Timothy Church Planter Training Plan to Aid Fulfillment of the Great Commission 09/18/07 Draft of Plan

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1 Timothy Church Planter Training Plan to Aid Fulfillment of the Great Commission 09/18/07 Draft of Plan Most language groups do not yet have the Word of God in their mother tongues. According to Wycliffe, out of the over 6,912 languages in the world just over 2,400 languages only have a portion of the Bible translated into their language. (APortions@ range from a few verses to whole books of the Bible.) The New Testament is completed in 1,115 languages and 426 languages have an acceptable Bible. Awhile back, Wycliffe/SIL saw that at the rate Bible translation was progressing, it would be in the hundreds of years before every language had its own Bible. Wycliffe then set on a new course. Their plan is to have a Bible started in every language of the world needing a Bible by the year That is an important goal, a goal we pray to see reached. Still, there are reality issues that need to be addressed. Bible portions are surely not enough information to sufficiently disciple people. Even having a full New Testament is not enough as the New Testament alone does not put Jesus or Christianity in any historical context, nor connect Jesus adequately with the Creator God. As our Nepali South-Asia Director, who works among Buddhists and Hindus, states, ABeing exposed to the New Testament and not the Old, is like starting at the tail not the head.@ Those working in areas where Muslims are seeking inroads warn that using primarily New Testament presentations is not the best approach. When seekers only have New Testament information about Jesus, this allows the Muslims to slide in. Islamic leaders say, AThat is good that you have Jesus. Now let us tell you about the prophets.@ The seekers and baby believers are then easily persuaded to become Muslims. When people have no Old Testament foundation, they are easy prey for the lie that, AJesus is a special prophet in the line of prophets leading up to Mohammad.@ Seekers and new believers are not so easily duped when they have heard the truth starting at the beginning of the Bible. When the truths found in the whole Bible are available to people in their mother tongues and are used by pastors and evangelists to evangelize and disciple, no longer can the Son of God, Jesus, be dismissed as just another prophet, guru or teacher. Yes. We need Bibles translated and printed. And to coincide with and follow Bible production, we need literacy programs. But the bottom-line need not yet being addressed is this. Most of the unreached who do not have Bibles are also either non-literate or oral learners by culture (or both). Oral learners largely communicate through told stories. God did say, AFaith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.@ The unreached need to hear the stories of the whole Bible their mother tongues! We suggest that the most efficient method to quickly and accurately provide all these stories of the Bible is to record them in people=s mother tongues and to make them available in low-cost solar-powered audio format. The technology is now ready to do this! Those of us who can read, 1

2 and who have copies of the Bible available to us, must creatively figure out how to provide Scriptures to those oral learners who cannot read or who do not yet have full Bibles in their mother tongues. We cannot lose generations that could be discipled, while we steadily, but slowly, move forward in the traditional literacy methods of translation and discipleship. Timothy Church Planter Training To address this dire need, we are currently setting up and holding Timothy Church Planter Trainings (TCPT). Note that TCPT is primarily the training OF existing church planters. TCPT empowers church planters, who because of their illiteracy, have been hampered in their work through lack of personal access to Scripture. However, although TCPT is not primarily a program designed to create church planters from the beginning, we do see many graduate believers becoming church planters as a by product of this training and access to the Word of God.. For training the attendee of a TCPT, we use solar-powered audio-players manufactured by the MegaVoice company that is formatted with God's Story and recorded with storytold Bible stories so that non-readers can learn the stories. These especially formatted players are named WordLights. All TCPTs are designed around the presentation of stories of the Bible and wise ways to ask questions afterwards, that we call, Simply the Story. The only difference in TCPT is that the training is done completely orally and one graduate per village receives the recorded stories on a WordLight. Initially time is spent making certain that the students know how to tell a Bible story interestingly and accurately. (For ease in reading this document, the students will be referred to as he, but in some cases the students may be female as well.) Then ways to learn from the story, and to very effectively teach the story, are presented. This is done first by having the TCPT instructor show how to discover the spiritual treasures within the story. Those who study the written Bible know this method as Ainductive Bible study.@ However, several additional skills that can be gained by literate and non-literates alike are taught. So, the TCPT and STS methods are called, inductive Bible study, oral style. The formulating of questions that lead listeners to discover the spiritual insights for themselves is taught. Students also learn how questions can encourage learners to discover for themselves the ways the newly presented information should affect their lives. Discussion and interaction between the storyteller and the listeners is the style taught. The first goal at the training is to have the students learn some stories well and to discover how to lead dialog after each story is told. We set our preliminary goal at 5-10 stories learned well by each student, plus having them learn the content of the Bible stories in God s Story. The length of time needed for this specialized training depends on the distance the students need to travel to attend, the quantity of those attending, housing opportunities, and whether or not to factor in security issues. The time required is from 4-6 days of high-intensive training. 2

3 At the end of the training each student is called upon to tell a specific new story for which questions have not been modeled. As well the student needs to show skill at telling any of the stories taught in the training and to show the ability to formulate and ask questions about the story. The student needs to demonstrate the ability to prepare questions to fit the needs of specific types of people. For instance, the student might be told to craft questions for a story that would be suitable for a group of new or mature believers, or perhaps even seekers or skeptics. As stated, qualifying students, one per village, each receive a WordLight for graduation. A WordLight is a solar player with God's Story and the at least 70 stories of the Bible, all in the mother tongue of the student and a recorded New Testament if available.. The graduates hold in their hands a kind of an oral Bible. Each TCPT graduate is then responsible to co-lead at least one TCPT in the next 6 months. Those who show added leadership ability can try to earn senior instructor status which then qualifies them to lead a TCPT in the future. The comprehensive work of IMB, Following Jesus is a wonderful storying presentation of the Bible. It contains over 400 stories as well as introductions to each story and sample dialog questions after each story. The first storying module is comprised of 66 stories in chronological order covering the whole Bible. The remaining 5 IMB storying modules are topically arranged. Because the stories we have today in our printed Bibles are compiled mostly in chronological order, the TCPT stories are not selected topically. Some language teams select a few stories from the books of poetry, the prophets and the epistles, which of course are not arranged in chronological order in the Bible, nor are they exactly stories.) We remain open, allowing the teams to make their story choices. Our desire is to provide oral learners with an audio storytelling presentation of the Bible. Some of the languages we are recording and formatting on solar players do not yet have a written Bible. So, for non-literates and oral learners (or those without a whole Bible), having these stories in audio format, and having them housed in reasonably low-cost audio players, will provide the truths of God to them in an understandable, practical format. Relatively speaking, comparing this presentation of the Scriptures to all missions systems of Scripture presentations of the past, TCPT provides Scripture very quickly. In the Following Jesus series, IMB includes their introductions and dialog questions along with the recorded stories. Ours is somewhat different in that we record only the stories with a minimum of introduction (as does IMB), but TCPT recordings do not include questions. We do encourage learning the stories accurately according to the Bible. However, providing dialog questions can give a doctrinal slant. Also if questions are provided, storytellers are tempted to memorize questions instead of seeking God to help them formulate their own questions. Part of the major teaching at the TCPT is to teach the users of WordLight how to discover and deliver the truths in the stories of the Bible and also how to design their own questions. In the training settings, the need for all storyteller/teachers to pray and seek understanding from the Holy Spirit is emphasized. The Timothy Church Planter Training (TCPT) is based on two Scriptures: 3

4 Psalm 119:105 "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." and 2 Timothy 2:2 "And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also." The leaders of The God s Story Project are setting up TCPT. We continue to test the effectiveness of combining God's Story and Bible stories on a MegaVoice and the layout, design and mechanisms of the training. For a few of the trainings we are using some of the 66 chronological Bible stories (module 2 of Following Jesus) already recorded by IMB, with God s Story. Trainings are done as languages recording of the seventy stories become ready. One of the main goals in the TCPT is to train leaders how to listen and learn Bible stories, and how to then to formulate questions about the story that will specifically minister to the people they are teaching. We hope to show students that God=s Word is a deep well, so each Bible story can be told many different times and each time different questions can be asked to help bring out the wealth of information inside that Bible story. This calls for dependence on God for crafting the questions, not just memorizing one specific set of questions. As stated earlier, at this time we are opting out of including recorded questions after the stories since we are able in the training time to teach how to formulate questions Overview of Timothy CP Training Phase one is arranging the production of God's Story in a new language (if that language is not already completed). Phase two is arranging the recording of seventy or more Bible stories. Phase three is to send a certified TCPT instructor to train the first class. Phase four is to challenge the TCPT graduates to oversee a new TCPT class, of the same language speakers, under the supervision of a senior instructor. Phase five is for all of the graduates, who earn full senior instructor status, to run at least one new training per year. Phase six is to respond, if possible, to TCPT graduates, who have thoroughly learned and used the seventy stories, if they should ask for more stories to be recorded in their language. These added Bible stories will be inserted chronologically with the seventy stories previously recorded. Details on Phases 1-6: Phase 1: The God s Story Project (TGSP) continues to seek the Lord for partners who have the vision for translating, recording and using God=s Story. Phase 2: TGSP needs help to record the seventy stories. We welcome partners who are ex-pats working among the target people or help from the nationals who partnered on and are using God's Story. We want to provide these recorded stories for indigenous people who are saved, who have a desire to use Scripture to reach their own people and who have a vision for the TCPT concept. 4

5 We are discovering that there is a wide range of time needed to record stories. In some languages excellent stories have been recorded at the rate of ten per day, while in other languages teams have struggled to complete two or three stories in a day! On an average a team taught by and overseen by an experienced TCPT recordist can record 5-10 stories per day in a quality manner. Note that learning a story well enough to record it is far easier than learning it well enough to tell it all the way through with no mistakes. When recording a new story, if a mistake is made, the teller can stop and then regroup himself. The recordist can re-record over the errors. Back-checking recorded stories against an already translated Bible (or of a language nearest to the language being recorded) insures accuracy of the story. The recorded Bible stories then provide a benchmark by which to measure the ongoing told stories. (The specific details of how to record stories are outlined in the document TCPT, How to Record Stories.) We have a strong commitment to not compromise the quality and accuracy of the recorded content in an effort to complete the task. Once all of the seventy stories are recorded, the stories and God=s Story are formatted onto one solar player. This player becomes a kind of audio Bible for oral learners, a "WordLight." TGSP offers language teams a broad list of recommended stories to record. Each local team selects their stories. If the team wants to select stories not on the list, they have the freedom to do so. A few stories, recorded in storytelling style in a trade language, are given to the recording teams and narrators as samples. There are a few languages that have a recorded New Testament available. If the language team wants to provide that recording on their WordLight, then in that language all seventy stories will be from the Old Testament. In those languages God s Story, seventy Old Testament stories and the New Testament are all formatted on one solar player for the TCPT graduates. Each recorded story is identified in the recording by book and chapter(s). As outlined, later, if and when a fuller array of stories are recorded, all of those added stories and the seventy stories will be collated in their proper biblical order. This chaptering of stories will allow literate and non-literate believers to meet in regional and country training seminars for combined training and fellowship on an equal basis. Some attendees would study and learn using their oral recorded stories and others would use their written Bibles. Often the original seventy stories have short prologues or summaries added when chapters of information are skipped. These additions can also be used to give a story an ending or a beginning if needed. Later, should more stories be recorded and added to the WordLight, the prologues and summaries can be deleted if they are no longed needed. The best storytellers must be selected. Preferably they will be believers, if enough are available within the new language. Storytellers need to have pleasant voices and accents acceptable to the majority of people who speak that language. 5

6 The storytellers (or at least two people with them in the sessions) need to be knowledgeable in the Word of God, and be mature believers. Language groups that customarily use women as well as men to tell stories may decide to include women as storytellers. Details on the selection of storytellers are found in the How to Record Stories document. If the Bible story to be recorded has been translated into the target language, the story is read out loud several times from the Bible. The storytellers then discuss it, and practice telling it. They may request having it read to them a few more times until one storyteller is ready to record it. It is recorded and then the team listens back to make certain all of the information in the Bible is there and that nothing has been added. If there is no Bible available in a specific language group wishing to implement TCPT, special people are needed. At least one person in needed (a few if at all possible) who is bi-lingual in the target language, and who is literate in a language that has a complete Bible. This person leads the team. This bi-lingual reader tells the storytellers the story by translating it out loud into the new language. The storytellers then discuss the story and follow the oversight procedures just outlined. Maybe some circumstances will even be a tri-language situation. The person with a Bible tells the story to a team member who is not literate, but who speaks both the language of the literate person and the language of the storytellers. The translator then tells the storytellers the new story. The storytellers practice the story among themselves until one storyteller is ready to record. He tells the story and it is recorded. Then back checking is done. The other storytellers, and the bi-lingual person, listen carefully to the recorded story. If they approve it, then the bi-lingual person translates it for the literate team-leader who compares it to the Bible for correctness. The recording procedure should be something like this: 1. Read and practice the first story together. (Stories average 4 2 minutes in length.) For instance, the leader or bi-lingual person tells the story in the target language to the storytellers. He tells it as many times as needed. 2. Then the storytellers tell the story out loud to each other. 3. When all the words are agreed upon by the whole group, and it is decided that the story is biblically correct, one person volunteers (or is appointed) to tell the story. 4. He tells the whole story. 5. If all agree that the story well told and accurate, he tells it again and it is recorded. 6. Then the team listens to the recording and through the chain of speakers just outlined, the recording is checked for accuracy. If any mistakes are detected, the section with the error is 6

7 marked on the recorder. Then the storyteller rerecords the section, which is automatically inserted inside the rest of the recorded story that has been approved. 7. Then the team listens to the recording for a final oversight check. 8. The stories are sent out to other listeners and as each set of seventy is finally approved, that's one more language group ready to receive TCPT! We are seeing that teams which have Scripture in their language are able to successfully record and give approval for up to 10 stories per day. Including the initial story selection, the recording, oversight and cleaning of the recordings it takes approximately days to have the stories ready to ship to the MegaVoice company for formatting. Languages needing bi or tri-lingual Bible reading and translating add time to the process. VERY IMPORTANT! The writing out of stories comes after the recording is approved. The written form is transcribed from the recording, for future use as needed, including use in literacy training and Bible translation if needed. This order of telling, practicing, recording, checking and transcribing is the way to keep the recorded content oral in style. This method is different than recording sessions of God's Story, because having to match specific time in not needed. For TCPT recording, the team hears the story, practices together, discusses the story, learns it and then records it. The goal is to "tell" the story in a natural interesting way, and yet stay true to the Bible. It is NOT quoting Scripture. It is not a documentary. It is speaking the words the way the people say them in real life. NOT like this...@adam told God that Eve gave him the fruit to eat. God asked Eve what happened and Eve said that the serpent tricked her into eating the fruit.@ YES like this...@adam answered God, >That woman you gave to me, she gave me the fruit and I ate it.= God then asked Eve, >What is this that you have done?= Eve answered, >The serpent tricked me, so I ate the fruit.=@ As mentioned, the first set of IMB stories has 66 stories in it. Those stories cover the whole Bible, kind of like an expanded God's Story. Phase 3: Sample TCPT: The first day of the training, an orientation time is set aside for the TCPT instructor to talk with the proven leaders among the students. These leaders have been pointed out to the instructor by the local Christian leader who helped arrange the training. These selected ones become leaders of small discipleship groups. The leaders learn about the how the training works and told how they are to lead small groups during the training time. 7

8 The second day the attendees listen, to God=s Story. Then each discipleship group gathers and reviews the story among themselves, telling the different short stories from God s Story as they remembered them. After lunch each group leader tells a story from God=s Story and then asks his group some key questions about the stories. Some of the questions will be ones that have been recommended during their orientation and some the leaders may formulate themselves. To end the day, all come back together so that the TCPT instructor can determine what the attendees have learned. He uses questions to prompt their contributions. Specifically the instructor will ask the whole group some leading questions to see what they have learned from God=s Story. Rather than telling the value of knowing the whole story of the Bible, the instructor is actually demonstrating the value. Lastly, he explains why the attendees will be taught storytelling and discussion methods and answer questions the attendees have about what is to be accomplished during the training. Oral communication methods are used by the instructor. The following day, each discussion group meets to themselves. Their group leaders play God s Story on the WordLights, a story at a time. The group listens and this time they begin to learn the Bible stories as they discuss the content. Learning those stories and taking turns in leading discussion of their content by asking questions and involving the group in discovery is vital. We believe the biblical content of God s Story is foundational for preparing pastors, church planters and evangelist to best minister. Some students coming to the training may only be cultural Christians (called nominal in some cultures). These students do not have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ when they arrive. They may be hard-working, sincere, religious people who are still caught in the false mentality of working their way to Heaven. They think that they must work to appease God. They just hope that if they do enough good works that they will go to heaven when they die. Wonderfully, as these religious people go through successive stories of the Bible, they can see God s character demonstrated and God s way of faith to come to Him is made clear. Scriptures in Use, a time-tested training method used in India and Africa for semi-literate grass roots church planters, uses God s Story in the beginning of their training. They call it stone clearing. The vast majority of the attendees have more background in the New Testament than in the Old. After the TCPT students have learned God s Story and can tell the stories, they will all have a clear overall understanding of the Bible. That understanding prepares them for correctly applying the individual stories they will next learn. The day after the learning of God s Story has been completed, the instructor selects one of the small discipleship groups to be used as a demonstration group. This selected group sits in the center, surrounded by the rest of the attendees who will be observing. The TCPT leader tells the selected group one of the 70 Bible stories as it is formatted on the solar audio-player. Then the instructor asks for a volunteer from the demonstration to retell the story. Afterwards, the instructor leads a discussion by asking both simple and probing questions. Questions must first be a review of the story such as AWhat did a specific characters do, or say, etc. Then questions that lead to the spiritual insights are asked. These insights are gleaned out of 8

9 the story ahead of time by the instructor. (See Simply the Story document for the methods of finding the insights) Then finally the application questions such are given. Questions are asked such as: AWhat do you think God is showing us by the way He spoke to Abraham? Do we ever have feeling like that? Is the stubbornness Jonah that showed something we might do? Next the students divide into their separate groups, and each group retells the same story among themselves. Then each leader asks his own group the questions he has prepared. After a break the small groups meet again and take turns telling the story to each other. As ongoing disciples of the Lord, on the first day the attendees will have seen or heard the overview of the Bible in God=s Story and discussed it among themselves. The goals of the second day and all thereafter are to learn some stories and then to be exposed to how to form and ask good questions. After each story is learned by all of the attendees, the TCPT instructor then tells a new story to another of the small discipleship groups. The rest of the groups again watch while the story is told and the questions are asked. This method, of teaching a smaller group while the rest of the attendees observe, is most useful when the quantity of TCPT attendees is more than 35. In some cultures however it is working best to keep everyone together when the storytelling is modeled by the instructor. Many cultures teach by rote and the teachers are never questioned. Consequently, this discussion style is new to them. It is our experience, that after some encouragement, people love to be involved in discussing information. We have had amazing experiences throughout Asia that show how much this learning style is appreciated. We began training at 9:00 am, first modeling Simply the Story. Then we would explain how to tell a Bible story, how to find the spiritual treasures in the story and then show how to design questions so the storyteller can teach in a discussion style. The attendees would then divide into small groups and prepare stories and questions. Then they would deliver their newly learned stories to the larger group and ask questions. At times it would be 11:00 pm and we would have to say, Go take some rest and we will begin again tomorrow! After two stories have been learned, a new and vital concept in teaching is introduced. One of the previously-learned stories is told to everyone by the instructor. Then the instructor asks brand new questions about the story. He may have selected some questions that would be suitable for seekers. By asking all new questions the TCPT instructor demonstrates that God=s Word is many faceted and the same story has many lessons in it. By using different questions, whole new truths can be discovered and discussed. Afterwards, in the small groups, the students tell the story and then they form and ask questions of their small group from the same story that would be suitable for doubters. In some TCPT environments, instead of breaking out into the small groups, the combined students are told this. ANow imagine that you are telling this same story to a group of mature believers.@ One of the members of the demonstration group will tell this same story a third time. After he finishes, then the instructor asks, ACan anyone in the training tell us what new questions you might ask relating to this story? See if you can suggest questions that would be especially 9

10 useful to bringing out truths that would be good for mature Encourage all the attendees to contribute. After these times of telling the same story and each time different questions are selected to fit the listeners, a brief teaching can be given. The instructor tells about the importance of being sensitive to who the listeners are. Even more important he tells the students to be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Sprit to show them which questions to ask. In that teaching, one of the seventy stories that shows a person seeking God for wisdom when speaking can be selected. Also a story is selected and told that is far ahead in the chronological order. This demonstrates that even though there may be a chronological order to the stories in the Bible, when the Lord leads, you can use an appropriate story from any place in the Bible. On a daily basis, most of the time is spent learning to locate insights from the story and to design questions to bring listeners to those truths. Some New Testament and some Old Testament stories can be taught. Depending on the culture, some of the stories can be sung or rhymed or it can even be acted out as the story is told. Students are taught to use questions and discussion after using all of those formats of presenting the Bible stories. A few sessions can just be a story told by one of the TCPT leaders and then he as the storyteller can ask the questions to teach the application. Jesus sometimes taught large groups, lecture style. A skilled storyteller and discussion leader can ask and field questions of a large group. While teaching groups small and large, Jesus often included rhetorical questions. Those are questions that He wanted people to think about, but ones that He did not expect people to answer out loud. We suggest that those kinds of questions can be used as well. It is important to show how to present the Bible in story format to large groups too. By the end of the training time, students should have achieved the following: 1. A better understanding of the overall content of the Word of God. 2. Learned the stories taught at the training and how to tell them well. 3. The ability to hear a story and craft good questions that encourage the involvement of the listeners and help them to apply the truths in the stories to themselves. 4. A deeper walk with God. At the end of the TCPT, a test is given to each class member. Each is assigned a specific story, not one of the stories taught at the training, but one on the WordLight. Then, afterwards the student needs to ask some questions of a few listeners gathered for the testing. The student might be asked to formulate questions based on the listeners being seekers, new believers or mature believers. The student being tested needs to demonstrate good skill in storytelling, forming of original questions and the ability to lead a good discussion. Those who pass the test receive as a graduation present their own personal WordLight. WordLights are not be given to just anyone. Because of the expense of the solar players, they are precious, and must only go to students who have shown that they are ready to effectively use them. When is more than one graduate from the same village, for best use of funds and the fact that most oral communicators are relational and will listen and learn together, a gift of one Wordlight per village is recommended.) 10

11 Use and Results of WordLights A completed WordLight will be used much like the literate circuit riders of old in the US used their Bibles. In their quiet times, these old-time traveling preachers would read and ponder the information in their Bibles, and they sought outside wisdom to comprehend it. They would have read out of their Bibles to others, memorized as much as possible, and maybe even loaned it to special people for a short time for them to read. As WordLights are made available, we discover more uses. We see more and more ramifications of having Bible stories available in this format. In essence, the WordLight would be used by oral communicators much the same as literates use a Bible. 1. The pastor or evangelist who has no Bible or who cannot read, can use his WordLight to listen to a story, pray over it, become very familiar with it, and prepare thoughtful questions to ask after he presents the story to those he will teach. 2. Just as a pastor or teacher uses a Bible, this WordLight user might play a story for a house church and then afterwards everyone discusses it together. 3. In a class for evangelism, the story can be told and those gathered can practice telling the story until they can tell it well. The WordLight then acts as an anchor to keep the information in the story from changing. 4. For evangelism the God's Story on the WordLight is maybe the best presentation to use first. Not only will many listeners find Jesus as Savior through this initial presentation, everyone (seekers and believers) gains an idea of what all of the Bible stories are about. 5. Based on the IMB field experiences, when those who are not literate gather together to learn stories there is one surprising response. After completing 40 stories, about one third of the learners say, AThank you,@ and then go back to their villages. Another third say, ATeach us more stories.@ The last third say, ATeach us to read. We want to learn these stories for ourselves.@ So, although literacy is not a goal of the Timothy Church Planter Training, literacy may well become a by-product. Phase 4: After the TCPT is completed, graduating students meet with the instructor to discuss their goals. The instructor challenges the graduates to help arrange a new TCPT class, of the same language speakers, under the supervision of an approved TCPT instructor. Together they tentatively select the place he might like to co-lead a new TCPT. Phase 5: After the graduate co-leads a TCPT, he is evaluated to see if he is qualified enough to be certified as a TCPT instructor so he can lead a training by himself. Phase 6: Added stories can either be selected out of broad list of stories that were not used in the first 70, or selected entirely by the language team from their choices in Bible. 11

12 RECORDING To record the stories someone (or several people who can learn the process) who has time to complete the recording needs to commit to the task. This recording process is much easier than what is required for God=s Story, but still basic computer skills are a great help. All of the recording equipment fits in a waistband pack, and is solar powered. (See document on How to Record Bible Stories for TCPT.) Our role at TGSP is to set up the general structure of the trainings and recording of stories. We can be help set up trainings in partnership with those who record the stories. We are compiling impact reports. To get the whole TCPT into motion, we are funding the recording equipment, and are formatting the stories and God=s Story (and some New Testaments) onto MV players. We still must seek God for the funding of solar-players to give to the graduates. The initial trainings in Nepal, Africa and India are showing successes far beyond our expectations. Currently we are tracking and compiling comprehensive data for the first 50 WordLights given to graduates in each new language formatted onto players. Stats show the fruit of active church planters and evangelists before their TCPT experience. Then results are assembled from each of the first 50 recipients of a WordLight after one month, three month, six month and one year. The reports are gathered by a literate registrar who is near the location where the TCPT was held. One of the many oversights and built in monitors for the gathering of data is the fact that no one in TGSP or the TCPT is salaried or stands to gain from submitting enhanced reports. Our prayer now is that many missions organizations will take on recording and the running of TCPT, including the funding needed for recording equipment, with simply guidance from TGSP. For the recording of the 70 stories we allow no budget to pay for a hotel rooms for lodging of the local team and for use as a recording studio as we do now for new God=s Story languages. That part of the project needs to be locally owned and supported by the national believers. Your feedback is welcome as this is still in the formative stages. In His service, Dorothy A. Miller Executive Director TGSP Bible or miller@storymail.net miller@gods-story.org See home page- Timothy Church Planter Training link for impact reports 12