Wednesday, May 20, 2009

June Seminary Fast Approaching


Over 50 students and pastors will gather June 22-26 at the Seminario Wesleyano de Venezuela in LaPiedad, Lara to learn from one of the leading authorities on Evangelism in the United Methodist Church in the US. He is none other than our own Dean of Students, Dan Dunn.

For years Dan has been a practicioner of effective evangelistic ministry, a student of the art of evangelism and a regular teacher of evangelism. His love for the sugject has resulted in the completion of 3 years of academic study leading to a PhD. in Evangelism. He has completed the classes and is now turning his attention to the dissertation.

Dan Dunn will help the students develop an in-depth Biblical perspective on The Theology of Evangelism. They will focus on learning how to make direct connections between Biblical insights and the daily life of witness that all Christians are called to.

For example, the Bible portrays God the Father as compassionate and proactive in His attempts to reach out to lost people and restore/reconcile them to Himself. Christians, therefore, must be proactive and compassionate as they share and the good news of reconciliation with non-Christians in their relational network.

The Bible portrays God the Son as the Incarnate One, the One who was willing to come to earth and live among us in order to make God's love real to us. Christians, therefore, are invited to share the good news of Christ in a fully embodied way, digging deep into people's lives and becoming relationally invested with them. These and many other Biblical insights will be studied, plus the class will focus on daily prayer for God to use each student in His process of drawing lost persons to a fully redeemed relationship with Him.

What an exciting course propectus. The students love Dan and will be most responsive to his teaching.

Unfortunately, our Academic Dean, David, will not be able to be at the June Seminary session. He has had 4 orthopedic surgeries in the last 7 months, two knee replacements and two shoulder surgeries. The most recent shoulder surgery requires him to stay in the States longer than he had expected due to the severity of the injury, surgery and recovery.

However, Dan will handle everything very well along with our regular team in Venezuela. Please pray for this event.

Also, we still need money and work teams. If you are interested in helping, sent your checks made out to Venezuela Now, Inc. at the indicated address on the side of this post. If you would lke to take a team to Venezuela to work on the Seminary, let us know by posting a comment on this blog.