Just a quick note on a small blessing in my life. I've always liked reading a good paper. By good I mean one that makes me think, provides insight into the world, and broadens my understanding of culture, politics, economics, literature, etc.
Up until this week I hadn't found such an animal. El Tiempo is the paper read by most executive types here. Frankly I have been very disappointed with it. It offers think pieces on topics that don't really interest me (e.g. in-depth analysis of Colombian politics), and in general just tells about the events of the country without any interesting commentaries on what has happened. I often found that I would buy the paper and end up reading only two articles because the rest made me yawn just looking at the titles.
El Espectador is a little bit better for my taste, as it comes out only once a week. For this reason, the editors have more time to find insightful articles. But again, the paper shows a surprising dearth of information about the rest of the world.
Many of the other papers of broad circulation in Bogota are not fit for Christian eyes. One, El Espacio is like a Colombian version of the National Enquirer, only worse (as a Christian I don't even look at the paper hanging on the rack because you never know what you'll see).
All this said, I finally ran across a good weekly paper, which is Tiempos del mundo. It is a sister publication to the Washinton Times. I received a free issue over the weekend and read almost every article. It included articles on the U.S., the conflict in the Middle East, the foreign policy of Hugo Chavez, migration globalization, etc.
I have stepped up my Spanish study in the last few weeks, spending some time on Tuesdays and Thursdays with building my vocab and pronunciation. This paper is going to become part of that routine.
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Last week a number of missionaries and national pastors received an anonymous letter with a number of accusations against the pastor in our church here in Colombia. As discouraging as that fact may be, God has turned the sin of one person into blessings for the church.
As we sat down to evaluate our response to this letter, we were impressed by how trials like this can be used for good. The honest fact is that the church has not really functioned like a Baptist church in a number of ways. This letter really brought this clearly to light. We haven´t really had a well-defined membership and the congregation hasn´t been fully involved in some decisions that were made in the past.
When we follow the precepts laid out by the Word of God for church polity, we see less tension, more unity, and difficulties can bring us together. For example, how do we make decisions as a church? If the congregation has weighed in on every major decision and has voted on each one, they will be behind the ministry more. I think of Acts 6, where a controversy arose over the caring for widows. A controversy? In the early church? Yes, and God used it so that the church grew, precisely because the problem was handled biblically with the help of the whole congregation.
This type of controversy can become a vicious cycle. Each person begins to focus on the negative side of the problem, instead of seeing how God can use it to polish us and mold us into the image of his Son. For this reason, open communication is so vital in the local church. We´ve learned that it´s better to openly communicate with the congregation when something may appear doubtful. We´ve also learned that being in the minstry means constantly learning and constantly growing.
I just updated my post on language learning resources and strategies (Language Tools) with two more. So here are number 9 and 10.
9) www.wordreference.com. This website is fabulous for language help. The site has a ton of people who speak various languages and post questions and answers about them. Usually someone answers my question within ten minutes, not to mention that the database has thousands of the most common questions that you´ll run into. You can add a toolbar to Firefox for the site as well.
10) Prayer. Several days per week I pray in Spanish during my devotional time instead of in English. I always have a dictionary on hand because I like to talk to God with the right words. I think that I´ve picked up more vocabulary this way than almost any other.
Just a quick link for you teachers out there. This article is fascinating and makes me wonder how I could use the Socratic method in teaching the Bible.
The Socratic Method
I´ve been really busy lately, but just wanted to share a couple of thoughts. First, praise God that a young woman (Liliana) made a profession of faith after last Sunday´s service. It´s interesting that I have been reading a book (The Deliberate Church) that showed me a lack in my pulpit ministry. The author uses various passages (Luke 24:27; 1 Cor. 2:1-5) to argue that we should always present the main point of a passage but should also share the gospel and its implications every time we preach. I was convicted and made a special point of that on Sunday, and God blessed!
On another note, I´ve started blogging a commentary on 2 Timothy in Spanish. I figure that I should be part of the solution for the lack of good materials on the Internet in Spanish. When I´m done with the commentary, I´ll order the posts in the order of the book. You can see my intent at Blogging 2 Timoteo.
Interestingly enough, the amount of green space in Bogota has been a debated issue. In the north of the city, there is plenty of green space, but in the south there aren´t as many parks or green areas.
Just a quick post to plug the book that we are using for discipleship in Chia. As a Sunday school class we have been going through it, and I also have been leading a discipleship with Javier from our church, and I'm also in the study with Pastor Jose. In other words, I have had some good contact with this book.
The most exciting day was yesterday as Javier and I studied lesson 4, which deals with the "way of man" in contrast with the "way of God." The lesson has a wonderful chart contrasting different ways of dealing with personal problems (Freudian approach, behaviorist approach, New Age approach, spiritist approach, and a biblical approach). The lights came on for Javier as we studied this chapter. "You mean I don't have to worry about the curses from my grandparents... You mean when I focus on my self-esteem that's actually sin?" He left with several burdens lifted from his shoulders because of a faulty understanding of Christian growth.
I would encourage you to check out this book in English. I can only vouch for the Spanish version, but I'm sure they're the same. If you want to grow spiritually, grab some discipline and get ready to grow!
Self-confrontation: a Manual for In-depth Discipleship.
I don´t know why, but I continue to be fascinated by technology. Now, what does technology have to do with missionary work? I would say a lot. For one thing, we can reach many with technology. I just finished reading a bit of a blog by a missionary here in Colombia, and he mentioned that he had 13 students in class and over 600 outside of class who access his website of resources in Spanish (Recursos Teologicos).
At least one pastor here in Bogota has asked me about good theological resources in Spanish online. It remains a great need. In English I can recommend many sites, but in Spanish only a handful. For what it's worth I offer the beginning of my work towards putting many resources together. At this point my work is only on my del.icio.us page, but I would like to convert that into a full-blown website in the future.
On a similar note, I've recently started using Google Notebook, which is a handy way to save all of your links, research online, etc. I'm still pondering the ways these technologies can be used in my ministry. At the very least, I'm not losing a lot of good links that I run across on a regular basis.
What tools have become invaluable to me as a language learner of Spanish? I post this in order to give you an idea about the process, and perhaps you may be a language learner who could glean some ideas from my experience, especially if you're learning Spanish. Here are a list of activities, books, etc. that have become invaluable for me:
1) A high school level dictionary in Spanish. This may sound basic, but it's much better to rely primarily on a Spanish-only dictionary, instead of an English-Spanish one. You learn to think in context, not to mention that you are exposed to new words in the definitions, forcing you to learn new words.
2) A book of synonyms and antonyms. This is an invaluable tool for sermon and lesson prep. In Spanish we have a common weakness which is called "cosismo" (Spanish word "cosa" means "thing"). Instead of describing what I'm talking about in precise or varying terms, it's easy to fall back on words like "thing." This book helps me expand my vocab and use more colorful words.
3) Diccionario Panhispanico de Dudas de la RAE. This is the dictionary of "doubts" put out by the authority on Spanish, the Royal Academy of Spanish in Spain. This book is gold. It answers common doubts that native speakers have about their language, or errors that are commonly thought correct. For me, it helps tremendously with prepositions and verbs. For example, in English the word "look" can have different meanings with different prepositions (look for, look out for, etc.). It's similar in Spanish, and I often don't know which preposition goes with which verb.
4) A Bible that has four versions in parallel on the page. Again, this is a necessity for me because the Reina Valera version that we normally preach from often uses more difficult words or constructions. It also helps to be able to put a text in more common language, since that's half of the work in preaching and teaching.
5) A Bible that was translated in Bogota. This Bible helps me know for sure how I could say something in this city and be understood.
6) Tongue twisters. One of my profs in Costa Rica gave me about five pages of tongue twisters. I've been finding that pronunciation is one of my biggest problems in Spanish. My tongue just doesn't want to obey me with some words, so I've been "working out" with these tongue twisters for a week (5 min. per day) and have noticed a difference.
7) A chart with the 11 most common irregular verbs in Spanish. I practice with this chart to the point of being able to say the conjugations at break-neck speed without errors. Why? These verbs are your bread and butter in Spanish. If you're making mistakes on the verb "to be" you're sunk. It has to be overlearned to the point where you never make a mistake on these verbs.
8) The Internet. This is surely a breakthrough in language study. Ideally we would have a native speaker who could answer every question on usage, but that isn't always practical. So, if I don't know exactly how a phrase goes, I plug it into Google with quotes. If it comes up 258,918 times, I can be pretty sure it's valid Spanish. I can even do a search only in Colombia to see if it's used here. But if it returns 7 hits, I will probably think it's just a few gringos who don't know how the phrase should be.
9) www.wordreference.com. This website is fabulous for language help. The site has a ton of people who speak various languages and post questions and answers about them. Usually someone answers my question within ten minutes, not to mention that the database has thousands of the most common questions that you´ll run into. You can add a toolbar to Firefox for the site as well.
10) Prayer. Several days per week I pray in Spanish during my devotional time instead of in English. I always have a dictionary on hand because I like to talk to God with the right words. I think that I´ve picked up more vocabulary this way than almost any other.
Well, these are the tools that I've found myself relying on. Obviously, mastering a language is not a short-term process, but good tools definitely help.
I was talking with one of our Colombian pastors last week, and he said something interesting: "In the ministry the problems are generally the same." How true. I've been noticing the same thing in the ministry in Chia.
What's the basic problem of your average Christian? A self-centered life as opposed to a Christ-centered live. For example, how do we solve problems in our household? Well, if we are self-centered we'll do it according to what seems right to us. We may explode, we may avoid the problem, or we may try get back at our family member so that "they see how it feels." I've found that many Christians haven't learned how to ask for forgiveness. But this is a prime case of giving Satan a foothold in our family.
Of course we see different variations of the same-old problems. I've had to scratch my head a few times lately. I had someone storm out of the class I was teaching in a different church for the following very good reason . . . a difference of opinion over Spanish grammar. This person then refused to talk to anyone from the church. You really can't do anything except pray for such a person.