Believers going out into their community with Heart Bible storytelling
Gospel Advance training equips believers for evangelism with Bible stories
Since the genocide of 1994, God has brought reconciliation and hope to the nation of Rwanda.
OneWay’s Equipping Evangelist* was able to make a first-time visit to this previously war-torn nation in December 2021 to introduce the Heart Bible for the Nations curriculum, which could have a significant impact in teaching Rwandans to share God’s Word.
“With this they’re learning to retell complete Bible stories, narratives,” the Equipping Evangelist* said. “They can tell those for evangelism. They can tell them in their homes with devotionals, teaching their children. So it’s multi-use.”
Developed by OneWay’s Gospel Advance team, Heart Bible is a conversational method of teaching that leads believers to grow their “heart Bible” by memorizing the details of key Bible stories — stories which they can then retell naturally and accurately in their own words. They also learn a handful of questions to lead listeners in meaningful discussion.
Rwanda’s literacy rate is 73.2 percent (source: CIA World Factbook). For those who are non-literate or who have limited Bible or theological training, Heart Bible has a profound impact not only as a tool for evangelism, but also for discipleship and equipping of leaders.
The December Heart Bible training is part of a vision to see believers from predominantly Christian Rwanda activated to take the gospel to unreached, Muslim areas of a nearby country.*
The 20 men and women who attended Level 1 received 24 hours of training over five days. Equipping Evangelist taught five stories of Jesus from the Gospel of Mark. He also led the group to think through their personal stories as Christians. On two of the days, they split into groups and went out to share their testimonies with people in the market and nearby villages. By the end of the week, the majority of the attendees demonstrated that they were able to retell at least four of the five stories they had learned.
The Heart Bible method could be transformational for this group of Rwandan believers because their leader wants to focus exclusively on using this oral method of Bible teaching, the Equipping Evangelist said. He has a second trip to Rwanda planned within the next two months for further training.
*name withheld for security reasons
HOW YOU CAN BE PRAYING
Pray for a specific Level 1 attendee who plans to go to a hostile, unreached Muslim area very soon.
Pray for Equipping Evangelist’s travels to Rwanda to continue training.
Pray that the believers there will have hearts to receive and practice this method of Bible memory and teaching. Pray that if they have been taught false doctrine they will instead receive truth directly from God’s Word.
Visit www.heartbible.com to learn more about this powerful teaching method.
Visit www.owm.org/donate to give toward the mission of Gospel Advance.