For 7 or 8 years I have been dreaming about coming to a Spanish-speaking country to help people connect with God. For me, that begins with understanding the offer and opportunity we have through Jesus, but it's more than just a decision to change. There's a process of growing spiritually, learning to lead and serve, and passing on what you love to others. Lots of people have recognized that process before and have named it a few different ways. The two main ones I've heard are Evangelize/Establish/Equip/Export (Campus Outreach) and Membership/Maturity/Ministry/Missions (Saddleback Church). They're the same thing with different words.

Anyway, I came here with the desire to help people grow in those areas, and this week I dreamed up a potential plan for addressing that. In some ways, we are already working on Step 1 (Evangelize/Membership) through the Alpha Course. I think our team would like to make a specific 4- week class, though, to work people through clarifying what Jesus is all about (what it means to follow Christ), the difference between works (good deeds) and faith, what Christ-followers believe, and what Christ-followers do (spiritual disciplines like prayer and service). We would like to make a plan for that class in the next month or two and then run the "class" twice before the new year. Because it is the introduction, we want it to be fairly low-committment and accessible for anyone.

This week I have been working on a plan for part 2, which I am super excited about. My hope is that in January, we could offer it to people who have been through the intro course and that the four of us (Cesar, Grace, Tim and me) would teach the course and connect one-on-one with each participant. Grace has already written (in Spanish) a study booklet on this part 2, and I'm excited to use it. Anyway, click here to check out the "syllabus" if you're interested.

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