The man, the myth, the legend

As he got out of the car he kinda looked like a Buddy, short stocky guy, probably a little older than me, with a friendly smile. He’s from Ohio and moved over here about three years ago. Recently he got married to a Namibian named Julia. They are very loosely associated with Christ’s Hope International and focus mostly on discipling believers. He leads a Bible study at Okahandja Secondary School on Monday and Wednesday afternoons, another on Wednesday nights, and one on Thursdays at the woodcarvers market. Friday nights they have a coffee bar where they sometimes get up to 150 kids. They just come hang out, play games, listen to music, because there’s nothing else to do on the weekends but go to the shabeens (basically house bars). He told me that’s easily where I’ll make the most relationships with kids.

During the Bible Studies at the school he’s working through a book called Firm Foundations. Joan let me borrow her copy so I could familiarize myself with what they’re studying before I jump in. I’m loving the material already. It’s basically a 50 lesson evangelistic study guide starting with creation going all the way through the death and resurrection and promised return of Christ. The guy who wrote it, Trevor McIlwain, was a missionary in Papua New Guinea who came to realize that the Christians in the churches didn’t really know what the gospel meant but just followed along because that’s what the missionaries wanted. They would go to church and close their eyes when they prayed and didn’t get drunk and they trusted in all those things for God’s acceptance. (Sound familiar?) So he started at the very beginning and traced the historical message of the gospel through the whole Bible. Basically he started preaching the gospel in Genesis rather than in Romans 3:23 where we usually start. He taught that salvation is by grace through faith alone. Praying a prayer, responding to an invitation, even our tag phrase “accepting Jesus into your heart” (which isn’t found in the Bible) is not the gospel. The gospel is trusting in Christ alone and His work of salvation. He used the Old Testament stories of how God interacted with His people to explain how we’re sinners before God and how sin was punishable by death, but how He is merciful and provides a sacrifice for sin. With the historical foundation of the gospel found in the Old Testament he found great success bringing people to Christ, not just to church.

So I must say, I’m looking forward to getting out to some of these Bible studies and checking out their church on Sunday. Buddy was quite excited to hear that I play guitar and was a worship leader at Christ’s Church. Apparently that’s been quite lacking at their church for some time now. First Bible study tomorrow night; I’ll let you know how it goes.