October 26th, 2007

We did not go to meet with the family in the big city last night. They asked to meet on Monday. This means I've only done one storying session in 2 weeks. The good news is, that next week things will be getting back to normal routine. My head is okay, and I should be getting the stitches out on Monday if not sooner.

Let me just take this space today to give an idea of what we're doing and plan to be doing for the remainder of the year.

Our strategy is to plant house churches in a rural community where literacy is low in general and very low among older adults. We organize a small group of families and meet with them once a week. During these meetings we tell the Bible (that is, we tell the scripture in narrative form instead of reading it or doing traditional Bible studies) in chronological order from creation through the birth of the church. It takes about 3 - 4 months to go through the stories that give the people in this culture a basic understanding of the Bible and an understanding of Christ.

The stories are told and repeated and repeated again by those learning the stories until the group owns the story, or knows it by heart. After that we talk about the story and draw out of it the truths of God. The stories can then be retold by the learners (even illiterate ones) to others. Once the evangelism stories are told and acted upon in faith, we will begin telling discipleship stories.

Our time with the family in the big city will end in the next few weeks most likely. We are finishing our Old Testament stories with the families on the hill in the small town. In November and December we will be telling the stories of Jesus. Our goal is to have a house church on the hill before the end of the year and to have 2 more "pre-churches" started before the end of November.