Let me present to you the history of The Gordon Lindsay Bible Training Series. It all began when Rod started reading and accumulating material from Christ For The Nations’ co-founder, Gordon Lindsay’s 247 books and booklets in 2009. The teaching and doctrine were so sound, and part of our heritage as CFNI graduates, that it was a perfect fit to develop into a Bible training curriculum to present as his doctoral project from Vision University. Phase one contained the 13 manual completed teaching materials, summary statements, PowerPoints and true and false statements for tests. Rod’s finished work was first gifted to CFNI mission graduates to enable them to teach Bible training on the mission field
Phase two, we worked with the Christ For The Nations’ publication department, that Rod supervised, to get each manual put into a professionally published book. To our joy, Brandon, our son, was working in this department at the time and created the layout and the initial covers for the books. The last book was professionally published in 2015.
When we transitioned out of CFNI in December of 2015, we were given permission to use the professional digital copies for the Native American Initiative. So, we traveled to the reservations and presented the material to leaders in several states. To our dismay, we found that the manuals seemed overwhelming to them.
We realized they needed teaching aides to help them to facilitate group learning that is the culturally acknowledged format for teaching.
So, we went back to the drawing board and began phase three. Rod, myself and a few friends spent countless hours pouring over the material, adding 4 question lessons and prayers for each chapter of the books.
We used this format because it facilitates question and answer learning, creating dialogue among a small groups of people—vital in the Native American community. And not only that, but we added additional teaching materials from a wide variety of sources, giving certain points in the books added emphasis.
Rod studying to create lessons for the BTS.
In 2020 we thought we were complete, but something just felt undone. As we prayed, the Lord showed us another aspect of development to add to the materials. In phase four each book was to have a personal growth and an evangelistic focus, as well as a mission statement for the series. We created a simple, easily reproducible layout and user-friendly format. We also developed a leader’s lesson with all the answers to the questions, and extra materials, and student lessons. And finally, we added a devotional, journaling method of reading the Bible which leads new believers to experience the process of hearing the Holy Spirit speak to them as they read the Word.
Now in our last phase, number five, we are preparing to make all of this work readily available online to all the 574 federally recognized tribes across America. We are recreating this entire training series in an online classroom format for individual training for the Native American Initiative.
It’s been a long haul in development and creation, but we are nearing a finish line. This 17-year assignment is about to be completed. We greatly implore your financial assistance in finishing this work so that we might prepare to train Native American students in the Word of God.
Thank you so much, in advance!
Rod and Celeste Groomer
