friendly activities which means that the contents are different. After this program in September, we hope that God will help us to open the Christian Kindergarten. If the heating is not ready until winter time, we will continue our kindergarten activity in the house between the church and the school. We hope our program will give for everybody a good preview of the future. With love, Erika and my husband Huni. God bless you all! Using Bible Stories in Evangelism and Cathechesis - Part 1 Though we commonly hear that North America and Western Europe are “post Christian” societies, from the missionary perspective, they have simply reverted to “pre Christian” status. These societies retain for now the amenities of a former Christian civilization such as indoor plumbing, other comfortable technologies and the remnants of personal freedom but have lost the Christian worldview that laid the foundation for these blessings in science and the “rule of law”. Where outright paganism does not prevail, orthodox Christianity is in decline and acting increasingly erratic with historic churches losing virtually all connection to the apostolic faith. The culture itself is changing as well - literacy is no longer on the rise and up to 50% of the technically literate prefer not to learn by reading. Missionary writer and trainer H. Jackson Day puts it this way: “We are no longer dealing with an oral culture gathered around a flickering campfire. Now we are dealing with an oral culture gathered around a flickering computer screen.” (From personal conversation. H. Jackson Day http://www.biblestorytelling.org/) Stuck in the midst of the insanity, we have little perspective for classifying or addressing the problem. But this is where the missionary perspective is also helpful. Were the odd ducks we see today in the guise (for example) of “Gay Bishops” and “Transgendered ministers” popping up in a mission church, it would immediately be recognized not as “progressive Christianity” but as the age old problem of “syncretism”. The solution would be clear if arduous: to re-lay the foundation of the church through teaching the Bible to the church again from Genesis to Revelation. (For more on syncretism, I suggest the following web link: http://www.goodseed.com/bwmAl.aspx) If this “missionary critique” of the Western Church is correct, where are we do begin? Within the last generation, noted Presbyterian pastor Rev. Dr. D. James Kennedy created an evangelistic program called “Evangelism Explosion” that spread world wide. It’s evangelistic presentation presumed a common cultural consensus on basic Biblical doctrines such as the definition of God, Man, and Heaven. As the West though has reverted to itspre -Christian status, asking someone “If you died tonight, would you go to heaven?” and “If God should ask ‘Why should I let you into my heaven?’ what would your response be?” may have the same result as asking the same questions in Farsi. Our listeners are more likely to believe they have evolved from a lower form of life and that there is no heaven to aspire to than to believe they were created in the image of the Triune God and will be held accountable for their image bearing. Ken Ham’s online book “Why Won’t They Listen?” discusses the loss of cultural consensus at greater length (Available online: http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/wwtl/index.asp ). He concludes that we can no longer take for granted a common understanding of God, Man, Jesus, or Salvation. Instead, he advises us to start “at the beginning” with the doctrines of creation and fall. Reformation churches have always known that the presentation of the Good News is incomplete without first presenting the Law of God. Ham’s analysis simply points out
