Tag Archives: consultation

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

Healthy Cooking

Introduction to a different kind of recipe book written by the global Scripture Engagement team

In our student movements, we are committed to training our staff and students in Scripture engagement. How do we decide on the content of our formación events? What ingredients are needed in order to prepare a nutritious and tasteful dish?

The answer to this question will depend on the context and on the specific target group. For example, the dish we prepare will be different for students than for staff. The answer to this question will also depend on our overall vision. What do we want to see as the result of the totality of our formación in Scripture engagement? And what does this then mean for individual training events?

“My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you…” (Galatians 4:19, NIV) “Until Christ is formed in you…” – a beautiful expression of what is on Paul’s heart for these churches!

What do you want to see as the result of the totality of your formación in Scripture engagement? Take a moment to put your vision into words. Please think specifically in terms of your target group.

My impression is that we often focus on only some of the ingredients needed to attain the overall vision while neglecting others. Sometimes…

We teach Bible study methods, but fail to address the expectations and attitude with which our staff and students approach God’s Word;
We train how to build and run Bible study groups, but fail to stop and reflect on what is actually happening in these groups;
We talk a lot about the Bible, but spend a disproportionately small amount of time listening to God’s Word and allowing it to speak to us. At many training events, the morning starts with a Bible study or Bible exposition, but then there is hardly any time to digest what was heard, to soak in the Word, to meet Jesus.

The global Scripture Engagement team of IFES has written a cooking help for you. This new resource does not propose a standard curriculum. Instead it seeks to help us plan carefully what we include in our training programmes.

Scripture engagement formación – a resource for planning and developing training programmes: You can download this material here.

Sabine Kalthoff
IFES Secretary for Scripture Engagement

Don’t Just Keep on Running

We all agree that it is important. We keep our programmes running. But we rarely stop to reflect, evaluate and renew. Scripture engagement is usually not put on our agenda – the topic is not urgent enough.

But maybe it is urgent. Scripture engagement will not automatically remain strong in IFES if we just keep doing what we have always been doing. We need to identify and address the challenges of today if we want this generation of students to love, study, live and share God’s Word.

The Mexican movement stopped to do a mini-consultation in 2012. This one-day consultation brought together 27 staff, students and volunteers. The programme consisted of four sessions:

_Living in the Word. How can we integrate listening and responding to God’s Word in our own lives? If we want to strengthen Scripture engagement in our movements, we need to start with ourselves.

_Building up Convictions. We often assume that our students have certain convictions, but experience tells us otherwise. What do they think about the Bible and how strong is its impact on their lives? Do students go to the Bible when reflecting on current issues such as sexuality, values, injustice? How can we strengthen this?

_Discovering Opportunities. In this creative and interesting session, each participant shared one experience or idea that worked well in their group.

_The Way Forward. Concrete steps were identified for after the consultation.

Each session lasted two hours and involved both time to work in small groups and time to share and discuss the results in the plenary. The participants prepared for the consultation by reflecting on the report of the global IFES Scripture Engagement consultation and by bringing one idea to share.

Through the consultation, challenges were identified, new ideas shared and many staff decided to put a focus on Scripture engagement in their ministry. Some plans for the future are:

to address global issues based on Scripture;
to promote public and creative ways of engaging Scripture at university;
to study (whole) books of the Bible at all conferences – from different parts of Scripture;
to develop a national network which continues to work on strengthening Scripture engagement.

For more details, you can contact Ana Miriam Peralta, regional staff with COMPA Mexico and co-leader of the consultation: anamiriam (at) compa.mx.

There are other ways to stop and reflect. Last year, the IFES movements in East Asia ran a six-day regional conference on Scripture engagement. Other movements included reflection sessions on different aspects of Scripture engagement in their regular programmes.

Don’t just keep on running. It might not bring you where you want to go.

Sabine Kalthoff