Maranatha Life's

Ministerial Intitute
of the Holy Spirit

Television Bible School

The Need:

One of the greatest needs on the missions field today is for training of leadership. I recently read a statistic, which said that there are only enough Bible schools in the world to train ten percent of the needed ministers! This is especially true in third world countries, where many pastors and ministers have received no formal Bible school training.

Here, in Reynosa, Mexico, where we are headquartered, 87% of the pastors only have a sixth grade education, and only one third of them have been to Bible school! This is in a border town, where the availability of Bible schools and resources is much higher than it is in the interior of Mexico, let alone farther down in Central and South America.

There are more than 440,000,000 Spanish-speaking people in the world today. The majority of these people live in third world countries. What training is available is unfortunately mostly very traditional in its outlook and presentation, ignoring true ministry needs and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Although there are more Christian books available in Spanish than there used to be, the average Mexican pastor can't afford to buy them. A typical Sunday offering is about 300 to 400 pesos (about 30 to 40 dollars). To pay ten to twelve dollars for a Christian book on that level of income is almost impossible. Especially when you consider that most Christian books are 10 percent revelation, and 90 percent fluff.

These pastors and leaders are in desperate need of training and equipping. Not theoretical understanding of the Bible, but practical, applicable teaching that will help them minister to their flocks.

The people of Mexico and the other Latin American countries are hungry for the Word of God. We already have pastors, leaders and future leaders that are ready to sign up and are asking when the school will begin. They are anxious to receive what we have to give them.

The Plan:

Part of the vision the Lord has given us is to train and equip leadership for the church throughout the world. We have always desired to establish a network of Bible Schools as part of this vision. However, we have also felt from the Lord that we should not be tied down in a way that would prevent traveling for the ministry. The two seemed incompatible. Recently the Lord showed us an absolutely explosive way to have the Bible Schools in a number of countries at the same time.

One of the pastors we work with in Mexico is the Northern Mexico promotional coordinator for Enlace, TBN's Spanish network. They have offered him free programming time to have both a daily program, and his Sunday service on the air.

He, in turn, came to us saying that he couldn't use all that time, and "needed" us to fill some of that time for him. That would give us two programs a week for free.

When we were seeking the Lord for how He would have us use this time, He showed us that we could use that program time to do a full Bible School throughout Latin America on television! Here's how this would work:

• The students register for the school through our web site on the Internet.

• They watch the teachings on our television program. This will only require watching two programs per week per course (we hope to have more than one course running consecutively at a later date).

• In addition to the teachings on the television, the students will download their study notes and handouts from our web site. It will be impractical to do the entire course worth of teachings on television, so the students will continue studies on their own. If the student misses a program, the audio track will be available on the Internet as well.

• At the end of the course, the student will take their exam for that course through the Internet. We will receive it, grade it, return it to them via e-mail, and store their grades on our database.

• At the end of either one year, one course, or completion of the full course of study (depending on the student's selection), the student will receive a certificate of completion.

Although most people in third world countries don't have computers, or Internet connection in their home, Internet café's are very common. For a minimal fee (about $1.00 per hour), anyone can access the Internet.

Since we will be using the Internet as part of the overall program, any students can access previous classes and take classes totally through the Internet. We will also be able to offer pastors packages where they can receive the videos and student notes in order to offer the classes in their churches.

Since we are providing this as a ministry in second and third world countries, our intent is to not charge any tuition to the student. The only fees they will pay will be to receive their certification (we have to charge a fee for this, because we have to pay for this). In addition, if a student wishes to purchase audio or video cassettes of any courses, we will charge them only our production costs.

This is a totally new concept that as far as we know is not being done anywhere in the church today. We expect that with this system, we will be able to train literally thousands of ministers and leaders in Latin America.

The School:

We don't want to create just another Bible Institute here. These present and future leaders of the church don't need another dull, dry seminary, or "cemetery" in which their faith will die. What they need is practical training in the Word of God and how to apply it to the real life tasks of ministry.

My attitude towards the Word of God has always been one of application. If I can't apply it to my life, it doesn't do me any good. What I want to know from the Bible, is how I can better live my life for the Lord.

A couple of years ago, I was teaching in a Hispanic Bible Institute in the Rio Grande valley. The pastor who headed up the school bought some of our teaching tapes in Spanish. The next week of class he recommended those tapes to the class, saying, "they're zero percent theology… but one hundred percent applicable." That's the kind of teaching the Body of Christ needs today, and that's the type of teaching we intend to air in this Bible Institute.

Future Expansion:

Although we have the potential for free air time on Enlace, there are other television networks in Spanish. Once the program is on the air, we would desire to expand the program onto other networks.

In addition to providing this ministry in Latin America, there is a potential for providing this ministry on a worldwide basis. Currently, there is Christian broadcasting throughout the world, in a number of different languages. All it would take to multiply this concept into other languages would be the people to translate the materials, and dub a "voice over" of the teachings onto the videotapes of the programs.