October 17 - A House for the Blind Man

A church in Papua New Guinea decided to restructure the way they do ministry. They follow the model in the book of Acts, how the new testament church grew. The results have been astonishing!

I'm Leigh Rice, leader of discipleship
ministries for the South Pacific.

I'm in Port Moresby today
and excited to be with Pastor Kove Tau,

leader of the church in this city
of 800 thousand people.

Discovery Bible reading is at the heart
of our disciple-making process.

Members invite family, friends,
work colleagues, fellow students

to come together to read the Bible.

We asked Brother Peter to come
and do some training for us.

Peter has taught us
the method of Jesus, which is simple,

anybody can do it, it's reproducible,

at no cost.

We decided to restructure the way
we do the ministry of our churches.

We follow the model in the Book of Acts,

how the new testament church grew.

We turned our Sabbath school classes

into discovery Bible reading groups.

We've restructured
our church Sabbath school classes

according to the place
where the members are living.

We bring the church to their houses
and their houses become churches.

My name is Nathan.

I got excited seeing the method

in which we can share God's word.

I heard of that idea and decided

that I had to bring that idea to my home.

Now, this is where we meet every Sabbath.

When we started this discovery Bible,
reading with my family and neighbors,

it really had a big impact
on our spiritual life.

My family and my kids,
all three teenagers,

were able to discuss
the Bible for themselves

and we were having fun with it.

Starting with the gospel
of Mark, read one story at a time,

commencing with a prayer obviously.

A second person reads it

and then one person in the group
retells the story in their own words.

The process is built
around five simple questions.

What is new?

What surprises you?

What don't you understand?

What will you obey or apply to your life?

And what will you share
with someone else this week?

After discussion, we pray,

"Father thank you for being with us.

Please help us
as we follow Jesus this week."

I work for [ALAS] construction company

as a building supervisor.

After running that group in my home,

I decided to bring that idea
to my workplace.

It had a very big impact on my boys.

I know an old blind man.
I call him "Vinegar,"

I found out he lived
in a makeshift sort of house.

I had this idea of building a house.

I wanted to discuss that with my boys.

They got excited, and they voluntarily
put their hand up to help me.

I believe Jesus is my savior.

I trust in Him.

One day He will return,
and I will go with him.

Every Sabbath, there are
two to three baptisms

in each church.

By way of record, this quarter,

this has been the biggest baptism

ever taken place
in the Central Papua Conference.

I am seeing a paradigm shift
in the way we do church.

Because the churches now are seeing

that we have to bring the church
to where the community is.

God uses ordinary people

to carry out His extraordinary plans.