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!
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.
