The Age of eReaders has begun

I remember learning basic office skills on the first “computers” (no color screen, no hard drive, no DVD, no internet, Tandy/Radio Shack model 80s—affectionatly: TRaSh 80s) in high schools. During one lesson, the student next to me questioned the value of learning computer skills—her computer was giving her a hard time. In a visionary moment, I responded that I foresaw a day when the entire Library of Congress would be available in the palm of my hand—unlimited availability of information.

Fast forward to 2010, and enter the eReader era with Kindles, Nooks and other models. Maybe the entire Library of Congress is not available yet, but the selection of ebooks grows by the day. So, how do these new eReaders affect the ministry of eDOT?

Could these tools be used for discipleship; outreach; and training? Some of the textbooks used in our Bible and Theology curriculum are available as eBooks—the text for our New Testament Survey course is shown in the Kindle for PC pictures. What about the availability of foreign translations for eReaders? What about user-generated content? These are questions that eDOT seeks to answer as we continue to explore the best use of technology for our ministry partners.

eReaders have an appeal in that they reduce paper, allow a large library to be carried in a small format, and reduce the cost of individual titles. They are cool and in vogue—but that’s not the primary reason to use technology. eDOT uses technology to connect and disciple PEOPLE. It’s not about the technology—the ministry of eDOT is to introduce people to their need for Christ and to disciple them to maturity in Christ-likeness. If eReaders can help us accomplish that goal, we will use them in ministry.

As eReaders grow in popularity, and eBooks remain at attractive prices–eDOT will continue to explore the use of eReaders to make Christ known and build His disciples.

eDOT has joined this team in setting up a Mobile Outreach Center in Zaporozhye, Ukraine. That is 8 laptop computers that we will be able to conduct computer classes with. These classes are designed to teach computer skills but as well we will use the classes to draw people to us so that we can share the truth of the Lord and invite non-believers to discipleship classes.

In the next few months we have scheduled two week long computer classes/outreaches in several remote villages. Then in the fall we will conduct the computer classes during the week at the center. We are praying many non-believers will come to these classes; this is a way for us to introduce them to the churches that will be offering the classes.

We also have several of the MOC computers setup in the center for people to come in and use like an Internet cafe. Wednesday evenings we’ve used the center for showing videos (Ones with a Christian theme) and afterwards a discussions time. And Friday evenings are set aside for a game nights using our foosball table, ping pong table and computer games to draw the youth to the center. Saturday evening is our church service time. The center is already a busy place and we are just getting started.

Valuable ministry resources such as Bible courses, discipleship and training materials that have been developed by other organizations are generously made available to eDOT for use in our European context.  One such example is the Preaching for Life Change course taught by Pastor Rick Warren and made available to us by Pastors.com. It is necessary to adapt these resources to our European ministry partners’ needs as well as the online learning environment.

Adapting this workshop material into a distance learning course has been my most recent project. I adapted this 11 CD audio workshop by Rick Warren into a culturally relevant online preaching course for use by Bible schools and seminaries in Europe. It was necessary to transcribe the content of the lectures and then put the content into our online course format using a program called Moodle. As with any college-level course, it is necessary to develop weekly lessons, learning exercises, discussion questions, and a discussion forum area where students can interact not only with the course facilitator, but with the other students as well. Our distance learning courses are not offered as a self study program with isolated students sitting in front of their computers, but as an online learning community that works through the material together with discussion and interaction being a very important part of the course.

Most of our partners will probably offer this course in a blended learning format combining the online learning along with a portion of the class that will be face-to-face with either their fellow students taking the class or others in the context of their local ministry. For instance, a student in a class like this one could be taking the course online during the week and then be giving the message they were preparing at their local church on Sunday. Since many of the students enrolled in the various distance learning programs may be separated by many kilometers, a distance learning program greatly minimizes the amount of time needed for traveling to a resident location.

Whether you’re building a bridge, assembling scaffolding, or mounting the wings on an airplane, you need nuts and bolts–small but important elements that hold the whole thing together. You usually don’t see them, but they’re crucial to the building’s strength and purpose. My work with eDOT is nuts and bolts—helping to develop graphics to create appeal within the online courses and formatting the text to compose an easy-to-follow structure within the course.

Currently I’m involved in adjusting these “nuts and bolts” for a Biblical Preaching course. That has involved creating colorful graphics and charts to help explain an abstract concept, such as this:

I will also spend hours adjusting the “nuts and bolts” of the course text using these standardized formats:

The student may never realize that we worked hard to give the course both color and consistency, yet we think it is an important element to making the material interesting to the student and to facilitate his learning.

I’ll admit that sometimes I wonder whether these behind-the-scenes aspects of online course development really matter. After all, I don’t hear that the students really liked the consistency of the course layout or that the creative graphic helped them to remember the concept they studied. As I pondered this one day, I was impacted by the statement in a Bible study I was reading*: “Every one of us who embraces the glory of God as our purpose will end up doing great things precisely because we do God-things. His holy hand resting on the least act renders the ordinary extraordinary. Spooning soup into the mouth of the weak or manning the nursery so a tired mom can go to church are acts of high worship when offered in the name of Christ. He beholds the sight like a breathtaking work of art, tilting His head to study each subtle detail.” I am challenged anew to do my work “as until Him.” And as you read this, I trust that you, too, will be encouraged to do your part in building God’s kingdom. One seemingly small thing you can do is to pray for us. Pray that our work will be bear fruit that remains and that God will be glorified through all that we do in eDOT.

*Esther, It’s Tough Being a Woman, by Beth Moore, LifeWay Press, Nashville, TN, 2008, p. 173

Recently Jim and I were able to spend time installing an Internet Cafe as a part of The Anchorage Project in the inner city of Dublin, Ireland. The director there is an Irishman named Joseph Donnelly who grew up in this part of Dublin and can tell stories of what its like to live in this area. He knows it; he lived it. He knows there’s a loss of hope in his town now more apparent than ever as the recession is taking a nasty toll on the economics of Ireland.

Several years ago, the board of directors of an old mission house approached Joe and asked if he and his wife could do anything with the old mission house to change the neighborhood. This is the same mission house that Joe as a teenager vandalized and threw rocks at before having his life transformed by God. The Donnelly’s idea was to use the mission house to now bring hope into the neighborhood. Their mission was that hope is comprised of four aspects: beauty, children, community, & justice. This old mission house is now called The Anchorage Project.

Beauty is being lived out through the use of plants and birds that are sold through the Anchorage Project. They train people on how to take care of these plants and birds, and while it can seem strange, all sorts of people from little old ladies to tattooed young men come to the center waiting for their flowers.

Children are cared for through the Anchorage during the children’s morning programs and special events that happen in the neighborhood. Parents see the joy that the kids have and the sense of play that is inspired at the Anchorage. Through their children’s eyes, they have a sense that things will be alright.

Community is beginning encouraged as the Anchorage Project starts a cafe which includes the Internet Cafe. This is a safe place for people to gather. They can come in and have something to eat and drink, sit around and chat with friends, get on the Internet, socialize or just talk with one of the people working there. Those who serve in the café aren’t there for a job but are wanting to care for people living and working in the neighborhood.

Justice is the final aspect of bringing hope and all the other parts play into it. Almost every part of beauty, children and community has a small fee, such as the flowers are sold or time purchased on the Internet Cafe computers. They are priced to be inexpensive to the community but they do create a revenue source so that every year the neighborhood, via the Anchorage Project, is able to give  help to in places like Africa, Southeast Asia or Eastern Europe. Hope is found in the realization that even though they don’t have much, they are still able, as a neighborhood, to help others.

So how do computers help bring hope to the inner city? By being a part of an overall plan, computers and technology can further the vision and mission of ministries. The vision of a computer center, as part of the café, continues to build a sense of community by getting people out of their homes and together. It also meets a real need by tapping into an opportunity for people to have access to the internet, for everything from research to communication. A way for this poorer neighborhood to have a greater variety of tools to make their lives better. And this is all done in the name of Christ and for the purpose of exposing others to HIS Kingdom.

We were delighted to share in a small part of what The Anchorage Project is doing to impact their community and the world.

Have you ever wondered if there’s a way to speed up the process of evangelizing your community, your region, your country, and the world?

One simple solution would be to mobilize more Christians to share their salvation story with the people around them—people in their circles of influence.

That simple solution is the basis for a new outreach training program that I and a team of people from three other mission organizations are currently developing in Moodle, eDOT’s course delivery system. The program is called “Training for Trainers,” or “T4T.”

What exactly is T4T?

T4T is a basic outreach training program that begins by teaching Christians how to use their salvation story (i.e., “testimony”) to generate interest in the gospel. Then it teaches them how to explain the gospel, how to provide follow-up lessons for those who respond, and how to train others to do the same.

You can learn more about T4T by reading Appendix One of Church Planting Movements, by David Garrison.

How GEM Hopes to Use T4T

Our design team is putting this training into an Internet-based format to serve as a “launching” tool. The Internet-based training will equip a Christian to start T4T training in his or her community. T4T is designed to be transferable, so once that person leads his first group of trainees through six weeks of face-to-face meetings the Internet-based training will no longer needed.

Initially this training will be used by GEM in a new ministry called Market Venture. The leaders of Market Venture are recruiting North American businessmen and tentmakers to spread the gospel throughout Europe. They are hoping that T4T will be a simple tool that will help initiate movements of evangelism and church planting. Eventually T4T will be made available to all GEM missionaries and their European partners as a tool for planting churches more rapidly.

How Others May Use T4T

Once our design team tests the Internet-based version of this training and confirms its effectiveness we hope to make it widely available for others to use. Our current plan is to create a website where groups and individuals can learn about T4T and make arrangements to use it in their own ministries.

One of the best things about being a missionary with eDOT is hearing how the Lord has used something that we have created to impact someone’s life. Right now, I am in Ukraine, visiting some of our partners. Last week I spoke with 2 former students who have taken our distance learning Bible courses through Zaporozhye Bible College and Seminar. Here’s what they reported!

Genia – “At the time I became a believer in 2007, I had my own business and it was impossible to study at a Bible school. The online course allowed me freedom in my schedule to study at the times I had free during the day or week. The interaction online with other students stimulated me to study the Bible in a way  that I wouldn’t study it alone. As a new believer, it was just what I needed!”

Genia now works as a translator and travels with an evangelist group when they are in Ukraine. She has currently completed three courses online. She may even become a teacher/facilitator for future online courses!

Nikolai – “I first took the New Testament Survey course in a 2 week modular classroom setting. I didn’t do very well and had to take the course over. I decided to take the online course. The longer course gave me more time to read and process and interact about the material. I graduated in 2009 and moved back to my town 7 hours away. I am a leader in my church, but am also a pastor in a nearby village church.”  Apparently there was a church in this village for quite awhile but they had no pastor.

Nikolai happened to be visiting Zaporozhye the day I was there. After we talked a while (through a translator), he excused himself and went out, got his briefcase, and opened it. It was full of printed pages from our New Testament Survey course that he had taken online. He told me that he uses this material to teach the New Testament Survey study out in the villages where they do not have any computers. He asked if he could get all of our courses on a CD so he could print them and use them to teach these older village people.

God uses online courses in all different ways!

Four smoldering piles of old tree stumps and discarded railroad ties were all that was left of the ten dumpsters of wood that had been sitting there yesterday morning. And this scenario was repeated on hilltops all over the area. It was the day after the “Schiebfeuer;” the annual end of pre-lenten revelry. These festivities date back to early Christian times; in fact, to times before Christ.

Even some German believers still think that they are Roman Catholic festivals. And in one sense, they are. But only because when the church came and it became mandatory for people in this geographical area to profess Christian belief, they substituted the names of Christian saints for the names of their gods, and tried to make their own pagan celebrations coincide with the timing of Christian celebrations. So they continued to practice their own religions by putting a Christian gloss on them that made then acceptable to the church. But in most respects, they were unchanged.

Today, the Christian gloss is mostly gone. The Fasnet period is officially opened in some places with the phrase “The Lord Anti-Christ opens these festivities…” As little as five years ago the Fasnet or “Fasching” celebrations, as they are called, were conducted within a period of two weeks. This year the festivities took place over a period of eight weeks. And just five years ago, while there were no organizations specifically devoted to children’s participation in the event, adult “Fasching Clubs,” often complete with marching bands, were common. However, a few years ago a nearby town started a children’s Fasching Club. The next year there were three. This year there were ten. And “Hexen Clubs,” associations that promote the spread of witchcraft, are also being formed for children at an accelerating rate.

The enemy is alive and well in southwestern Germany. And, as one believer who was sharing these things told me, “The pagan groups are growing much, and the church is growing little,” which he illustrated by holding his thumb and index finger just a tiny but apart. When I asked him why he thought this was, he said, “People are bored. They want something interesting to do.” Which, evidently, they are not finding in church as we are currently doing it.

I asked who paid for the wood that was burned in the Schiebfeuers. “No one,” my friend said. I replied that ten dumpsters of wood had been trucked up the hill. It certainly cost something and someone must have paid for it. At the time, I suspected that the village had paid for it. But they stuck to their guns. “No one,” they said. “It’s all voluntary.”

It seems that local teen-aged boys collect the wood all year round and some trucking firm carts it up the hill for free. It used to be something like the football rivalries between adjoining towns in America. Kids from the “other” town would try to set fire to the adjoining town’s woodpile prior to the night of the Schiebfeuer. So they took to posting guards – these same teen-aged boys. In a number of instances, however, the “guards” decided to wait atop the woodpiles to scare off would-be arsonists. But occasionally the guards fell asleep on top of the woodpiles and several of them lost their lives when kids from the other town succeeded in setting the pile ablaze; a sort of involuntary child sacrifice.

There was no guard when I passed the dumpsters on Sunday morning. But then the wood had been left in the dumpsters and not set up for the fires yet. And on this hill, as well in neighboring towns, concession stands selling refreshments had been erected: all the trappings of a pagan tabernacle in preparation for a pagan service of worship. In which, I might add, far more townspeople take part than in any actual Christian celebration.

So what’s to be done? All of the force of history and the momentum of increasing interest conspire to enlarge these occasions of pagan worship.

“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray…” God said through his prophet long ago, “…then will I hear from heaven and heal their land.” And, at the moment, I think this is the only answer for us. Those of us who are here need to pray. Those of you who are far away but hear of these things need to pray. Our God is greater than history, momentum, tradition, and the enemy. He can do something about this resurgence of paganism in Germany. Now you know. Will you pray with me and German believers that He will act and show us how to act?

This year the evangelical church in Germany is observing a “Year of Silence.” It’s not that they have services of silence, but that they are making a deliberate effort to listen to God rather than simply to be making noise before Him. They are listening for His answer to their dilemma. Please join them in praying that God will show them how to move forward in this increasingly hostile environment.

Life of Christ in RussianCan you imagine what it would be like to help Russian speaking people all over the world grow in their relationship with the Lord. This past week we had a meeting with a long time partner of ours to explore that question. This partner has been working with over 35,000 Russian speaking people over the years in correspondence courses. That means that for years these people have been reading about how they can grow in their relationship with God and mailing in answers to questions & asking many questions themselves. We are so excited to be talking about ways that they can be interacting with these people at the speed of the Internet rather than waiting for mail to be delivered.

Most people don’t realize that Russian is the #1 language spoken in Europe, because the most populous parts of Russia are in Europe. We talked about ways we can work together by eDOT helping them with technology, training in how to interact with people online, project management, and content. They in turn will be helping to translate materials, provide Russian speaking believers to interact online, and open up their huge network of 4,000 churches and 35,000 students. These contacts will enable them to have face to face interaction as well as online. They can take what we are learning online and apply it right where we live. We desire to see the light of Christ shine more brightly than ever before throughout the Russian speaking world.

Bob, Director of GBI Online

Reforming Learning for the French-Speaking World

“I am extremely grateful to the whole eDOT team for their contribution to GBI Online.”
Bob, Director of GBI Online

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