Teaching about Preaching and Family Planning

Recently Sara and I both got to teach a class again for PAG Amuria's In Service Bible School Program for pastors.  We each only spent one day teaching.  Here is an old photo of Sara teaching IBS classes from several months ago.

This time I taught about hermeneutics, and then also the 4-Page Method for preaching.  It's a method I learned while at Calvin Seminary.  It forces pastors to dig into the passage rather than just reading a verse and talking about whatever they want.  The general pattern is:
1.  Discuss the problem in the text. 
2.  Discuss the similar problem in our lives today.
3.  Declare God's grace and activity in the passage.
4.  Declare God's similar grace and activity in our lives today.

This method is very simple, but very effective.  It forces pastors to look at what God is doing rather than just preaching a moralistic method.  It helps pastors to remember to proclaim the good news of the Gospel rather than just telling people to stop drinking or read their Bible more.  The students really appreciated this message, and we discussed how to use it for dozens of examples from Scripture.  When I went through the first example, giving them a 30 second version of a sermon using the method, they all started laughing, because they realized how helpful the method is and enjoyed it so much.  They are excited to try it out.  Here is a photo of the students discussing how to apply this method to various Bible passages.

Sara taught about community development again, as she did with the previous round of IBS students in Amuria.  It went very well, but she allowed time for questions at the end.  It turned into an hour long discussion about family planning techniques.  Sara was careful not to tell them what to do.  Family planning is a very controversial issue in PAG with some people thinking its wrong to use any method, and others thinking non-abortive birth control is okay.  Sara was able to remain neutral and answer many technical questions about the different types of birth control methods, their safety, and their effectiveness.  There are a lot of misunderstandings out there.  For example, we've heard people say it is unhealthy for a woman to go too long without being pregnant.  Some think that using condoms causes abortion.

Family planning is an important issue on everyone's minds because on the one hand people love having children and think that is God's will for each family.  But on the other hand, many women are worn out from constantly having children and people see that overpopulation and the high cost of education is contributing to poverty in Uganda.  Each family leaves behind their land to their children and it gets divided up, but you can only do that so many times.  Imagine one man who had 10 acres 50 years ago.  He has 5 sons.  His 10 acres get divided up between the 5 sons, so each son has to make a living with only 2 acres.  Then each son has 8 children, and has to divide the land once again.  You can see the problem.  It's forcing parents to have to choose which children they are going to pay for school for.  Pray for wisdom for Ugandans and for us as we talk to them about this hard issue.