Month: November 2009

Will the US keep up with the rest of the world?

/ Steinar Opheim

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A focused group of 10 students showed up when Global Opportunities re-launched the organization’s tentmaking course in Pasadena in October. Nevertheless, the US can be left behind as the worldwide tentmaking train is gaining speed and bringing the gospel to the ends of the earth.

The US has been a driving force in the worldwide mission movement. In the same way, Global Opportunities has beena pioneer in developing modern tentmaking. Hundreds of overseas workplace witnesses have received their training through GO’s courses. But nine years into the new millennium, the American tentmaking train has to gain new speed if the US wants to maintain a leading role in what is happening.

In collaboration with its European partner, Tent, GO is now running annual tentmaking courses on three continents.  The training that has been developed by the GO-Tent alliance is also used in other countries. On the African continent it is estimated that 1000 professionals will take the course in 2009. The courses in the US are outnumbered by similar events in Canada, Mali, Norway and Uganda. One thing that is admirable with Americans is their competitive attitude. Americans want to be world leaders and in many areas they are. Hopefully the same attitude can bring the US back as one of the major locomotives in the worldwide movement of tentmakers. The next chance for Americans to jump on the train and get the basic training is the GO Equipped TENTmaking course in Fort Myers, Florida in February of next year.

Nike won the world as a leading manufacturer for sports shoes and clothing. If you want to contribute in winning the world for Jesus as an international workplace witness, the course in Florida is a good starting point. Why not follow Nike’s slogan, book your tickets to Florida immediately and “Just do it”? You can register for the course here.

   Steinar Opheim
   Director
   TENT Norway

“Christians are better than other people”

/ Steinar Opheim

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After three years of hard work and Bible teaching, a tentmaker serving in Asia was speaking at a house church meeting. – It is true that Christians are better than other people, isn’t it? the tentmaker asked.

The tentmaker was surprised to see people in the congregation starting to nod their heads in agreement. After a few clarifying questions, he realized that what he had tried to teach people throughout the last years had been in vain. The believers in this mid-sized Central Asian city really believed that they were morally superior to others in the society.

“If I could have done it over again and retrained the believers, I would have done things in a very different way,” the tentmaker stated a few years after finishing his job in the former Soviet republic. With a lack of knowledge on how to train disciples, the tentmaker focused on Bible teaching and systematic theology.

“For all Christians it is valuable to have a profound knowledge of the Bible, but I understood too late that many of the people I taught did not apply the Biblical message to their own lives. As a result, their lives were not changed,” states the tentmaker.

What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus Christ in my life, at my workplace and in my neighborhood? This is one of the most central questions when it comes to discipleship training. Unfortunately the Biblical message remains head knowledge for many of us, and thus our lives are not changed according to the Scripture. Theological issues, and not the transformation of lives, also remain the focus in many churches.

Jesus called us to make disciples of all nations. In the four Gospels we read how he trained his disciples, concentrating on the few people he knew would be able to teach others. And he focused much of his teaching on everyday challenges and principles in the Kingdom of God.

There is no doubt that a tentmaker can be a good disciple-maker. A tentmaker works and lives under the same conditions as the people he or she has come to train. In this way a tentmaker, like Paul, the tentmaker from Tarsus, can model what it means to follow Jesus in everyday life. 

It is said that when we we aim at nothing, we hit it every time. If we don’t know what the aim of our discipleship training is, we will probably fail. Dawson Trotman, the founder of Navigators, has given us the following guideline that can be of help: “A person is mature physiologically when he or she can reproduce physically; so too, a person is mature spiritually when he or she can reproduce spiritually.”