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February 2024


So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:27 (NIV)

Over the past six weeks, we've been working on the first part of our Bible overview series for the 11-18s range. However, it seems like we've spent a disproportionate amount of time in these opening chapters of the Bible and often wondered if covering only one or two chapters per lesson can be considered an overview!

But as any builder will testify, the taller the building, the deeper and more substantial the foundations need to be. If the foundations are wrong, the entire structure will, at best, be skewed and, at worst, collapse.



In a world where feelings trump facts, and subjective self-identification based on unbiblical, ever-shifting views of sexuality lobby for legal status and protections, perhaps more than ever, we need to ground our young people on the firm foundations of Genesis 1-12.

Genesis chapters one and two describe a perfect world and perfect relationships between humanity and their creator and humanity and the rest of creation. Genesis chapter three recounts the horror of sin entering God's perfect world, corrupting all these relationships. Genesis 4 reveals the extent of that corruption, exemplified in Cain's life—every aspect of his being; feelings, thoughts, actions and words, all tainted by sin.

Genesis chapters 5 and 6 show that this corruption is universal, prompting God to reboot the world by returning it to a watery mass from which a cleansed creation emerges. But the water that purged wicked people from the earth could not wash the wickedness within the human heart. So, the downward spiral of rebellion begins again until the whole world stands against God, building a monument to their independence at Babel.

However, God didn't reboot the world again, instead he graciously acted to limit humanity's ability to sin cooperatively and called Abraham. The solution to the problem of sin lies in a promise that the Lord would bless all nations through the Seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:8).

Teaching the truth about human nature with clarity and conviction is essential: created male and female in the image of God with inherent dignity and worth, but corrupted by sin, yet fully redeemable through faith in Jesus and his sin-bearing death. It's on this solid foundation of biblical truth that the Church of living stones is built, and where young people need to find their true identity in Christ.


Teen Resources

Encounters with Jesus, a seven-part evangelistic series covering interactions seven people from various walks of life had with Jesus in Matthew's Gospel was published in December.

As mentioned above, the next series we're working on is a comprehensive Bible overview for 11-18s, due for release in four parts: Eden to Egypt, Egypt to Wilderness, Divided River to Divided Kingdom, and Babylon to the New Creation.

We're working hard to make this series not merely an academic exercise but to draw out the rich application which flows from understanding the themes that run through the Bible's overarching narrative.


Training

One of the reasons for the delay in producing this newsletter is the busyness of the months leading up to Christmas and the start of the new year.

Rory slipped away to Portugal in October to run our first-ever training event in Portuguese! This was at the invitation of our translation partners in Coimbra. Although the venue was small, it was packed, forcing some people to sit on the stairs leading up to the tiny gallery. A wonderfully warm and enthusiastic crowd made for a great day of teaching, with some travelling from as far as Lisbon to attend.

We also conducted our first training event in The Netherlands, which was not translated and mainly supported a few International Churches in and around Delft. We are exploring the possibility of producing Dutch translations.

Other training over this period included regular days in London, Cornhill Belfast and Fortify training days in partnership with Growing Young Disciples (GYD).

The GYD residential conference in January was superb, and it was a joy for TnT to sponsor several UK-based youth and children's workers serving in less affluent communities and five South Africans. We had invited seven South Africans, but two had their visa applications declined on rather frivolous grounds – we shall try again next year!


Translations

The graph below shows our progress with translations based on the 325 lessons that are already online. We're currently dealing with a backlog of Russian and Spanish translations awaiting proofreading, contextualisation and final upload.

We're praying that this year will be very productive for writing and translation, and we're grateful to be in a good work rhythm for both of these. Mustards Seeds subscriptions continue to grow steadily, with 941 churches currently using our resources on the main platform and 201 with access to the dedicated Arabic portal.

With are so grateful for your faithful and prayerful support.

Warm regards,
Rory, Kim and Hannah

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Items for Prayer

  • Give thanks for the publication of the Encounters with Jesus material, asking the Lord to graciously grant many teenagers repentance and faith in Jesus as the material is used. Pray for our work writing the Bible overview series, which is quite an undertaking.
  • Give thanks for the five South Africans who attended the January conference and for the experience of being in a room with 355 other youth and children's workers trying to navigate doing ministry faithfully in an increasingly secular world.
  • Give thanks for the opportunities to train people in The Netherlands and Portugal. Pray that those who attended would have been encouraged, enthused and equipped to continue proclaiming the gospel faithfully, creatively, and effectively.
  • Continue to pray for the various translation projects, asking the Lord to help editors contextualise the material. Pray that we'll manage to clear the backlog of Russian and Spanish resources awaiting upload.
  • Pray for Rory's upcoming training in Hong Kong and Italy. Pray especially for Lulu as she works to provide the Chinese interpretation for various training events.