Understanding what we’re doing in Hawaii

May 17, 2014

The Big Picture

In seeing the Great Commission fulfilled, there are a number of things that need to come together. There are a number of categories that we need to see a great move of God in. Without the combination of these things the Great Commission will remain unfinished. In a global movement in the body of Christ called “Call2All,” these categories have been named as the following:

1. ERADICATING BIBLE POVERTY
2. MOBILIZING PRAYER
3. ACCELERATING EVANGELISM
4. DEMONSTRATING COMPASSION
5. TRANSFORMING UNENGAGED, UNREACHED PEOPLE GROUPS
6. REACHING & EQUIPPING ORAL LEARNERS
7. ESTABLISHING GROWING CHURCH IN ALL SPHERES

The one area that our work in Kona, Hawaii is focused on is #1:

I want to use a quote from the website: “The ultimate goal is that people will read or listen to the Bible and thus engage with it in a life-transforming way. Research by the Center for Bible Engagement shows that there are ‘large behavioral differences between Christians who read or listen to the Bible at least four days a week and those who engage with scripture less often. These differences include both moral behavior as well as how prepared the individual is to serve God and impact the world.'”

Within the category of ERADICATING BIBLE POVERTY there is a continuum of things that need to come together in order for people to “engage with it in a life-transforming way.”

1. Written Language: A group of people who need a Bible in their language first need a way to write that language down in order to give them the written Word of God.
2. Bible Translation: The languages that have yet to have a Bible need to have a Bible (preferably the entire Bible).
3. Literacy: The people who get the Bible in their own language need to be able to read it. So, we must teach illiterate people how to read.
4. Bible Engagement Tools: There needs to be something that we can give or teach the people that will help them to engage with the Word of God. Simply giving them a book isn’t going to make much of a different (see Western Society today as an example).

BIBLE ENGAGEMENT TOOLS:
Our role here during this time is to help create tools that will stimulate Bible engagement among those who can read the Bible in their own language (which is about 95% of the entire world). What the world needs today are more people who “engage with the Bible in a life-transforming way.”

The SourceView Bible: David Hamilton spent 13 years observing the answer to a simple question through the entire Bible: “Who is speaking?” Starting from Genesis and all the way through to Revelation he reformatted the Bible to be read like a drama script. It notes every time that God is speaking, Moses is speaking and everyone else…even when Balaam’s donkey speaks. It makes the Bible become more like a story (a true story) as it was originally meant to be read. (For 50 free sample short stories from the book of Genesis, please click here). You can also buy one on the website or on the iBooks store.

The SourceView Bible App (coming 2015): This has taken the written (printed word) to a new level of basic observation for all readers. But as the world consistently gets more and more digital, this Bible is going to take us all deeper with the possibilities. Not only could you search the word faith, but you could search all the times faith is mentioned by Joseph in the Bible. Or you could search the word love only when Jesus spoke it. Wait, there’s more.
Cy and I have already gone through the whole Bible, adding to a study done by others as well, that is going to add the dimension of “Who is being spoken to?” This simple observation then creates the possibilities of searching the word faith only when God is talking to David. Or even when “a king” is speaking to “a woman in the 7th century BC”.
Wait there’s more. We’re also joining a study done by almost 300 people from around the world which is looking at the Bible through the lens of the Spheres of Society. So, you could search through the Bible regarding Education or Government or Family. Adding this to the other two studies, you could ultimately end up searching for (as an example) every time “Moses” talks to “the people of Israel” with regards to “government”. The combination of these three studies allow for thousands of different searches (not including Books, chapters and verses).

Our Work

*Before we begin explaining our work here, we believe it’s valuable to communicate with you that this is not a change in our ministry. We are still committed long-term to Chiang Rai and the YWAM Base there. This is simply a project that we sensed God wanted us to participate in for a season. So, we’re here for 3 months now and will return again either at the end of this year or beginning of next year for another 3-6 month period. Thailand is our home and we will continue to make it our main focus.*

Here in Hawaii we’re studying the Bible, not only for ourselves, but also as a gift to give to generations to come. The Strong’s Concordance is used by most pastors and teachers of the Bible around the world who want to understand the original language of the Bible. Dr. James Strong (along with more than 100 fellow workers) spent hours, days, months and years doing a tedious task of putting numbers to words and counting them in each passage of the entire King James Bible. However, his tedious work ended up blessing thousands of missionaries, church leaders and scholars for generations. We hope to serve the current and future generations with our work as well.

Specific studies:
1. “To whom is someone speaking?” (already finished the entire Bible)
2. Highlighting every word, phrase, verse and paragraph that either describes or prescribes something with regards to Religion.
3. (maybe) Highlighting every word, phrase, verse and paragraph that either describes or prescribes something with regards to Communication.
4. Studying the verbs of God: what God does (creating a database of all the verbs of God in the original language)
5. Pioneering a surprise project for Thailand (to be announced at a later date)

If you have any questions regarding the work that we’re doing or how things are going here or in Chiang Rai, please send us an email and we’d be happy to inform you.

This is our attempt to describe our projects and how they are influencing the advance of the Great Commission. We are personally benefitting a lot through spending time in the word of God with men and women of God.

Thanks for praying for more and more revelation from God, allowing us to know Him and His ways more and more.