Comments on: TCFL – Teaching Churches Foreign Languages

By: Larry

Larry — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:06:39 +0000

David thanks for your note. You may want to check out Michael Carpenters at http://www.diningwithsinners.org/. Their church is currently learning a language. He works with us quite a bit and really is helping his church to be prepared for the people group they are working with.

By: David Drake

David Drake — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:26:43 +0000

I love this idea. I have been thinking of a way to make it happen for sometime. Currently we actually teach ESL but to be missionary effective in our neighborhood we need to learn Spanish.

By: Larry

Larry — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:52:11 +0000

I like your student though. I know of some churches that will either have some sort of mid-week programming for adults or churches that will do a special emphasis on a topic. What about a 3 week series of electives: Language, Culture, Current Events, Cooking, Religion, History, etc. about the country or people group?
More ideas on the way about some practical ways that a church can learn a foreign language.

By: almost an M

almost an M — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:53:24 +0000

Great idea! Making a commitment to a people and placing emphasis on being students of the language, history, culture, and current events would be very helpful in facilitating mission to that people. To show top level buy-in, it would be interesting to do a series that is titled in the language of the people the church is seeking to win to Christ. This could help move mission from an afterthought to receiving emphasis that we value others and seeing their lives transformed by Christ.
One practical way to facilitate this would be to have Berlitz or Rosetta Stone type materials available in the target language to be borrowed. Or perhaps a discount off a future short-term trip based on amounts spent on language acquisition….