Preparing for the Trip

31

December, 2018

A ministry project as big as this one requires several planning meetings. We’ve had five or six meetings so far, with more to come.

Steve leads the meetings, delegating various items on the agenda to different people. Since we are planning to lead a church for four months, the planning of worship services has been a major topic of conversation. 

Sam and Samson, our two RTI students, are at the center of this project. They have primary responsibility: preaching, worship leading, and working with church members and attenders. So we’ve spent a lot of time planning our preaching themes, assigning dates, Bible passages, and preachers.

Even though this is an ex-pat church conducted in English, it is immersed in the Arab culture. In that culture it is not appropriate for women to be in leadership, so Cindy and Karen are exempted from preaching. The men will share that responsibility.

Since this is a field work assignment for Sam and Samson (they get college credit for it) they will have preaching duties for most weeks.

Dave Hayden and I will each have one week in the pulpit, and Steve will take the first two weeks at the start of the mission.

We’re starting by preaching through the book of John – not every chapter, but we have selected stories and passages that we think will be meaningful to the people in that church. During Easter week, we’ll preach on Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection. After Easter, we’ll switch to Ephesians, talking about who we are in Christ, and how we are called to live.

Cindy Hayden

Photograph by Dave Hayden

Cindy has been collecting English language teaching material that she and Karen can use to conduct classes for those who wish to learn more English.

Karen has been working on housekeeping details, planning for the details of the things that will need to be done in our apartment such as cooking and cleaning. Everybody gets to take a turn!