By Laura Foushee
One of the challenges of ministry within our current context is being able to share leadership responsibility in order to provide sustainability for the future. Whether it’s high turnover due to the transient lifestyles of many internationals who live in Japan, demanding work schedules or the involvement of younger students who have been given fewer leadership opportunities, we have welcomed many into our community who have a desire to serve but do not feel prepared to jump into a particular role. Over the last several months as new friends have found our church, we have been considering ways to equip those in our gathering for service both within and outside of the walls of the church. This month, we started with training sessions for those interested in leading Bible study among adults.
We began by framing our goal for Bible study as “having an encounter with God through Scripture.” Each of the three weeks then focused on the different ways we engage the Bible:
Heart Engagement – God’s word speaking into our personal lives
Head Engagement – Deeper informational understanding about a text
Community Engagement – Mutual learning about scripture with others
Over three weeks, the participants spent time outside of the sessions engaging a text of their choice with their hearts, their heads and then preparing to do so with community. Our next phase will hopefully be practicing the Bible study they have created within this small group so that they may build confidence for leading in the future.
The group of eight represented Japan, the U.S., Indonesia, Jamaica and Malawi; we enjoyed our time together practicing lectio divina, asking questions of a text and looking for answers and then reflecting on how it might speak to our community and ways to engage others in conversation. It was a delight to see the group energized about learning scripture with and from one another. A few had this to say about the training:
“It was a really good experience for me! I learned new perspectives that I had never considered before and it was very interesting to re-read each passage, explore it and create questions from it!” ~ Ivy (Japan/U.S.)
“It was heartwarming to be amongst other Christians who exhibited a passion for obtaining more biblical knowledge in preparation for different acts of service. [It was] a collaborative learning environment that fostered shared experiences and spiritual growth, while providing different ways to facilitate an effective bible study.” ~ Moya (Jamaica)
This summer, our Student Serve Intern, Brianna, will be leading a similar training for those interested in working with children. She will be using her early education background to aid us in new ways of approaching children’s ministry. Please continue to pray as we invest more time and energy into those eager to serve our faith community and beyond.