Author Archives: Sabine Kalthoff

A Growing Vision

by Jacob Varghese, staff worker with UESI India

My journey with Scripture Engagement goes back to when I was a student. At that time, I entered into a personal relationship with Jesus as my Lord and saviour and started to connect deeply with God’s Word. Studying doctrine helped me see the Bible as the inspired Word of God and convinced me of the need to reflect on this Word. Simultaneously, I was introduced to the discipline of having a ‘quiet time’ and sincerely started practicing it. Doing this laid a good foundation for my faith.

However, I did not realize that I was only reading & reflecting on a few passages. I applied them to my life, but before long I was getting bored of reading the Bible. I continued to read in the Bible, but only as an exercise, just like physical exercise for my body. Slowly, I started withdrawing and having my quiet time only when it was convenient. Little did I know that even during that time my God was actively working within me and shaping me.

Taking A Break. As we travel, we take journey breaks in order to be refreshed. But for me, the break on my journey was breakdown. My staff colleagues and other students in the fellowship never realized the struggle I was going through. It was during this period that I met Rev. Koichi Ottawa (then IFES Regional Secretary for East Asia). He asked me very directly: “how is your journey with God?” I was taken by surprise, but I responded truthfully. Ottawa helped me to re-start my journey with God and his Word. I realized that Scripture engagement is not a duty or mere discipline, but that it is about the Lord walking at my side and speaking to me – there is fun, there are arguments, expressions of disappointment, joy and gratefulness. Scripture became the framework for my life. 

A Renewed Vision. Through the IFES global ministry of Scripture Engagement, my vision was enlarged. I began to understand more deeply that engaging with Scripture is an ongoing journey in an active relationship with our Lord God. I recognized that Scripture is not only about what God has done for me, but that it also places me in God’s grand story.
Scripture engagement is so much more than techniques – it is an invitation to continue growing in our relationship with Jesus and his world. As I understood this more deeply, I recognized my responsibility to start building up lives centred around Scripture.

Sharing this vision with individuals and building them up as vision multipliers was the next step for me. I made a conscious decision that in my personal capacity, I would focus on individuals and small group training programs and not wait for the formation of large groups. My journey continues with the vision to see young people actively engaging with God, his Word and his world.
 

Experiencing Transformation

written by Daniel, a student from Timor Leste

How can we change our old ways of living to that of new ways? Our efforts will not be sufficient to defeat darkness. Even more so if we have memories that will not let us go until we die. I struggled with such memories that haunted me.

As I witnessed fellow friends deciding to follow God fully, I also felt inspired to do so. At the same time, I felt an inner hunger and emptiness; I felt like I was about to drown. One night, I began to desire reading the Word of God. As I walked down the street that night, I reached a crossroad, and I turned in the direction of a staff’s house. I asked him if we can study the Word together and he gladly accepted. Our journey of studying the whole of Luke’s Gospel took us around five months.

Throughout the study I was inspired by the character of Jesus and how people’s lives were changed after encountering him. I saw how Jesus restores dignity in people – like when he healed the blind. I also saw how these people were truly moved by what Jesus did to them. What made a strong impression on me is that Jesus came from above to live a simple life among others. He did not choose to live like a performing magician. I learned that the key to transformation in my life is to have FAITH in Jesus.

Reading Luke’s gospel changed my way of thinking. I understood that life is not just about knowing God in our head but also knowing him in our heart. I learned to open up my life for Jesus to fill me and shine his light in me. I also began to realize that it would be unfair to keep quiet about what the Holy Spirit had done in me.

I started to notice friends around me with the same hunger to read the Word; the topic of life and God kept popping up in our conversations and on social media. So we gladly decided to form a small Bible study group. I have seen changes in my friends – they have new values in life and see life differently than they did in their old ways of living.

As I know Christ more, Jesus is helping to sort through the baggage that I accumulated from my past by sweeping them under the carpet. It is a sweet and painful experience. Although it is a painful, I know Christ is with me and this process is necessary to live a righteous life. It is like an ongoing work in progress with Jesus until the day I meet him. I call this process: “transformation is not just about change but construction”.

testimony translated from Tetun language

Connecting Scripture Engagement (SE) and Prayer

In December 2019, the global network of Scripture engagement (SE) multipliers met – fourteen people from around the IFES world. During this meeting, we had a work group on SE and prayer with the following participants: Eu Pui Chong (EP, Malaysia), Irena Huseva (IH, Ukraine), Heledd Job (HJ, Europe), Sabine Kalthoff.

Please start by looking at the summary of our findings on SE and prayer:

The following interview with the work group participants brings life to some aspects of this overview:

What is one new insight that you gained from this work group about the connection between SE and prayer?
(EP) Often, we study a passage and after that we pray for each other ‘leaving behind what we just discovered from the passage’ instead of letting the passage guide our prayer needs or shape our prayer items.

(IH) The importance of a prayerful posture in studying Scripture. For me that is not just putting my body in a certain posture, but becoming quiet before him and putting my hand into his to let him lead and walk with me through the whole Scripture Engagement.  In other words, being in a prayerful posture means being in prayer before, during, and after the Bible study.

(HJ) I gained a greater awareness that when I come to engage with Scripture by myself or with others, God is present with me in that very moment. The phrase that stuck in my mind is: The author is in the room”.

What encourages you and what challenges you as you reflect on this connection?
(EP) In particular, the Lord’s prayer has been invaluable – praying for my nation and the world has been difficult in this period due to what I perceive as an endless cycle of corruption power abuse. Letting the words of the Lord’s prayer lead me has been comforting. It also challenges me not to give up praying, seeing how God is at work and not to insist that God solve problems my way or in my timing.

(HJ) This connection encourages me as I come across passages that I find difficult. As I’m reading and struggling, I can pause and ask for God’s help. I can ask him, what do you mean? What do you want me to understand here? What should I do with this? And I know that when I pray, the Spirit who caused these words to be written is there present with me, ready to answer.

What is one practical step that you have taken or would like to take in order to strengthen the integration of SE and prayer in your own life and/or ministry?
 (IH) For many years, I studied Scripture by carefully observing the passage, asking questions and trying to grasp its main message. Only after coming up with the main message did we ask ourselves what it says to us. I still use this approach, but I try to be in a prayerful posture during the whole Bible study, letting the Word speak to me not only at the end of the study, but while I am deeply in it. I believe that the Holy Spirit can use not only the main message of the passage, but any parts of it to touch our soul.  

(HJ) In my personal devotions, I have tried to be more intentional in praying in response to what I read. At the moment, I’m reading through the Psalms. I try to take the words of the Psalmist as my starting point, taking those words and thoughts and making them my own. Then at the end of the day, I will return to that same Psalm and prayerfully reflect on how what I heard God say to me in the morning has been sustaining and directing me throughout the day.

Please complete the following sentence: “The gift of SE and prayer is…”
…waiting to be discovered and savoured. (EP)
…being amazed – a sense of wow at who God is, wow to who I am and wow to his boundless love. (IH)
…that when God speaks he is not just giving us information, he is inviting us to a conversation. (HJ)

Connecting Scripture and Prayer in Practise:

_Preparing to hear the Word. Most of us cannot just stop and listen to God. We sit down and open the Bible to read, but our thoughts are still elsewhere, busy with lots of things. We read a passage and at the end, we don’t know what we’ve read. We can read without hearing. I know that I need to prepare myself to listen to God. I need help to be present to him and his Word. What helps me most is prayerful silence.
How do you prepare yourself to hear the Word both individually and in a group? Prayer helps us enter into a relational posture and awareness of God’s presence.

_Praying the Word – God’s Word teaches us how to pray. We can let prayers from Scripture inspire and lead us in our prayers – both collectively and individually. This video shows what this can look like based on the Lord’s prayer. This article gives further examples of how God’s Word can shape our praying.

_Learning to lament from Jeremiah.  After the Covid 19 pandemic started, the Latin American region offered an online session on the topic of lament. For follow up, a resource with three Bible studies from the book of Jeremiah was developed – giving examples of how to lament, helping to reflect on lament and inviting to pray to God in this way ourselves.

_Retreats are all about prayerfully connecting our lives with God’s reality and his Word. They are an invitation to retreat from the business of life, to enter into a time of waiting and listening – holding out our lives and circumstances to God – hearing his Word – and prayerfully giving the Spirit space to speak to us. You can find material for personal or group retreats here. This testimony helps see the value of setting apart such a time.

There is so much more for you to discover… maybe this summary image can serve as a road map on the way. Please do write and share your experience of integrating Scripture and prayer – in your personal lives, but also in communal settings, at camps and conferences. We would love to hear back from you.

Sabine Kalthoff,
IFES Secretary for Scripture Engagement
sabine.kalthoff@ifesworld.org

Reaching out to an International Student with Far-Reaching Consequences

My name is Masha and I’m still a student. My father is not a believer and worked for the state security services until his retirement. My mum was a Christian, but she died when I was nine. I knew the truth from my childhood, but it didn’t inspire me. I didn’t really care about life after death, the creator of this world or other deeper questions. Even though I knew that God exists, I had no interest in a relationship with him. But then after a Christian summer camp at the age of 19, I started to go to church and six months later, I accepted Jesus.

I got involved in ministry for international students. I saw a big need to serve these students who suffer from loneliness as they are far away from their families and homes. One of those students was Katia (changed name), a girl from one of the most closed countries in Central Asia. She came from a traditional Orthodox background, but knew very little about God and the Bible. She started to attend our church because of a friend who was going there. Then after two months, she stopped coming.

I decided to take the first step and suggested to her that we meet. She declined several times saying that she was too busy with her studies. But then she found a day for me and we met. We had a great conversation. I shared my story and suggested that we read the Bible together. (At the beginning of my Christian life, I also had someone who read the Bible with me.) I had never invited someone to read the Bible with me before. I was a little scared and had no idea how to lead a Bible study. I was so happy when she agreed and we started to meet up every week. During our meetings, she asked lots of questions about Christianity and the gospel. Her strategy was to speak little and to ask much. But I liked it! And I was very encouraged when she started coming to church again.

During the student’s international forum that we put on, Katia heard a lot about Jesus and his love. She also had three dreams in which she tried to run from the devil and Jesus saved her. After this forum she accepted Jesus. She now comes to church and our meetings for international students, and of course we still continue to have our personal Bible study. It is moving to see how she has grown in her spiritual life. In May, she got baptised. She said: “I think God did not bring me to this country by accident!”

Masha, linguistic student in Eastern Europe

Messengers of Hope – The University in God’s Story

This World Assembly theme was developed in a series of Bible expositions from Luke and Acts. What follows is an excerpt from one exposition. You can listen to it fully and to the other World Assembly Bible expositions at https://ifesworld.org/worldassembly.

Please read Acts 1:1-11 before continuing with this article.
In her exposition on Acts 1, Janna Louie from InterVarsity USA invites us into a deeper hope – a hope that brings meaning and perspective to our lives and to our broken world.

Jesus reframes power for the apostles. Not only will God’s Spirit be manifest through what the world deems weak, but the Spirit is given to a broken and vulnerable people. In this reframing, God deepens their hope. God’s Spirit is not self-protective. God’s Spirit is not nationalistic. Instead, the Spirit expands their hope for what is possible.

The apostles expected King Jesus to bring about the restoration of the kingdom of Israel, but restoration will be greater than their hopes for Israel. Instead of seeing themselves merely as victims to be vindicated, they are witnesses who testify to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. They are given a vision in which they are no longer just the oppressed, but they bear the testimony of Jesus across the borders and boundaries created by the empire. They are not confined to walls built by superpowers, but they join God’s Spirit to reach across man-made walls. Their testimony will not just be confined to Jerusalem, but will go to all who are within Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. In this statement, Jesus deepens their vision about restoring the kingdom of Israel. The testimony of Jesus will not be confined merely to the Jews, but will be manifest through them to the Gentiles. Their hope reaches beyond their community to include the Gentiles – and even their oppressors. Relief from oppression is too small a hope. Instead, Jesus invites a vulnerable community to steward the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus even to the ones who make them vulnerable.
[…]
The power of the Holy Spirit is an invitation first to see the resurrected Jesus in the places where we live. It is to see our homelands with Jesus’ eyes. To bear witness to the hope of Jesus where we are most vulnerable. The power of the Spirit is the power that enables us to endure in the places that cause us pain. The command to receive the Spirit’s power is not a quick fix. It’s a power that refuses to conquer and dominate, but perseveres in suffering. To touch and to heal. To grieve and to mourn. To wait with hope. It’s the power to testify of Jesus’ life in the very places we live. […] The Holy Spirit’s power invites a vulnerable people to transform the world around them.

You can listen to the whole exposition here.

Bible Study Bookmarks for Different Genres of Scripture

In many Bible study groups, the following thing happens: you come together and read a Bible text. After a short moment of silence, somebody brings up his or her favorite topic that is vaguely connected to the text. This might be predestination, baptism or world politics. All these topics are important, but the purpose of the meeting gets lost – that is, to share around a Bible passage and let God speak to you.

At the IFES World Assembly 2015 in Mexico, I got to know the Intervarsity USA Bible study bookmark that guides through an inductive Bible study. Back in Germany, I translated it into our context. It was great: the students concentrated more and dug deeper into the text with the guidance of the bookmark.

As long as we read the Gospels, it worked quite well. Yet as we studied other types of biblical texts like prophetic, poetic or apocalyptic literature, it became more difficult to work with the bookmark. It was, for example, problematic to read Old Testament law as we read the Gospels – we couldn’t simply apply the law directly to our life. Some students asked: “Why should I follow Jesus and not the whole Old Testament law? Both are in the Bible and come from God…? And what about the psalms that talk about vengeance? Doesn’t Christ call us to love our enemy?”

We realized that we need different kinds of questions for different literary genres in Scripture. When reading narratives, we observe what the different characters say and do, how events evolve and how God is at work in the midst of this. When reading prophetic texts, observation is more about asking what social, ethical or religious wrongs are being addressed. Poetic texts often use imagery to convey their message and so we need to give them appropriate attention. Similarly, the questions we ask in interpretation will differ from one kind of biblical text to another.

After a while, we developed Bible study bookmarks for seven different genres: narratives, epistles, prophetic passages, poetic texts, Old Testament law, wisdom literature and apocalyptic literature. For each genre, the questions suggested for the Bible study correspond to the theological and literary characteristics of this type of text. You can find them here.

With regard to these bookmarks, Markus Heide – head of SMD student ministries – says: “I experience their value when they help student groups to unearth the treasure of Scripture instead of only hearing what they already know. I experience their value when they help a Christian to read the Bible with a non-Christian friend and together they make discoveries, instead of the Christian explaining everything to the non-Christian.”

Fabian Mederacke, former regional staff of SMD Germany
fmederacke@gmx.de

One Bible Study Multiplied into Many

As a student, I had the opportunity to join a Bible Study group, in addition to our weekly FES fellowship meetings. We met once a week during the semester. We named the group “Bible Surgeons” because we wanted to dissect the Word, discover it and process these discoveries in our lives. We did not just want to hear the outcome of someone else’s study, but engage with Scripture ourselves. These studies taught me to look at biblical passages through the eyes of different people, perspectives and entry points. This has been a great gift for me in my discovery of God and his Word.

Our FES staff worker, Annette Arulrajah, facilitated the Bible Surgeons’ group. Through this experience, I learned to lead Bible studies. As a student, I mainly observed how Annette facilitated. This wasn’t difficult because she would explain the reason behind why she did certain things, even if she had to repeat it weekly! In this way, we studied biblical books and at the same time learned to facilitate studies. I learned from Annette that you can facilitate Bible studies with 1 person or with 100 people. I discovered that engaging with the Word can be interesting, interactive and alive. I think the most valuable thing I learned is how to lead a Bible study in such a way that students learn how to study the Word for themselves and are enabled to facilitate a Bible study for others.

What inspires me to continue facilitating Bible studies with others is the desire to see students discover for themselves who God is through His Word. Since the Word is alive and still speaks to us, it can pierce our heart and draw us back to God – if we allow it to. I have often seen students so moved by the Word that the door for deep conversations was opened and new steps of faith were taken. For me, it is always important to remember that when I mentor a student, I do not do so with my words, but with God’s Word.

For eleven years I have been facilitating Bible studies and training others to do so. I thank the Lord that because of this, many students in turn have started to facilitate Bible studies!

Beatrice Leong, beascuits@gmail.com
staff worker FES Malaysia until 2018

Transformed by the Weeping Prophet – how God used Jeremiah to change the way I pray

(by Paula, Eurasia)

When I was asked to try and write about my journey with the book of Jeremiah, I must admit to having some feelings of hesitation… it meant revisiting what for me was painful growth – even if it was a good struggle!

The book of Jeremiah accompanied me as I was trying to work through some difficult family memories and intergenerational hurt. Jeremiah’s call and life were of course different to my own, but Jeremiah’s story, and in particular his relationship with God over several decades, called me to deeper discipleship as I met with the Living God in these ‘texts of disaster’.

Jeremiah was called in youth and weakness to preach to rebellious Israel. He endured what looked like fruitless ministry as well as loneliness, imprisonment and mockery. Despite the personal toll, Jeremiah kept going: in relationship with God, loving his own people (while tearing his hair out!) and serving the God of hope even when he could not see how salvation could come.

How do you speak to God when the usual frameworks of familiarity and survival are opened up, pulled apart and shown to be no more than straw? What words can you reach for when you hit those moments of despair?

Jeremiah’s poetic descriptions of God (eg 2:13, 2:32, 18:6, 50:44) and his colourful, unrestrained, honest, even rude, complaints to God (his ‘confessions’ throughout chapters 11-20) were like a can opener – opening me up to my own pain and enabling me in raw honesty to bring my own experience to God in words I had not dared to pray before. Perhaps my British reserve had held me back, or maybe I hadn’t really wanted to deal with some of those deep struggles that God loves to redeem?

I needed to learn the language of lament – beyond praise and petition, to engage with God in the reality of pain and struggle. I needed the reassurance that the God I meet in Jeremiah – robust and unthreatened by the fist-waving of His people – is the same God who brought hope and transformation to His people in Christ. I began to call on God to be to me who He says He is.

The bitterness of Jeremiah’s experience with his people, and his struggle with, not against, God, taught me to grieve past wrongs in my family. I was able to mourn what was lost and allow myself to feel sorrow over injustice – not allowing the old order of things to continue, at least not in my own heart. The book of Jeremiah shows us that as believers, we call on a God who is able to transform the hearts of people; the Living God can bring newness out of nothingness, repentance out of rebellion, right living after regret.

Books for further reading:
Walter Brueggemann, Hopeful Imagination: Prophetic Voices in Exile.
Eugene H. Peterson, Run with the Horses: The Quest for Life at Its Best.

Entering into God’s Story

We need Scripture as a whole for our walk with God. Brief selected verses may well be precious and meaningful, but these individual passages cannot replace the big picture. In a very pertinent way, Dietrich Bonhoeffer invites us to enter into God’s story and to meet him in the reality of his dealings with this world that far surpass our individual lives.

The following text is from Bonhoeffer’s book: Life Together. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a German theologian who lived in the middle of the 20th century, founded a theological seminary based on communal living and was deeply involved in the Nazi resistance movement.

Consecutive reading of Biblical books forces everyone who wants to hear to put himself, or to allow himself to be found, where God has acted once and for all for the salvation of men. We become a part of what once took place for our salvation. Forgetting and losing ourselves, we, too, pass through the Red Sea, through the desert, across the Jordan into the promised land. With Israel we fall into doubt and unbelief and through punishment and repentance experience again God’s help and faithfulness. All this is not mere reverie but holy, godly reality. We are torn out of our own existence and set down in the midst of the holy history of God on earth. There God dealt with us, and there He still deals with us, our needs and our sins, in judgment and grace. It is not that God is the spectator and sharer of our present life, howsoever important that is; but rather that we are the reverent listeners and participants in God’s action in the sacred story, the history of the Christ on earth. […]
 
A complete reversal occurs. It is not in our life that God’s help and presence must still be proved, but rather that God’s presence and help have been demonstrated for us in the life of Jesus Christ. It is in fact more important for us to know what God did to Israel, to his Son Jesus Christ, than to seek what God intends for us today. The fact that Jesus Christ died is more important than the fact that I shall die, and the fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead is the sole ground of my hope that I, too, shall be raised on the Last Day. Our salvation is “external to ourselves.” I find not salvation in my life history, but only in the history of Jesus Christ. Only he who allows himself to be found in Jesus Christ, in his incarnation, his Cross, and his resurrection, is with God and God with him.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together – The Classic Exploration of Christian Community. Translated by John W. Doberstein. New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1954, 53-54.

Praying the Word

This is not an article; it is an invitation to pray…

An invitation to personal prayer
In a period of my life that was marked by many struggles, questions, and uncertainties, Psalms 42-43 became very precious to me. These psalms (closely linked through a recurring chorus) helped me to pray both my questions and my trust.

Read Psalms 42-43 slowly and prayerfully.

Reread the passage. What resonates with you and your life? Stay with those verses. Let them guide you into your own prayer. Some examples:

_v. 2 “my soul thirsts for God, for the living God” – a deep appetite for God runs through this Psalm. What is it you are seeking? How thirsty are you and how can you pray your thirst for God?

_v. 9 “I say to God, my Rock, why have you forgotten me?” – what a confession of faith right next to a hard question! The Psalmist confesses that God is his Rock, the foundation of his life. At the same time, he prays his questions and cries out his pain. Who is God for you? How can you pray the tension between your faith and your questions?
And so on…

You might want to close by writing out one verse from this prayer that particularly resonates with you. Let these words from Scripture become your prayer in the weeks and months to come.

An invitation to communal prayer
Recently, the programme team for World Assembly 2019 met to continue planning the conference. One of the Scripture passages with which we will engage at World Assembly is from Acts 4: a prayer spoken by the early church in the face of threats and pressure. Martin Haizmann, the conference director, led us in a time of prayer for World Assembly as described below. It was a rich experience. I invite you to let this prayer lead you in a communal time of prayer for the student ministry in your context.

Read Acts 4:23-31 aloud. Leave a time of silence for everyone to reread the passage. Then enter into a time of communal prayer inspired by this prayer from Scripture.

Reread Acts 4:23-31. In a time of silent reflection everyone is asked to make notes of how – in light of this scriptural prayer – they want to pray for student ministry in your specific context. It is also possible to put up posters on which to write these prayer requests so that they are visible for everyone. Have another time of communal prayer in which you bring these prayer requests to God.

Praying the Word. Not only prayers from Scripture, but all of the Bible invites us to pray. As we read and study God’s Word, we are invited to respond in prayer – to respond by praying our awe and praise, our questions, our pain, our commitments, our confession… God’s Word invites us into an honest conversation with the Living God.

Sabine Kalthoff
IFES Secretary for Scripture Engagement