Ways to guide an evangelism study

This past summer our team put together a short video to illustrate various ways you could guide others through an evangelism and discipleship study using GoodSeed resources. We wanted to show how simple it can be and to encourage people–who may think it wasn’t something they could do–to use these resources .

It took quite a team to pull this together, with some writing the script and storyboard, finding and coordinating the many volunteers to appear in the video, filming and directing, and post production with recording the narration, music and animations.

Please take a couple minutes to watch this video, and share it with your friends and your church!

Production of this video also included a trip to skateboard and hardware stores. We needed a way to move the camera smoothly, so with some YouTube help, we created a DIY camera dolly with PVC pipe, some MDF boards, aluminum angles and skateboard wheels. The rig worked pretty good! Almost every shot in the video features the camera riding on this rig, sometimes with me standing on it to operate the camera and someone pushing me along.

After building this dolly, we had some fun around the office testing it out. Watch it!

Naomi and I work in an office in small-town Alberta. We directly interact with only a few hundred people regularly. We often do work that can seem mundane: proofreading, writing, photography, shooting video and editing, 3D-modelling of books, meetings, and helping keep computer systems going. Not real exciting when you take your eyes off the big picture.

However, there is a much bigger picture and we consider ourselves privileged to play a part. We think of ourselves as multipliers.

In police and military training, they talk about using tools as force multipliers.

Force multiplier: A capability that, when added to and employed by a combat force, significantly increases the combat potential of that force and thus enhances the probability of successful mission accomplishment.

I guess you could consider GoodSeed tools as force multipliers. Work done here is multiplied over and over again, helping those in the trenches become more effective and successful in their ministries.

Let me explain.

One training session we do overseas better equips dozens of locals to be more effective in their outreach. We help multiply their efforts.

One book written here in Alberta is translated and made available in numerous languages. The book becomes a vital tool in the ministries of thousands (sometimes hundreds of thousands!) of lay people, pastors and missionaries around the world.

The videos Troy works on are uploaded to the internet and can be seen by thousands around the world. Sometimes we’re able to add subtitles so they can be viewed in other languages. Naomi’s proofreading and writing can be read by many thousands of people and translated for use overseas.

It takes a great deal of work to get a video, book or even a simple article ready for public consumption. And for our translation department, when we produce a new tool, their work has only begun. They must carefully consider which tools to translate into which languages, balanced with the limitations of time, money and expertise we have available. It’s a lot of work, but boy is it worth it!

While our contributions may seem small at times, when we strive towards this goal with you as our partners in ministry and with our coworkers, together we can work as force multipliers for the sake of the Gospel.

Troy was recently reviewing the books we have available in various languages and decided to compile them into a few images. It was incredibly encouraging to be reminded of all the languages and worldviews we’re now able to reach into. We hope you’re encouraged as well!

The first image shows translations that are either in print or very near completion of our main tools written for the Eastern or atheistic worldview, a Christianized worldview, or an Islamic worldview:

Because Troy is naturally quite curious, he looked up the number of native speakers for each of these languages (according to Wikipedia).

English: 400 million
Portuguese: 220 million
Chechen: 1.4 million
Turkish: 80 million
French: 80 million
Romanian: 24 million
Chinese: 1.2 billion
Spanish: 470 million
Lithuanian: 3 million
Thai: 20 million
Albanian: 5.4 million
German: 95 million
Farsi: 60 million
Korean: 80 million
Arabic: 290 million
Dutch: 22 million
Russian: 150 million
Mongolian: 5.2 million
Hebrew: 4.4 million

That’s around 3,210,400,000 people who could find one of these books in their native language.

The image above shows GoodSeed’s children’s book, The Lamb. It has also been translated into the following languages (with language populations in parentheses):
Lamb black covers: Chinese, English, French, Luxembourgish (390,000), Portuguese, Spanish
Lamb brown covers (left to right, top to bottom): Amharic (25.8 million), Balkar (310,000), Chechen, Czech (10.6 million), English, Faroese (66,000), French, German, Italian (85 million), Kabardin (1.6 million), Russian, Ukranian (30 million).

This adds another 153,366,000 people who have GoodSeed evangelism resources in their native language.

The booklets below are now some of the first to be translated into a new language.

What Are Christmas and Easter All About?
Laos (25 million), Chichewa (12 million), Chinese, English, French

The Story that Matters
English, English with KJV, French, Hungarian (13 million), Lingala (5.5 million)

Again, this adds another 55,500,000 people to that list.

Obviously, GoodSeed does not have 3.42 billion books in print, but we are encouraged with the vast potential and worldwide reach we as a team can have, even if our part is in small town Alberta. Please join us in thanking the Lord for the work done, and that he will continue to multiply our efforts as we partner together!

Stay Connected!

Keep up to date with us here on our blog: www.troyandnaomi.com or on Facebook: www.facebook.com/gstroynaomi

To find out more about supporting our ministry with GoodSeed, please visit: http://www.oneinsixty.com/

Evangelism Training

The last few weeks have been extremely busy around the GoodSeed office with several major consecutive events and other projects. Finally, I have a bit of a breather to tell you about some of what has been going on.

GoodSeed Canada recently hosted a three day evangelistic training seminar using our book “By this Name“. We had around 30 people attend our TERM Seminar where we show them how they can use “By this Name” and other GoodSeed evangelism resources to share the gospel with others. Our whole team was very busy in many aspects of hosting such an event, from teaching to food prep, janitorial, book orders, and more.

Ellie’s school was on break that week and she sat in the whole course with her mom! What a blessing for me to be able to participate in the teaching with my daughter in the audience.

Feedback from the seminar

At the end of the seminar, participants are asked a few questions to help us gauge their understanding of the Gospel. This is always exciting for us to look through. One person in particular was invited to attend by a friend who suspected he was not a believer. In response to the question, “In what way has this study been beneficial to you?” he answered:
“This has made me understand that Jesus died for me. I accept Jesus as my personal Saviour.”

Some of the other responses:

“This has refreshed for me that sharing the gospel must be done clearly to ensure a person believes in Christ’s work on the cross to give them his righteousness.”

“Shown me how I can present the Gospel message clearly from creation to the Cross in a culture that is very confused and believes there are many ways.”

“The way the whole story is presented is so logical and plain!”

“I have learned a new way to present the truth. I’ve always been searching to overcome the obstacles of rejection when I get stuck.”

“The TERM Seminar has confirmed for me my desire and commitment to disciple others with GoodSeed resources.”

“It has put the plan of salvation into a logical, fairly easy framework.”

“It gave me a real clear picture from the beginning to the end and just reassured me of everything I knew. It just really helped me get a good grasp of everything again and just to be sure of everything in the Bible. Thank you.”

“A wonderful review of the Christology of the Bible. And a wonderful, clear, precise way to lead a friend or a group into an understanding of God’s love for them and His desire to become their substitute, their Saviour.”

“I feel much more confident in my ability to explain the Bible and share the Gospel with others I meet.”