Thursday, September 13, 2012

Effectively Communicating the Gospel

“Hiok a yid dayid da yideownin henoti oit oit ak” my professor shouts at the top of his lungs from the front of the class room, imitating a call to a village meeting among the Bisorio people in Papua New Guinea. While we have only had class for a few days at this point, at this moment I realized that I am going to learn a lot in my time of training, and I need to learn a lot in my time of training in order to plant a church among an unreached tribal group.

The major emphasis throughout all the courses up to this point has been how to be an effective communicator of the Gospel.  While effectively communicating the gospel in America may not be too difficult, I need to realize that someday I will be in a tribe like the Bisorio and then being an effective communicator of the Gospel becomes much more difficult.

To help in the task of effectively communicating the gospel, I will be taking 13 classes which range from 3-72 hours of class time this semester. So far my favorite classes are Worldview Analysis, where we are learning how to discover why people think and act the way that they do, and Foundational Bible Teaching, where we are learning the importance of presenting the gospel message only after a solid foundation from the word of God has been laid. Starting next week we students will begin preparing and teaching lessons ourselves.

This year is going to be a year of learning for me, both in the classroom and outside of the classroom as I train for ministry. Thank you for partnering with me while I am in training. I could not be here without your support.

In Christ:

Dan Thannum

Sunday, September 2, 2012

The Beginning

You found me! This will be my blog site throughout my career with New Tribes Mission. I will be updating this site occasionally with what is going on in my life and ministry, hopefully around once or twice a month.  I hope that this blog will give you a window into my life and what God is doing through me to reach a tribe without the Gospel. I hope to see you back here soon.