UNLOCKING THE WORD

by Mark Detzler

The evangelist is often faced with a major dilemma: the follow-up and discipling of his converts!

An evangelist who takes this responsibility seriously will often find that he is planting a new church and rapidly becoming a pastor. The obvious solution to this dilemma is for the evangelist to work in conjunction with the local church, so encouraging local Christians to bring the new believers to maturity. However, taking spiritual babies and guiding them until they are at a point where they can feed themselves daily on the Word, and live lives that are guided, directed and empowered by the Holy Spirit is a long job.

In Italy, one good tool that we have found to disciple new Christians is the Inductive Bible Study Method. In this system, through a process of observation, interpretation and application, students learn to study the Word for themselves and apply it to their own lives. In Italy, we have been trained in the Inductive Method by representatives of the Precept upon Precept Ministry, who have been visiting us and translating their materials into Italian.

By necessity, evangelists in Southern Europe tend to become involved in church planting. As we have trained people in this method, we have found that they are very quickly able to reproduce these Biblical principles in the lives of others, thus getting new believers into the Word,

Mark has been very busy with Italy for Christ over the last few months. At the crusade in Florence, the Abbot of a local monastery denounced the crusade in an influencial newspaper, but God spoke to him and he eventually asked the team for forgiveness!

From September Mark will be spending more time on evangelism, teaching and discipleship in this local church in Rome. His wife Cathy's ministry among women continues to develop in Castelli, a suburb of the Italian capital.