NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

Mike with baptized Ese Ejja believers

How easily do you get distracted?

Still with me? Good.

It’s easy to get distracted in ministry, just as it is in life. Mike and Cher Riepma recently shared that they’ve been so focused on the big goal of establishing a mature church among the Ese Ejja people of Bolivia, they almost missed what God is doing.

“God is working in individual hearts one at a time,” the Riepmas wrote.

Goster grew up as best friends with Mike and Cher’s son, Jared. He heard many Bible stories, “but he never saw his personal need of a Savior,” the couple wrote. He got married, had several children, and lived like those around him.

But one day his 8-year-old son asked, (more…)

Looking at the words the Bible uses for encourage  – paramuthia and parakaleo – we saw that they really have no exact English translations. They both mean encourage and comfort and exhort, all the time. In English those are three different concepts – but in the original Greek they are one concept.

From that we developed a working definition of the biblical concept of encouragement – of what God is asking of us when His Word says, “encourage one another”: To help someone move forward on the path God has for them.

Even just the word “help” is not a bad translation of this concept either. You have to be with the person, helping, to be an encouragement. This is not, “Get back up on that horse.” This is, “Let me tell you how to stay on the horse, and help you back up.”

And maybe one of those Greek words, parakaleo, sounded familiar to you. There’s a passage in the Bible where the noun form (more…)

"Let's see if there might be people that will be willing to donate just a few more pigs," Eyaka told Yanis.

Yanis was shaken and hurt.

He had finally found a young woman who trusted in Jesus in the same way he did. But when he asked to marry Unai, her father scowled and said, “No way. It’s going to take more than these 28 pigs to marry Unai.”

Her father’s words cut him deeply and shattered his dream. And that’s when his friend Eyaka encouraged him.

“I’ll help,” Eyaka said. “Let’s go to every village. Let’s visit every relative, even the distant family you haven’t seen in years. Let’s see if there might be people that will be willing to donate just a few more pigs. You’re almost there. Don’t give up now.”

Eyaka, full of energy and with a ready laugh, was the first Hewa to trust in Christ a few years earlier and helped the missionaries translate verses and lessons in preparation for teaching the Bible in his village.

(more…)

One of the reasons we don’t really understand what the Bible means when it says, “Encourage one another,” is that there are not precise translations for the two words the Bible uses for encourage.

That’s why those words are translated also as comfort, exhort and help.

So let’s delve into these words a bit more and see if we can summarize what they mean, so we can get a better idea what the Bible mean.

Parakaleo is (more…)

I warned you that it gets worse.

In my last post about encouragement, we saw that it’s important enough that the Bible tells us twice to encourage one another, and that, depending on your translation, the Bible speaks more about encouragement than it does about prayer.

As I said last time, I don’t think that means encouragement is more important than prayer. But I do think it’s clear that encouragement is a lot more important than you and I usually think it is.

And here’s where it gets worse: (more…)

Are you encouraged today?

Stop and think about your answer for a moment. What does it mean to be encouraged?

For that matter, what’s it mean to encourage someone else?

What, after all, is encouragement? (more…)