This way of presenting the Gospel is familiar to us and seems to be very much our way.  I am a Quechua, and it makes me think about who we Quechuas are spiritually.  The Gospel is freedom for us, and in order to explain it well, it is necessary to use our way of speaking.  EE for us indigenous people helps us to do this.

 -- Indigenous Pastor

 

I am finding the Quechua EE to be very much more contextualized [than other forms of training], and I'm finding that it is helping the Quechuas to really understand the nature of the gospel at a deeper, more biblical level.

 -- Missionary (who grew up in the Quechua area) 

 I have taken many courses, but this is the first time that I can really understand the material.

 -- Indigenous Layperson  (After receiving training in EE for Indigenous People Groups, this person trained others who trained still others, eventually training 30 pastors and leaders from various churches in their area in addition to lay people.)

 

I used to criticize new believers and be very hard on them instead of encouraging and helping them.  However, God has used the EE training to change my heart and understanding so that now I am strengthening others by discipling them.  It has been a great blessing to learn the Bible stories in our mother tongue which was created by God, and now I am telling others these stories.

 -- Indigenous Pastor and Denominational Leader

One of the benefits of this training is that now I can better help my husband in his ministry.  It has also given me a clearer vision for the harvest fields that the Lord is calling us to.

 -- Indigenous Pastor's Wife

I took the other kind of EE training, and it was difficult for me, but this new kind of EE training [using Bible storying] is easier for me and others to understand, and is more meaningful to us.

 -- Indigenous Missionary

In this EE [Bible storying and adaptation] training, I learned both theory and practice.  It was about 80% practice and enabled me to see things I had been doing wrong and how I could do better.  It helped me to see my responsibility to care for new believers.  It made good sense and is very natural.

 -- Indigenous Pastor

Our fellow Asian missionaries serve in the most difficult environments, and we all agree that the contextualized version of EE is the most effective precision harvest tool that we have found.

 -- Cross-cultural Missionary

After my training, I began to disciple two teams of two people. Each week we go out for practical training to visit our contacts, and in almost every visit, someone puts their faith in Christ.  The new believers are joining the church, and the rest of the church is rejoicing to see this growth.  So, I would like to thank you for coming to teach us.

 -- Indigenous pastor

It has always been hard for me to start conversations.  However, God has used the EE training to give me a new freedom and ease in talking with others about the Lord Jesus. The training was practical, it helped me to be prepared like I should be, and it prompted me to depend in a fresh way on the Lord and His grace to order the circumstances of life for special opportunities to share Christ with others.  EE is about trusting in God’s faithfulness and power, so it encourages me to set my eyes on the Lord and not on yourself as I talk with others about the Lord.

 -- Cross-cultural missionary

We are putting into practice what we learned in the EE workshop, and as a result people are coming to the Lord and believers who had previously fallen away are coming back.

 -- Indigenous Pastor

 

Those who hear the [storying] presentation are telling me, "That's true! What you are saying is true!" and "Now we understand why the world is in a mess)," and "Now we know that God died for us because we're sinners."  Storying works better for my people because it is the way they learn.  Complete stories are more believable to them than a series of points that seem more like hearsay because they don't seem to have a single context.  Even illiterates are able to learn the stories.

 -- Indigenous Missionary

I have attended church for a long time. I have read the Bible, even in my own language, but I never been sure that when I die, I will go to live with our Father God forever. Now I am sure. I will go because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross and in the resurrection. None of my neighbors have that assurance. When I get home, I want to tell them how they can go to live with our Father God, too.

 -- Indigenous man.

I have been involved in evangelizing my people, but now my thoughts are so much more organized. I will be able to explain more clearly to people.

 -- Indigenous woman.

You have trained us to use our own way of communicating [---conversations, stories---] as a way to share the Good News with our people. This will fit easily into my visits with people."

 -- Indigenous Pastor.

This is a great way to get our people into God's Word.

 -- Indigenous man. 

Many of our people feel that they are not sinners and don't need God. When we tell them the story from the beginning [Gen. 1-3] as we learned here, they will see that like as our ancestors, we too are separated from God because of disobedience. We all need to get right with Him. Then when we tell them about Jesus Christ, they will understand that they need to trust in Him.

 -- Indigenous man.

Having longer OJTs gave us better contact with people--- more time to spend with them, less hurried Gospel conversations, the trainees were more focused, and we were able to get to the places we really needed to go to most.

 -- Pastor and EE teacher-trainer

 

I came to see if EE had a relevant strategy.  I'm glad to discover that you study culture to develop an evangelistic strategy that addresses cultural issues of the Gospel presentation.  Glad to to see you are experimenting with storying.

 -- Missionary and EE teacher-trainer for non-western indigenous people groups in Asia and Latin America 

 

The advantage of EE Bible Storying is that people understand it easier and the narratives stick in their minds.  There are people who don't know how to read and the only means they have for learning is oral, so this system has great advantage for them.  And for those who are going to present the Good News, if they practice well, this will enable him to do a more effective presentation of the Gospel.

 -- Indigenous Pastor 

The memory work was a challenge for me, but turned out better than I expected.

 -- Bible Institute student

The use of Bible stories made it easy to evangelize.

 -- Bible Institute student

I observed that the people we shared the Gospel with really identified with the Bible stories.

 -- Bible Institute student

The people listened to us with great attention,  I think it was because they were already familiar with the Bible stories and so they realized that we were not lying.  

 -- Bible Institute student

It seemed to me that the people already knew the Bible stories, especially the one about Creation.  However, telling the stories facilitated sharing the Gospel because of the way in which we had learned to tell them.

 -- Bible Institute student

This new [storying] material is a winner.  The students were much more attentive.

 -- Bible Institute student

The benefit of the last workshop has been incalculable.  The students are putting into practice in their own places of ministry what what they learned during the week of training.  In the three months following the training, one reported that he had already trained six others, and another student had trained four.  Some are working across the international border and of course others are working closer by.  One of the trainees is a cross-cultural missionary who is working in two major indigenous groups.

 -- EE for People Groups Teacher-Trainer

I love the EE storying approach!

 -- Kids' EE teacher

The [cross-cultural orientation] seminar was great because it helped us to realize the need for cultural adjustments.

 -- Hispanic EE teacher-trainer

This is good to emphasize reaching entire extended family [like you do in EE People Groups] and perhaps even the entire clan coming to faith in Christ because if you push individualism you lose the individual and the family as a whole as well.

 -- Asian Pastor and EE teacher-trainer

The procedure for including translation checking is right on.

 -- Missionary Pastor and EE teacher-trainer

Thanks for the seminar that helps short term mission teams to use more appropriate training strategies, and to have proper expectations and follow-up for relationships.

 -- US Pastor

Thanks for the seminar.  It helped us realize ways in which we Asians become so Americanized we no longer relate to Asian ways of doing things because our values change.

 -- Asian Pastor in USA

The seminar was good because it helped us to distinguish the cultural needs of some groups compared with others.

 -- Asian Youth Pastor in USA 

 

We are a national mission that requires everyone on our team to be trained in chronological Bible storying and contextualized EE.  We use these two tools in conjunction with many kinds of  projects that allow us to demonstrate our love – the love of God – to the people.  And the Lord has been blessing us with much fruit, even among the least-reached and in very difficult social environments.

 -- Mission Director