Whatchu talkin bout, Willis??

Do you know any idioms? I'm not talking about those folks next door that are always annoying you... Likely, you know dozens of idioms and don't even realize it. Idioms, according to my unofficial definition, are local cultural phrases (often used in code to keep the outsiders at bay....). What are some idioms you know?

Break a leg

He's a few fries short of a Happy Meal

Listen to your heart

I smell a rat

Pulling my leg

Cat's got your tongue?

I feel like a million dollars

Jumping the gun

Kick the bucket

Keel over

That car is a lemon

These common phrases mark our everyday speech. You know you're one of the locals if you understand what someone is really saying. These phrases are unique to the local culture however. Idioms are some of the toughest phrases to translate into another language. I remember doing some Greek translation and coming across some of the idioms used in the New Testament. Boy was I confused! Imagine though being from a different culture and coming to the U.S. and people start telling you to break a leg and just play it smooth. You'd think these people were out of their minds!

The thing is that if you don't know the local language, phrases, and idioms you'll always be somewhat of an outsider. Think about that. Knowing the idioms are like knowing the inside jokes. Someone on the outside just doesn't get it and there is a distance there. One issue with language training is that you may only learn the language of the classroom and not the real world. You'll never learn the idioms of the culture unless you 'stick your neck out' and live among the people!

If you ever become a missionary or just want to learn another language, do all you can to learn the idioms too. And learn them well so you aren't using them like an ill-timed joke that leaves everyone staring. I think that language learning is one part of the missionary life that can be neglected. With all the other responsibilities what does it matter that the language is spoken exactly as the locals do? Can't I get by without putting in all the extra work? Well, if you have ever sat through a 50 minute well intentioned sermon by someone whose first language was not English and their mastery of English wasn't that good....well, it will encourage you to learn the language the best you can if you ever go overseas! You don't want to put the people you are trying to reach through a near fingernails on the chalkboard experience every time you teach them because you haven't taken the time to master their language.

People will listen more closely and the gospel will seem less foreign if you can speak like a local and even use the local phrases and idioms. The writers of the New Testament did this. They used the local terms for coins, wages, places, and so forth. They worked hard to understand the cultures where they lived. They were following in the footsteps of their Master. Jesus used the local language. He dressed like the locals. He was the Incarnation - the God Man. Jesus didn't seem overly foreign to everyone He met. His message was the pure gospel which never changes. In the same way we need to bring the pure seed of the gospel to the cultures we reach and not bring our culture in addition to the gospel. But we need language to do this. Jesus brought the message of reconcilliation between a holy God and sinful man, in fact He was God but He looked, talked, and smelled just like a local - and we should too.

How churches are like wet parking lots...

I have some exciting news! The discipleship manual I have written was finally printed and I am able to hold it in my hand! I'm excited about his manual for several reasons:

1. It is much more in depth than most courses I have seen before. Rather than a fill in the blank style, it is interactive and challenging.

2. This course covers a broad range of topics. I sat down and thought about what areas a Christian needs to know to begin the walk on solid ground. For example, the course contains teaching on how Christians grow - an area often overlooked or assumed by many courses.

3. The course has several sections on biblical interpretation. In addition to providing the how-to, I have provided several examples and walk the reader through the process.

4. The course is written to help the teacher make disciples who are disciplemakers themselves. Many courses offer a transfer of information but this is not discipleship. Discipleship is a transformation of character.

5. The course will have a DVD set to go along with the manual. Some people are not easily able to read information and then teach it. My hope is that after reading through the lesson, the teacher can watch the session on DVD and then feel equipped to teach it. Classes I have taken that include a DVD accompanyment have been very helpful.

Discipleship is lacking in so many of our churches. Many people do not feel adequate to teach others so nothing ever gets going. I hope this course will begin to change that. Churches that neglect discipleship and only focus on making converts are said to be like a parking lot after a rain. The lot looks wide and deep but as soon as the sun comes out, it dries up. When the heat of trial comes on our flocks, the root withers and their spiritual lives dry up. Discipleship is essential to having a healthy church.

Do you need a premade package to disciple someone? Absolutely not! I feel though, that at least to begin, it is good to have some kind of guide to help you. After laying a solid foundation, the discipler can go in depth into individual areas later on. I have taught this course to the first found of students in my church. It went very well and they are excited to begin teaching others. Little by little great changes can be made through faithful teaching. One more step to fulfilling the Great Commission.

Blogs: The Drive-Thru Book

Do you read? I suppose you do because you are reading this blog right now. How about books? It seems that many Brazillians aren't reading anymore. A 2000 survey indicated hat 25% of Brazillians over 15 years of age were functionally illiterate - meaning they can read a road sign but cannot read for comprehension ("A Nation of Non-readers", The Economist, Mar 16, 2006). Another survey reports that the average Brazillian spends 5.2 hours a week in a book.

5.2 hours a week...that actually seems like a lot of time, at least when I think of many Americans I know. How many Americans come home from work and spend an hour a night reading a book? Don't most Americans spend about 5.2 hours a night watching TV? Anyway, back to the question - Do you read?

I just got off the phone with a good friend who is a professor at a community college in Ohio. I was mentioning this blog to him and he told me that part of the requirments for his students are to be fulfilled by creating and updating a blog. Just a few years ago the word 'blog' didn't even exist! Now blogs are used for classroom work in our schools! We truly are an evolving society. So, we read blogs but not books. Studies are beginning to show a shift away from reading for comprehension in America. Just like what is happening in Brazil. Our young people can surely read, but how long until we have a high percentage of functionally illiterate people?

The previously cited article indicates that in Brazil people just don't want to read. Like any skill, the less one practices the rustier one becomes. What can we do about this? We accomodate those who don't like to read with short internet articles, podcasts, blogs, and the like. We are becoming conditioned to get our info in short bites. A story that takes dozens of pages to properly develop, such as most novels, is no longer worth one's time. The blog has become the drive-thru book.

We probably aren't on a runaway train just yet. But it is leaving the station and picking up speed. Even prestigeuous schools like Harvard are moving away from textbooks and using more oral communication techniques like case studies. Role playing is a good way to teach so it is no surprise top notch acedemic institutions are moving the direction their students have already went.

I'm interested to see what becomes of our country in the next few decades. What place will books have in 25 years? Will they fall victim to termites as our libraries rot away as has already happened with the National Library of Brazil? Will the blog continue to be the new book?

The 5 points and 8 subpoints to making a horseshoe

There are more missionaries serving around the world today than at any time in the history of Christianity. In addition, non-Western missionaries, often called "two-thirds" missionaries because of their location in the "two-thirds" world, are about to surpass Western missionaries in number (Whiteman, "Integral Training Today for Cross-cultural Mission", Missiology). The most pressing issue has quickly become how to train these eager workers.

Often, at least from our ethnocentric American perspective, it is up to us, the highly trained Western missionaries to train the nationals we work with. But just what kind of training do we ourselves possess? Fifty years ago the average training program for American Protestant missionaries was six months long. Today the average is only 25 days (Whiteman). We are heading to the field with less training than ever before and encountering more opportunities to train others on the field than ever before. How should we proceed?

Our Western approach of teaching comes out of the age of enlightenment. Universities began around the year 1000 and following. Logic and reason are the twin princes of learning. We Americans like our information fresh, hot, and now - similar to why we love the drive-thru restaurant. We don't want our time wasted. We come to class with our computers ready to go, Word document up, right hand on the "insert bullet point" button, left hand on a delicious vanilla latte. We want the professor to come to class ready to pull the rip cord and spout off the relevant info in a nice orderly, point by point fashion. We are irritated if his lecture doesn't fit easily into an outline format. Give us numbers 1 through 8 with 3 subpoints each and we pack and go.

And we use the same format to train everyone we encounter. Don't we realize that pretty much every other culture in the world operates in a drastically different way than our logical outline format? They value relationship over time and need concrete information and not abstract thinking. They often like circular reinforcement and not outline format. However, we want to get a group of Christians together in the jungle and train them the same way we were trained. Only it doesn't work like that. Information cannot transfer from one person to another like it does from our Bluetooth enabled Blackberry to our Macbook. There is a massive cultural barrier in place and we often fail to work with it.

Most of the world learns how to live from watching others. A young man goes with his father to learn to hunt and fish. A mother is watched closely by younger women to learn the tools of her trade. Even business deals are modeled by a seasoned veteran to a younger apprentice. Remember years ago in England and the U.S. that if one wanted to become a blacksmith, he wouldn't sign up for classes at a University. He would apprentice himself to a seasoned blacksmith and learn on the job. It's tough to learn how to make horseshoes unless you actually have a go at making one.

We need to learn a few lessons from our brothers and sisters around the world. They learn best in an apprentice setting. We are not familiar with that style and try and cram our logical, outline presentation of abstract information into their world. It doesn't transfer. What is striking though is that even Westerners are beginning to realize our classroom training is inadequate to prepare us for the actual task. Western missionaries are asking for more apprenticeship style training and less classroom time on the field (John DeValve, "Mentoring New Missionaries", EMQ). Learning is more than a passing along of information. It is a doing and a living.

Have you ever worked hard to teach a five week class on evangelism in your church only to be disappointed to learn that no one actually put the training to use and shared the gospel with anyone? I know I have. What if, instead of teaching the 5 points on evangelism, you actually took one or two people out with you and shared the gospel with real people as the training? Your students would see the information in action. They would be encouraged. They would be challenged. Instead of giving the 3 points on Bible study, actually sit down with your disciple and walk through how you do your quiet time. Do you lecture on preaching? Try and actually prepare a sermon with your student, deliver it, watch it later and critique it with your student. This is real mentoring/discipling/teaching/equipping/apprenticeship training. I've found that it works a whole lot better. What other areas could this approach be applied to?

What do you think? Have you ever tried this type of approach in your teaching? I'm wondering how to incorporate more of this approach to the teaching I do right here in the U.S. Yes we are technologically advanced but are we really taking our classroom experience and using it in ministry? If not, what can we do to become better communicators of God's Word? There is room for evaluation and improvement in all of our lives.

"I made a bad decision today. I ate a greasy hamburger for breakfast." Months later that quote is all I'm able to remember from one pastor's sermon on "Deciding for Christ." I'm not alone as several church members continue to talk about the humorous introduction to the sermon. It's not so humorous that no one, including me can remember anything else about the sermon! Do we as pastors ever ask the question, "Does anyone actually remember what I am saying every Sunday morning?"

Missionaries are beginning to realize that there are many factors over and above language that complicate the transfer of a message from the sender to the receiver. Cultural barriers to the message include everything from the proper "social bubble" distance to the subtlest of non-verbal communication. Those working in oral cultures, pre-literate peoples who communicate best through story form, have nailed down three keys to shoot for when communicating. Will the people be able to 1) understand what I am saying, 2) remember what I've said, and 3) be able to retell it to others later. If the missionary is able to meet these three goals, the message is likely to be successful.


What about those of us communicating in the U.S.? How about those of us communicating the ultimate message - the gospel - in our churches and on the street. Do we step back and ask these three questions of ourselves? What good is it to deliver the most well done 8 point, 13 subpoint sermon ever conceived if one week, one day, even one hour later all the people can remember is that you ate a hamburger for breakfast?

I've been thinking about this a lot recently. I have begun to incorporate some oral communication techniques into the teaching I do. I have tried linking scripture with a relevant story. I've tried a repeat and recall method. I've tried incorporating pictures into the message. I think it is working! If people remember you ate a hamburger for breakfast but can then link the details of the sermon to that illustration, you have succeeded. If they can only remember the hamburger...well, not so good.

No matter what the context of our preaching and teaching, we should always ask ourselves if the people are understanding what we are saying, can they remember it more than 5 minutes, and could they retell it to friends, coworkers, or themselves later on when they need the Word in their life. We have to stop assuming we are master communicators or that it doesn't matter how we say what we say because everyone has grown up speaking the same language as us. Preachers, of all people, should see the most value in striving for effective communication.

As a side note, I was quite surprised to find that most of the people in this survey indicated that PowerPoint presentation in conjunction with sermons distracted them. PowerPoints are useful for helping those people get your ongoing subpoints but do they really help them get the overall point of the message? Also, do most people ever read those notes they took on their church bulletin ever again? Decide for yourself.

So those of you who speak and teach, begin to ask yourself and your hearers just how effective you are in communicating. Will your people remember more than just an obscure story you've told at some point in the past? Let's all work to be better communicators.

The Lord Will Provide

I'll begin with an update to the previous post. It turned out that the camshaft had broken in the engine of our car. This and the parts connected with it caused some major damage to the innards of the engine. We were left to decide whether to spend mega-bucks on another engine, surpassing the value of the car or selling the car and getting another one. The Lord worked out several things over the course of a few days and we made our decision.

The repair shop offered an unusually high amount of money to buy our broken car from us. We went to our bank just to see what kind of rate we could get on a loan. It turned out that we had a great credit score and were able to get a low rate. We went to a dealership and I'll have to admit I was ruthless with the salespeople and we got a great deal on a good car. We are now the proud owners of a Kia - let's hope some of the money goes to support those Korean missionaries... The salesman "assured me of Kia's Christian values..." I was able to share the gospel with the salesman right at the table in the middle of the busy store. He knew I went to seminary and asked me if Islam and Christianity believed in the same God. The Lord (pbuh) was very good to us!

We've been enjoying the car, especially me because it is a stick shift! My wife Beth hadn't driven a stick in many years so we have been practicing. She is doing a great job! We took it to my parent's house in Ohio last weekend and the ride was comfortable and it got pretty good gas milage. We'll be going to Wisconsin for Christmas so we're definately putting the car through its paces.

In other news I interviewed for an in home chef job last night. There is a family with 5 kids and they are continually overwhelmed. Rather than hire a nanny or manny (what do you call a male nanny?) they decided to farm out the cooking duties so the mom could focus on her kids. I love to cook, they have a huge kitchen with excellent quality cookware, and it is something I can do with Beth so we will take the job if they offer.

I have sent my resume to several churches in hopes of being able to pastor one of them. Just today I recieved an email asking me if I am avaliable to preach in one of them at the end of the month. I'm excited to be able to do that. Silly me to wonder if any of this stuff was ever going to work out. Our God isn't called Provider for no reason!

The hamster fell off his wheel and my car won't go anymore.

Let the sifting begin.

Just last night in Bible study we went over the life of Daniel. Daniel was taken into captivity by a foreign king but the Lord was sovereign throughout. He found favor with the king and was given a bit of a life of luxury if he would simply obey the king's command. Daniel was given the best food - wine and meat that was fit for a king. The only problem was it was likely unclean and part of the over indulgent king's table. Daniel remained true to the teachings of his God and ate only vegetables rather than be defiled by the meat.

Later Daniel was ordered to stop praying to his God or be put to death. Again he stood strong and did not waver in obedience to the true God. Daniel and his friends were put through the ultimate trials but their strong faith in the midst became a great example to those watching. The pagan king even wrote a letter to all the nations of the world telling of the glories of the God of David, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendago. Through the trials of believers God is shown to be faithful.

I made some closing comments encouraging everyone to trust that in the times of trial, when it feels like God is most distant, in these times He is often refining and growing us the most. We all went home...well, almost all of us. 200 feet down to road from the church our car let go of one or more needed engine parts. The power shut off and we coasted about a quarter mile down the road to a gas station. The car refuses to start. I am at home now, wondering how in the world I am going to pay to fix the car. Is it even fixable? I just browsed the web site of a local car dealership that is constantly taking over the radio waves with their annoying commercials. This is certainly a trial.

How will I respond? I just helped teach on Daniel's faithfulness in times of trial. Daniel proved God to be trustworthy. Will I do the same, not allowing myself to fall into the sin of worry and anxiety as I wait for the Lord to provide? I pray I will and that God will be glorified as I wait on Him.