Kenya (MNN) — What would you do if your pastor didn’t know the story of Jesus? That’s the situation facing some churches in Kenya.
In mid-March, FMI will hold a church leadership conference for Kenyan pastors. They can meet each other and receive specific training.
Bruce Allen says nearly 200 people will attend, both FMI partners and other pastors. “We have Bibles to share in a variety of languages for these pastors to take back to their communities. Hopefully, having them in their own languages will give them an even better grasp of the Gospel.”
Pray this conference will equip many pastors across Kenya.
Snapshot
Some of the tribes represented at this conference did not receive Bibles in their own languages until the past few months. Even when they have Bibles, not everyone in these tribes can read.
That’s why FMI also uses an image-based tool called “Snapshot.”
“Think of a pack of postcards with nearly 40 different images that represent a slice of Kenyan life,” Allen says. “Some of them are scenic pictures. A lot of them are of people doing just everyday activates or expressing different emotions like joy, frustration, or concern.”
How it works
Evangelists ask people to point to different images, leading to an interactive conversation. Allen says, “It’s a guided spiritual conversation so that the evangelist really finds out about the longings of the respondents’ hearts.”
As the conversation continues, the evangelist will present Jesus, “In a way that resonates with that person’s perceived needs,” Allen says. “If they say, ‘I’ve really messed up in life, I just want to feel clean,’ they might select an image of clean laundry, for example.”
The evangelist might then present Jesus as the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. The conversation goes differently for each person.
The header photo shows pictures used in the Kenyan “Snapshot” tools. (Photo courtesy of FMI)
