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Is it possible to present the gospel to someone who does not accept the Bible as a book inspired by God?

An unbeliever must have some degree of openness to the message of the Bible before you can make any progress with him or her in presenting the gospel. We suggest that you ask the person to temporarily, at least, suspend disbelief in the Bible and listen to its story and message before making a final judgment on the Bible.

This doesn't mean the person needs to deny his or her doubts, but to just keep an open mind to what the Bible has to say for itself before assuming something prior to examining the evidence.

To attempt to prove the existence of God or the authenticity of the Bible before sharing the gospel would probably be futile and only result in debates.  The Bible doesn't try to prove God's existence, nor does it attempt to prove its divine authenticity.  The Bible assumes both and invites unbiased unbelievers and even skeptics to read it and consider its claims.  And, over the centuries since it began to be distributed widely, many of those kinds of people have discovered that their previous doubts and denials were unfounded.

When leading a Good Soil seminar, how do you get through all of the seminar material on time without seeming rushed?

Three simple hints will help you stay on target with your time constraints and still cover what you must.

1. Teach with a team. If you try to teach the whole seminar by yourself, you may have other problems as well, but one will be trying to stay within time limits. When one teacher is up front the other one or two can be in the back making sure the whole team is staying on task and on time. Now, communication regarding time constraints should only be done between teachers and not in front of the class—even jokingly. That only detracts from the subject and from credibility. It’s great to be part of a team that is helping one another behind the scenes and supportive up front. But how do you know if you are off schedule?
2. Use the GSED Teaching Assignments Template. On http://www.goodsoil.com, under the “Trainers Resources” tab, one of the many resources you will find is this template. Besides dividing the teaching into chunks, it also lists the amount of time each chunk should take (if teaching the entire seminar in 14 hours) and assigns each chunk to a teacher. When you sit down after teaching a chunk, you can see how the time is going. Also, when a teacher is ‘waxing eloquent’ over their time, the other teachers can discreetly help him/her finish up sooner (see #1).
3. Use a timer for activities. Controlling the time in this manner helps keep you on schedule. There are many types of timers you can use from oven/egg timers to sophisticated timers you can project from your computer. One free download available is from “Cool Timer.” Simply google ‘cool timer’ and you will find this easy to use timer. Check the "Links" section under "Resources" to see where you can purchase the on-screen timer that we use (TimerTools Software).

Related Resources: GSED Teaching Assignments Template
Related Links: TimerTools Software

How would you handle these objections to Good Soil E&D that sometimes are given by traditionalist Christians?

Objection 1: Logic has no place in leading someone to Christ.  Only the conviction by the Holy Spirit based on the preaching of the Word of God can do that.  Appealing to logic is to ask an unregenerate man to understand something he cannot comprehend without the Holy Spirit.

Answer 1: If you look closely, you will realize that Good Soil E&D is not based upon logic-oriented gospel presentations (evidentialist-rational-classical apologetics).  One of our most basic distinctives is that we teach believers to present God's story of redemption as it unfolds through the Bible.  Only God can change the core worldview beliefs (presuppositions) of an unbeliever and he uses His Word to do that.  As we present the Bible's metanarrative (Big Story) to an unbeliever, he/she must compare what he/she believes with what the Bible says about the core issues of life.  As that happens, we pray for God the Holy Spirit to lift the veil of spiritual blindness from his/her heart and for the Holy Spirit to convict him/her of sin and rebellion against God.

Objection 2: Anything in addition to preaching of the Word is adding human works to the gospel.

Answer 2: There are many ways to proclaim the Word of God, in addition to what we culturally think of as "preaching."  Much of Paul's evangelistic ministry, in the book of Acts, was not "preaching" per se.  We simply would disagree with any one who would say that presenting God's plan of salvation in an illustrated and printed form is adding human works to the gospel.  That is not "adding" to the gospel, it is presenting and clarifying the gospel.

Objection 3: Americans have plenty of opportunities to hear gospel preaching on radio and TV.  They don't need a long explanation of who God is and what He expects from them.  They just need a clear presentation of the gospel.

Answer 3: That was probably accurate a generation or more ago.  But, increasingly that is no longer true, in many situations.  We have had numerous pastors attend our Good Soil seminars who have told us that many of the people who now live in their communities do not know the basic Biblical-Christian concepts--who the true God is, what sin is, the realities of life beyond the grave, who Jesus Christ is, and what He has to offer them.  The Good Soil training and resources were originally created to prepare missionaries to present the gospel in totally pagan, non-Christian cultures.  But, we are finding that many North American pastors are telling us that their communities are similarly pagan.

Objection 4: Relational ministry is a waste of time.  Relatives don't listen, anyway.  "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country."  Don't get too emotionally involved with your parishioners--they will lose respect for you and you will know too much about them.

Answer 4: We don't say that relational evangelism is better than initial contact evangelism.  We believe that both are appropriate, depending on the situation.  But in defense of relational evangelism, keep in mind that (humanly speaking) Simon Peter would not have followed Jesus if his brother Andrew had not brought him to Jesus (John 1:41).  There have been numerous survey studies that indicate that unbelievers are attracted to Jesus and the gospel because of the influence of relatives or friends, more than for any other reason.  The examples of Cornelius (Acts 10) and the Philippian jailer (Acts 16) should encourage us to use our relationships to influence our friends and families for Christ. 

Related Blog Entries: Persuasion in Gospel Presentations
Related Resources: Good Soil Disclaimers & Affirmations, Persuasion—A Biblical Study, What Must I [Really] Do to Be Saved?

When leading a Good Soil seminar, what are some ways I can encourage 100% participation in discussions and activities?

Most of the time we like to use “Ground Rules” in our training sessions. What are they? Well, Ground Rules are somewhat silly, somewhat serious statements of expected behavior written in bright colors on sheets of flip chart paper, usually accompanied by drawings and placed; you guessed it, on the floor. Hence, the name, ground rules. These can be anything from “Sit wherever you like” to “Please be back on time from breaks” to “No laptops allowed.” Generally we have a ground rule that says something like, “100% Participation Required.” So as students come in to our sessions, they know from the start that participation is expected. Yet because the expectations are shared in such a low-key manner, very rarely do people take offense, and most often they rise to the challenge glad-heartedly.

There are times, especially in certain cultures, that people will not want to participate and possibly even find it offensive. (For example, women in certain cultures can feel it is wrong for them to speak out in certain settings.) We need to be sensitive in these situations and treat people and their convictions with respect and dignity. Still, we have seen people respond positively and even stretch themselves out of their comfort zone to participate.

One key in all this is the commitment we have to small group learning. All work is done in groups of four to seven people. No one, no matter how outgoing or shy, is asked to give their opinion on a given subject to a group any larger than that. Then, when a spokesperson reports for the group, he or she is reporting on the group’s work—no one individual is singled out to have said one thing or another. In so doing we build in layers of anonymity or safety. Even if a shy person is the scribe or reporter for a certain piece of work, he or she is only reporting on what the group said or did—not on any personal ideas or work of their own about which they may be timid. Simply reporting for the group makes it much easier to speak to the larger group.

Related Resources: 00 Dave Arch Moving Beyond Lecture Five Part Video Series

When leading a Good Soil seminar, how do you ascertain understanding of all participants in group activities and discussions?

When you are leading a Good Soil seminar, there are at least three ways to determine if students are comprehending the material:

1. We have groups do learning activities and then report to the larger group what they learned so we have a built in barometer of understanding. Also, usually the kinds of things we have them do are activities that help them process ideas as they learn. This is a great way to see if people are ‘getting it’ because their final work (bullet points or paragraphs on a flip chart, a drawing, a skit, etc.) readily shows not just regurgitated information, but an understanding (or lack of it) of that information.
2. Actually even before they report, we can see how they are doing by observing groups as they work. We don’t want to get too close, or bother them, or appear to be ‘spying on’ them, but by observing from a distance we can generally see if a group is getting the concept being taught or not. If a group is having difficulty, we can approach that group and guide them toward understanding.
3. But you may say, “What about the quieter individuals or others who are in a group that reported but that may not have ‘gotten it’? Generally, small group learning is quite effective in those situations, because learners feel responsible to help the colleagues in their group. Co-learners will ‘teach’ each other. And research shows that students will remember more of what they say to each other than what they hear the teacher say.

Related Resources: 00 Dave Arch Moving Beyond Lecture Five Part Video Series

Why don’t you spend more seminar time training people to use The Story of Hope?

For one thing, it’s just a simple issue related to the amount of time we have available in a seminar (a full 14 hours of teaching time is what we need).  In order to cover the other necessary parts of the seminar, we can’t afford the luxury of spending more time on The Story of Hope than is currently allotted in the seminar teaching plan.

But we do spend a good part of the second day in The Story of Hope.  We do cover every section of the book and give practice times for some of them.  I suppose that many seminar participants would enjoy and benefit from a teaching overview of the forty Bible events, but that would consume quite a bit of time.

The 130 page Leader’s Guide for The Story of Hope was created to compensate for the fact that we can’t give in-class instruction on the content of each of the 40 events or the methods for leading people through those events in a study setting.

We believe that post-seminar practice or real-ministry experience using The Story of Hope is the key to becoming comfortable with it, within ten days to two weeks after the seminar training.  Ideally, that should be with an unbeliever or a new believer in order to get the feel of handling real questions.  Maybe you can approach a friend who is not saved or is young in the faith and tell him or her that you just received training to lead The Story of Hope Bible studies and need someone to help you learn more about how to lead them.  Perhaps appealing to their willingness to help would be a good way to get them involved.

Other practice ideas that we often recommend include using it for a devotional study with your family or simply leading another Christian friend through it for the sake of practice—perhaps alternating the person who leads each event study.  We’ve discovered that it generally takes three experiences leading a study before you will feel comfortable with the process.

What is the most effective way to implement Good Soil E&D in a local church?

We often say that Good Soil Evangelism and Discipleship (E&D) is not a program—it’s a theology of evangelism and discipleship for which we have created some complementary implementation resources.  In our training and promotions, we have resisted the term “program” because it often connotes a firmly fixed set of steps that, if followed, will automatically produce good results.  Our experiences in the realm of missionary work have taught us that generally an “out of the box” approach to programming for ministry does not work most effectively.  We understand and value the need for proper local contextualization of evangelism and discipleship principles.

However, that does not mean that local churches cannot implement this Good Soil approach with its associated resources in the form of a ministry program.  But the key is that local churches need to determine how Good Soil E&D will work best in their church, in their local setting with their people. 

That said, here are some general ideas that should be considered in the process of forming a customized local church program based upon Good Soil theology and resources:

Leadership:  Some competent and motivated person or group of people needs to assume the responsibility for leading the Good Soil efforts.  At least one leader needs to be a strong “Good Soil Champion” from the outset, a person who has received the training and is firmly convinced of the value of Good Soil principles.

Training:  Good training is the first major step to the effective implementation of Good Soil E&D in a local church.  We strongly recommend that the Good Soil seminar(s) that you offer in your church be led by two or more certified Good Soil trainers with reasonably good aptitudes and skills for training.  To a large degree, the attitude that the people in your church will have toward Good Soil E&D will be determined by the quality of the training they receive.  You may want to bring a core group of church members to a Good Soil seminar at ABWE, as a basis for launching a Good Soil program in your church.

Gaining Ground With Good Soil – the Book:  The very purpose of this book (by Gil Thomas) is to inform and train Christ-followers about Good Soil E&D; it is expressed in the book’s subtitle, A Good Soil Evangelism and Discipleship Training Narrative.  The book is designed to be used for (1) personal reading and/or (2) group studies.  It’s an excellent tool for taking what you have learned in an official Good Soil seminar back home to your friends and fellow church members.  A personal or group study guide will soon be published (mid-2010) and a free downloadable Leader’s Guide will become available in the Free Resources section of the Good Soil website.   You can order the book from http://www.goodsoil.com/resources/ (published in early 2010).

Main Good Soil Models:  The Good Soil E&D scale, the worldview noise visual model, and the worldview onion peeling visual model are three key components of Good Soil E&D.  We would recommend that people in the church who are involved in your church’s E&D program need to understand and review these models regularly.

Some Structure for Accountability:  Frankly, most of us lack personal discipline related to faithfulness in evangelism and discipleship.  Thus, we need structures for mutual accountability.  It’s the Hebrews 10:25 principle:  ^“Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another…”  Create some kind of “Good Soil group” in your church that meets together regularly for fellowship, encouragement, ongoing training, and accountability.  Give it whatever name you want or maybe just call it the “Good Soil Group.”

Ongoing Development and Inspiration:  The content provided in the Good Soil seminar is only a start—just first steps to Good Soil E&D.  We would encourage you keep updated regarding Good Soil E&D news—new products, Good Soil stories, and prayer requests related to Good Soil training events that are occurring across North America and around the world.  Become a regular visitor to, and participant in, the websites in our Good Soil Network:

• www.GoodSoil.com (products, seminars, Good Soil stories, projects, translations, links, resources, etc.)
• http://Cultivate.GoodSoil.com (blog articles, forum for discussions, frequently asked questions, links, resources, etc.)
• http://Facebook.GoodSoil.com (announcements and news, etc.)

Good Soil Catch Phrase:  As per Wikipedia, a catch phrase is a phrase or expression recognized by its repeated utterance.  Some of these catch phrases become the de facto “trademark” of the group or organization with whom they originated.  The Good Soil E&D catch phrase is “Initiate conversations that may become redemptive relationships.”  If you have provided Good Soil training and can make this catch phrase popular and common among the members of your church, there is a good chance that some of them will become Good Soil personal evangelists and disciple makers.

Related Blog Entries: Good Soil E&D in a Local Church
Related Resources: Good Soil Seminar Promotional Flyer
Related Links: Good Soil Evangelism & Discipleship, Facebook Good Soil Fan Page

What kind of implications does the Good Soil approach to ministry have for student (teen) ministry within a church?

There's no reason to believe that the principles taught in the Good Soil seminar will not work for teens (students / youth) as well as they do with adults. With very few adaptations, we know that teens can be taught to think about and practice evangelism and discipleship in ways consistent with the Good Soil emphases of Jesus.

Unfortunately, many (if not most) student ministry models of evangelism and discipleship focus on quick and easy results—shallow “decisions”—if any evangelistic results at all.  But it would be inaccurate to blame this ill-guided approach on the immaturity of young people.  In most cases it’s the immaturity or ignorance of youth leaders that is the root cause.  Teens can be taught to practice evangelism and discipleship properly just as easily as they can be taught to practice them improperly. 

Perhaps the major challenge to implementing Good Soil E&D in a student ministry would be the radical changes that would be necessary in the teaching ministries of teen programs.  In order to understand, appreciate, and practice evangelism and discipleship based upon the Big Story of the Bible, Christian teens need to possess a working knowledge of that story—the story of hope that is interwoven through the Bible from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22.  And very few contemporary youth ministries offer the kind and quality of Biblical instruction that prepares teens to know the Bible—the overall structure and story of the Bible.  So, to seriously implement Good Soil E&D in a youth ministry, the leaders would need to make a radical paradigm shift in their Bible teaching approach—from a Bible-lite topical emphasis to a systematic diet of Bible teaching that truly equips teens to know God’s Word.

We believe that the Good Soil Scale could appropriately become the basis of a youth ministry philosophy and program.  Youth activities could be planned to target teens at various places on the scale.  For example, why not use the scale as a diagnostic tool to evaluate the balance of a youth ministry?  Are there activities that focus on teens at the tilling and planting stages of the scale?  Are there activities and strategies that focus on the follow-up discipleship stage of the scale?  What about the leadership development stage? Etc.  Then use the Good Soil Scale as a model for planning youth activities and programs to assure a balanced youth ministry.

Teens can be taught to recognize and deal with worldview noise issues as they interact with unbelievers in evangelistic relationships.  They can learn to “peel the worldview onions” of acquaintances in their context of social relationships.  They can learn to initiate conversations that may lead to redemptive relationships.  They can be trained to use The Story of Hope and The Way to Joy, assuming they have adequate Biblical and theological knowledge.

Related Blog Entries: Good Soil E&D in a Local Church
Related Links: The LifeBook Project - Student Ministry Founded by the Gideons

Have you considered developing a Vacation Bible School module around The Story of Hope?

A Vacation Bible School edition (per se) of The Story of Hope is not a project that we are planning to develop, at least at this time.  But we are working on adapting The Story of Hope for use in various children’s ministries—Sunday school, camps, five day clubs, etc.

It is fairly easy to format the 40 events in The Story of Hope into a five day teaching plan—basically eight events per day (on the average).  Some folks have already done that sort of thing for camp and other settings.  One of our ABWE children ministry specialists has been training children’s workers overseas to do this kind of thing.  The Story of Hope printed teaching visuals (laminated and non-laminated options) and The Story of Hope PowerPoint presentation both provide visual support for presentations to children.  And, since they are wordless, they can be used in any language group context.

Answers in Genesis has an excellent chronological Bible-based VBS program, the Amazon Expedition.

After completing the Good Soil seminar, what’s the next step—what can I do to advance the Good Soil E&D project?

We would hope that you become a Good Soil “champion.”  In other words, we would like for you to take what you learned from the seminar back to your home, your friends, and your church and influence others to become Good Soil evangelists and disciple makers.

First and foremost—Begin to use what you’ve learned in your personal ministry.  Take someone through The Story of Hope and/or The Way to Joy as soon as possible.  If that person can be an unbeliever or a new believer, that’s great!  But if not, at least get some practice with these tools, even if it means leading family members or friends who are already Christ-followers through the studies.  Discipline yourself to “initiate conversations that may become redemptive relationships” and use the appropriate resources as God opens doors of evangelism and discipleship ministries for you.

Second—Train other believers to use these resources.  If you completed the Trainer Certification seminar, this might be done in a Good Soil seminar that you lead.  Use the information that was given to you in the seminar and register for access to the free Trainer resources on www.GoodSoil.com.  Or, you may want to use the book Gaining Ground With Good Soil: An Evangelism and Discipleship Training Narrative (and the accompanying study guide) as your training resource.  It is designed for use in one-to-one or small group studies.

Third—Encourage others to attend a Good Soil seminar.  Better yet, re-take the seminar yourself and bring others with you.  You won’t be disappointed by attending the seminar a second time—you’ll solidify what you learned the first time and be better equipped to use and teach it.  If you attended the Good Soil seminar at ABWE, you can attend a future seminar at ABWE for 50% of the tuition price.  Also, enquire about group prices for seminar attendance.

Fourth—Interact regularly with Cultivate blogs, forum discussions, and questions (on this site).  The Good Soil seminar has given you the general content of the Good Soil theology of evangelism and discipleship. But, to deepen your understanding of Good Soil evangelism and discipleship, you need to “plug in” to the ongoing-developing content on this Cultivate blog/forum/FAQs site.

Related Blog Entries: Good Soil E&D in a Local Church
Related Resources: Good Soil Seminar Promotional Flyer
Related Links: Good Soil Evangelism & Discipleship, Facebook Good Soil Fan Page

I like the narrative approach in The Story of Hope—why don’t you do something similar with The Way to Joy?

We've been asked this question a few times.  In some rare cases, this concept is even presented quite strongly as a convictional matter, rather than just a question of preference—almost as if the current question and answer (quasi-Socratic), primarily propositional style of The Way to Joy is not valid and should not be used.

In order to support the concept of a narrative-based discipleship book (a narrative edition of The Way to Joy), several reasons have been proposed:

• People today are interested in narratives.
• Jesus discipled his followers by telling stories.
• In some non-literate cultures, people are not able to understand propositional concepts, such as those in The Way to Joy.

In general, we agree with those statements.  And we acknowledge that a narrative edition of The Way to Joy is a valid concept and could be valuable in some situations; we’re certainly not opposed to the idea.  And we might create a narrative edition at some future time.

But there are reasons why we have chosen not to make the mainline edition of The Way to Joy a narrative-based book.

• First, to create a narrative edition of The Way to Joy (and cover all of the same topics) would result in a much larger book.  Then, the cost of the book would increase significantly, making it more difficult to make it available at a culturally-appropriate cost to national believers. 

For example, look at the (several) sub-topics covered in Lesson 6, dealing with the ministries of the Holy Spirit.  If we included a story for each of these sub-topics, or created a larger story that adequately covered all of these sub-topics, the length of Lesson 6 would probably expand significantly beyond two pages.  Narrative instruction is often very effective, but it is space-consumptive when done well.  The current style of The Way to Joy is much more concise, allowing for a relatively small booklet.

• Second, would we be able to find Bible stories (narratives) that address all of the topics and sub-topics that appear in The Way to Joy?  Probably not.

For example, what Bible narrative would you use to teach the broadly multi-faceted nature of the gifts of the Holy Spirit or the fruit of the Spirit?  What Bible narrative would you use to teach the eternal security of believers or the specific truths in 2 Peter 1:20-21?  Etc. etc.

And if we chose to use non-Biblical stories, where would we find stories that are transcultural and how well would they fit Biblical teachings?  And if we couldn’t find transcultural stories, then we’d need to create a specific edition of The Way to Joy for every culture.

• Third, in an attempt to find Bible stories to teach all of the necessary follow-up discipleship concepts, we would tend to do what many preachers and Sunday school curriculum publishers do—we’d be tempted to twist Bible stories to make them teach what we want them to emphasize.  And that would be teaching new believers bad hermeneutical practices that would lead to faculty interpretations of Scripture in other areas…perhaps leading to heretical practices.  How we model the interpretation of Scripture is how they will practice it.
• Fourth, no matter how much we may prefer narrative literature and how popular it may be in our culture, we need to remember that a significant part of Scripture is non-narrative.  It is interesting to note that much (if not most) of the Bible that is purposed specifically for the discipleship-instruction of believers is not narrative in genre, it’s in the form of propositional expositions (development and declaration of logical concepts) or it’s didactic (teaching), or epistolary (letters), sermonic (sermons), poetic, or in some other non-narrative genre.  

That’s true of much of the book of Deuteronomy, a book that records Moses’ discipleship-instruction of the nation of Israel in preparation for their entry into Canaan.  It’s also true of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, significant instructional books in the Old Testament, as well as much the content in the books of the prophets.

And we know it’s true with most all of the New Testament, once we move past the gospels and the book of Acts.  If we commit to a narrative-only kind of discipleship training, how do we deal with the epistles of Paul, Peter, John, and Jude?  Do we conclude that we can’t use the non-narrative portions of Scripture, or do we find ways to teach narrative-preferenced people to expand their capabilities for learning?

And remember that Jesus used other presentation methods, in addition to the stories He told.  Often, for example, He used propositional questions and answers—in a quasi-Socratic form.

Conclusion:  While there’s nothing wrong with using narratives to disciple new believers, the process does present some daunting challenges.  For the most part, we don’t sense a compelling need to restructure The Way to Joy to that format, at least for the mainstream edition.

When leading a Good Soil seminar, how do you get out of a discussion that has turned into a debate?

Before You Get Into Those Situations:

1. The first thing to do is to try to avoid those kinds of situations as much as possible.  Think about the kinds of potentially emotion-charged topics that might spawn a debate and prepare ahead of time for them.  When you approach a topic like that, “frame it” with disclaimers and lots of humility.
   Example: We approach the Good Soil scale with disclaimers such as—it’s only a humanly constructed model so it isn’t infallible, etc.
2. Use a “Questions Board” and, from the very beginning of the seminar, direct people to place their questions on that board, along with their names.  That allows you to decide if you want to answer the question in a private setting or before the entire group.
3. Be aware that many of these kinds of issues have been addressed in the resource articles in the Supplement section of the notebook, or on the Cultivate blog-forum site.  Be familiar with these sources and direct the person who asks the question to those resources.  That’s one of the major reasons that we’ve created those resources—to keep emotion-charged issues out of the general discussion forum of the class, without simply dodging them.
   Example: Be familiar with the “Affirmations and Disclaimers” and “What Must I [Really] Do to Be Saved” articles, as well as the many FAQs and blog articles on http://Cultivate.GoodSoil.com.

When You Find Yourself in Those Situations:

1. If the issue isn’t crucial, say something like “Thanks for sharing your view on that.” and then move on with the seminar.
2. If the issue is important, state your position and invite the person to discuss it further later, outside of the main sessions.

Recommended Resource: Dealing with Difficult Participants by Dave Arch (Order from Amazon.com)

Related Resources: Good Soil Disclaimers & Affirmations, What Must I [Really] Do to Be Saved?

What is your view regarding people using the Good Soil seminar material in training others when they have not participated in the Trainer Certification seminar?

We are not legalistic about non-certified people using the seminar materials to train others, which is different from the approach followed with seminars sponsored by many other organizations.  But, obviously, we do think that there is a strong value associated with participation in the Trainer Certification seminar.  This has been demonstrated many times over in the Trainer Certification Seminar--most everyone is much more confident about using the seminar materials at the end of the certification training day than they were at the beginning.  The trainer seminar will help you avoid many predictable pitfalls that you would encounter if you were not equipped properly.

If people only attend the Basic Good Soil Seminar, we certainly encourage them to teach what they have learned to others.  There are many good ways for them to do that.  But we would also strongly encourage them to enroll in a Trainer Certification Seminar as soon as possible.  They will not regret it, if they do.

We do restrict access to the “Trainer’s Resource” section of http://www.GoodSoil.com to people who have completed the certification training.  And we ask certified trainers not to share those resources with others who have not gone through the training for Good Soil seminar trainers.  

How do you handle questions from different eschatological views?

The Story of Hope and The Way to Joy are primarily designed for use with unbelievers or new believers, so “eschatological views” questions wouldn’t come from them.  So, I assume, this question could be worded more clearly like this: “How do you address concerns of people who want to use these books but who hold eschatological views (views concerning the “end times”) that differ from the views expressed in The Story of Hope?”

It’s very good question and one that concerns us!

The authors of The Story of Hope hold to a pre-tribulational, pre-millennial view of eschatology (study of “last things”).  But, we did not intend to use The Story of Hope to promote our view of last things.  The Story of Hope was written primarily to present God’s redemptive plan (“Big Story” or metanarrative) in such a way that unbelievers and can understand it and be saved.  It is our intention to focus on what is most important—God’s provision for redeeming fallen men and women, as well as the physical creation which has been cursed as result of Adam and Eve’s fall.

But to tell the whole “Big Story,” we can’t just jump from Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension to Revelation 21 & 22 (new heavens and new Earth).  Well, I suppose we could do that, but it would by-pass some very important “hopeful” features in God’s story of hope.  For example:

• For us, the return of Jesus for believers is one of our most precious hopes.  We believe it’s the event that Paul refers to as “the blessed hope” in Titus 2:13.
• And what hope would there be for mankind, if God did not eternally banish Satan into a place of eternal damnation?  If we stopped in our study at the ascension of Christ back to the Father in heaven or if we jumped from the ascension to Revelation 21-22, we would be neglecting this key prophetic event that appears in Revelation 20:7-10.
• If we failed to deal adequately with the great white throne judgment (Revelation 20:11-15), we would miss a key opportunity to warn unbelievers of the dreadful, eternal wrath of God that they will face if they reject God’s provision for their redemption.

So, while we do not intend to promote any particular view of last things, to tell the entire Big Story of the Bible, requires that we make our eschatological views known.  And as we do that, we certainly respect other legitimate interpretations as to how the story ends.

Question: Would we ever create a version of The Story of Hope that could be used by amillennialists (those who believe that there will be no literal, earthly 1000 year reign of Christ), for example? 

Answer: We might be willing to work with some evangelical organization to allow them to adapt The Story of Hope in a way that did not contradict our views, but did present the end of the story in a way that did not contradict their eschatological views.

For additional information, read the Cultivate blog article on the End-Focus for The Story of Hope. 

Related Blog Entries: End-Focus for The Story of Hope, Selection Criteria for TSOH Events

Are the three good soil verbs in Matthew 13 (suniemi), Mark 4 (paradechomai), and Luke 8 (katechousin) synonymous? Jesus says that people who understand the word (gospel) bear fruit, people who embrace the word bear fruit, and people who retain the word bear fruit? So, are these three actions really one and the same?

Answer: No, the words are not synonymous (they don't all mean the same thing), but they are integrally related.

We believe that to understand all that Jesus taught about good soil, we must consider all three of the recorded accounts of times in which He spoke this parable.  The Matthew 13 account of the parable certainly reports the truth about what Jesus said on one or more occasions--those who bear fruit as true believers are people who have understood the gospel clearly.  The same is true of the Mark 4 account--those who bear fruit as true believers have sincerely embraced the gospel.  And the same can be said of the Luke 8 account--true fruit-bearing believers will retain the gospel.  

If you read the Matthew 13 account, without considering the Mark and Luke accounts, you might get the idea that a person only has to understand the word to be saved and bear the fruit of a true Christian.  But, as we read the other gospel accounts we realize that understanding, as important as it is, is just the foundational step--the word must also be embraced.  And if you just read the Mark 4 account, you might think that a person can sincerely embrace the word without understanding it.  And worse still, if you just read the Luke 8 account you might think that a person can retain the word without understanding or embracing it.

It's a basic principle of hermeneutics (interpretation of the Bible) that we compare all related Bible passages before finalizing our interpretation as to what a Biblical text means. 

Related Resources: Word Studies for Three Good Soil Verbs

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