July 2011
|
|
|
| Tentmaking Briefs is published on the 1st Tuesday of each month |
July 2011 |
|
The four most common questions that expatriate workers are asked by neighbors, coworkers, shopkeepers, taxi drivers and those they come in contact with are:
1. What is your name? Everyone can
answer the first three questions in a few short minutes, perhaps even
without thinking about it too much. The fourth question requires
thought, preparation, sensitivity, gentleness, respect, divine
inspiration and a time out. Paul the
tentmaker from Tarsus How you answer the fourth question will either open the door for future faith discussion or perhaps close the door to potential friendships that lead to faith talks. It is vital that we get it right, we only have one chance to make that critical first introduction of our faith. If it were up to me, I would make every future tentmaker spend at least 100 hours preparing themselves for this one question. It is that important. Getting that answer wrong could raise suspicion and make you an object of unwanted attention or it could simply set the foundation for future dialogue and perhaps even give you status as a man/woman of God. For those of you considering tentmaking business as mission, or those of you out there already doing it, I urge you to do some homework so you will have the best possible answer to question number four.
Value added tentmaking
We are
Christians, of course our faith is important to us and we love to share
it with others, but what else do we bring to the nations? I call it
value added tentmaking. Most if not all English speaking expatriates are at one time or another asked to help locals with their English. Whether they do this formally or informally, it brings a tangible value to the community. This is why we urge everyone to take even a short certificate course in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL). We recommend a minimal 60 hour course, that can be taken over four weekends to fit in with your work week, before leaving for your overseas contract. It is our recommendation that you do not do this for free, but charge a reasonable fee to maintain a level of professionalism. What kind of skills, experience, hobbies do you have that can be used to help locals to improve their situations? ESL is just the most obvious and commonly used bridge to make friendships with your co-workers, neighbors and business people. Make yourself available even if it seems like a lot of extra work.
Here are some ways you might
explore in becoming a "value
added foreigner" to
No room at the course... ...take a number please! Imagine being told there is no more room at the tentmaking business as mission course you are wanting to attend? For the first time ever, this was the case at our Norway course this past month. 40 people from 18 nations filled our training centre past capacity, and it was only due to the good spirit of those attending and those serving that everything still worked out well. If you are planning on attending any of our future courses, please register early as we are seeing growth at all our course locations.
Thanks to the hard work of the good people at Samband íslenskra kristniboðsfélaga, we had a well attended tentmaking seminar in Reykjavik Iceland. It was a delight to meet so many people who took a week night off to join us for this fast paced seminar.
We look forward to continuing the relationships that were formed and seeing students at future courses from Iceland. |
|
|
Check out the course outline and consider joining us! |
Iceland
report
