Month: January 2014

Old Spanish Catholic church becomes a training center for tentmakers

/ Ari Rocklin

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The second annual tentmaking course in Spain will be taking place 5-9 February this year. The venue is an old Spanish Catholic church in a farmers field way off the beaten path and from the city. The venue is ideally located for active tentmakers serving in the region, Southern Europe and for those in northern climates needing a sunny, warmer break in mid winter. Food and accommodation is at the venue allowing for great interaction at meal times and in the evenings. If the wind is from the right direction, you may even get to enjoy the pungent aroma of farm life.

Here are comments from last years course at this location

B. Nigeria:

I am a missionary and taking this course has opened up so many new and better ways to be a missionary. The simple processes represented are making sure I can follow through on the teaching. Having taken this course in Florida, I must say this course provided even more. Thank you for creating such a humble environment.

Serving in NA:

Thank you for bringing in your personal experiences as it is easy to adapt. The teaching on hospitality has been an eye opening experience. Not to stress out about it. I feel so encouraged as I go back.

R:

Appreciate you all very much for letting us be a part of your family. Take away: Incredible ministry of tentmaking! I have not viewed it seriously until now. I am overwhelmed at the reality of what we will be facing in developing tentmaking for our organization. Enjoyed the good humour. T. and his wife were pure gold. Sharing their hearts and disappointments.

L:

As a teacher of missionaries, you still taught us something new at every session.

B:

Impacted by practical advice and wove it into each presentation. I could not fall asleep at night as I was challenged with what I need to do better. I am ready to ask God for bigger things, so I can empower others as tentmakers. Lord, give me a bigger vision!

W:

Your teaching is light years ahead since I took this course in 2007. Thank you for improving on what was already an impacting course.

S – Forestry engineer:

Thank you for this course. I did not know my purpose for coming to Spain, although I knew God was calling me here. Then I found out about this course while here and it has become evident that this is what God had planned for me. I am now praying for clear guidance of exactly where God is sending me, as the jobs are plentiful in my profession.

M & A:

You practice what you preach as role models, with wisdom and you support us, Waiting for God’s leading. Getting retrained has been vital in our journey now that is is nearer to becoming reality.

A praying woman’s vision for Africa

/ Ari Rocklin

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The All Africa TI Tentmakers Congress brought together people from many African nations. Some traveled for days, by air, road, bus and sometimes walking great distances. 

We heard encouraging if not surprising reports of how tentmakers trained in Africa have gone to neighbouring countries and beyond, bringing the Gospel with them while looking for work or starting small businesses.

What is a small business?

How about a shoe shine stand or a crate full of Coke, mobile phone service or vegetable stand. God’s merchants in the marketplace.

What is different about this kind of mission?

No foreign money, no expectation of remuneration or assistance from the so called “West”. Could this be the start of a new wave of missions not dependent on the western church?

I see the church of Africa taking a leadership role for world evangelism, and proclaiming a simple but not watered down version of the Gospel. It is my personal hope to see African style worship coming to the west, and perhaps calling it “Africa Song”.

Why would this work?

A story was told of a shoe shine man, in front of a very large church building, shining the shoes of business people. As he started building his clientele and building relationships while serving them, the conversation always led to Jesus. One businessman asked, what is different about your religion compared to the large church behind me? The shoe shine man responded, I have come here from another country to work for a living and share the message of Jesus while working. You see Apostle Paul integrated his work and faith by making tents, I am only following in his footsteps but as a shoeshine man.

In a matter of months the shoe shine man had started a bible study in a nearby park with people who had never considered attending the large church.

Back to the congress.

At the rear of the main meeting room hung some paintings. The story behind one of them was told to me through an interpreter. An elderly woman had been praying for the congress for a long time and during those prayers she had seen a vision. It was so powerful that she thought it should become a panting. Not being an artist herself, she went to a local painter who then proceeded to paint her vision from her words and instructions.

The vision is of a woman symbolized as Africa, who is in distress, without hope for the future. On the right hand are two African tentmaker wheat merchants heading her way with the hope of the Gospel. She saw hundreds of these tentmakers from Africa going across Africa spreading the good news of Jesus as a result of this congress and the work of the All Africa Tentmaking Movement.

It is the conviction of this editor that Africa will train and send more tentmakers who will disciple more new believers and plant more house churches than any other continent in the next decade!

Underground to above ground church

/ Ari Rocklin

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The news reports from a country torn by civil war, where safety for locals and foreigners is getting increasingly challenging, focuses on the instability and mayhem. A viewer safely away in the comfortable peaceful west could not be blamed for thinking, where is God in all this?

While these images flash across large high definition TV screens, there is a greater story going on behind the scenes of destruction. Only a few blocks behind the latest bombing event, is a small but growing church of locals, all recent converts.

A year earlier a tentmaker had arrived to this area to work as a “construction” worker. At work he had been challenged by locals who were adamant in converting him to their majority religion faith.

Over time the tentmaker earned their trust through good humor, good questions, time spent together at meals and his ever present joy in work. One by one his co-workers heard about Jesus. Some claimed having seen a man in white in their dreams with out stretched hands beckoning them to come. Then the miracles started, as his co-workers started sharing in secret that they had accepted Jesus into their lives and had earnestly begun to read their Bibles.

They were impacted by the knowledge of a sure salvation, the character of Jesus who did not retaliate and in the Bible which made sense while being logical and reasonable. They fell in love with a God who loved everyone including their enemies and being able to have a relationship with him.

They started meeting with the tentmaker in homes and cafes, studying the Bible and watching videos.

Soon the group grew too big to continue meeting in homes and emboldened by the rapid changes in their country, they rented a location where they could meet in the open.

Then the police came to the tentmaker’s home. Politely but firmly they told him to stay away from the group as his presence there was jeopardizing everyone’s safety. If he promised to stay away, the police assured him that the group and their meetings would be protected.

It was with tremendous sadness that the tentmaker agreed to these terms even though it meant he could not continue to meet with his spiritual children that were so precious to him.

Not long after, the tentmaker had to leave the country for unrelated reasons. But the church continues to meet and grow in increasingly threatening conditions.

The lesson for us reading this is that God is not lost in the clouds, His Kingdom is growing when all we see is death and destruction. Pray for the persecuted church and the tens of thousands of people coming to Christ.