Bible Teachers and Preachers: Foundational

Peter Mead is the director of Cor Deo, a ministry training programme in Chippenham, England. He is also part of the leadership team of Trinity Chippenham, a church Peter helped to plant back in 2014.  Peter is a lecturer for Union School of Theology.  He studied at Multnomah Biblical Seminary before getting his Doctor of Ministry degree under Haddon Robinson at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in the area of expository preaching. Peter is the author of Pleased to Dwell, Lost in Wonder, and Foundations (Christian Focus) as well as Galatians and John's Letters (10Publishing), and the preaching blog: BiblicalPreaching.net.  He is married to Melanie and they have six children.

NETWORK SPEAKERS

Ramez Atallah was born in Cairo, Egypt and emigrated with his family to Canada when he was sixteen.  He came to know the Lord through a local church in Montreal and was discipled as a student through the Inter-Varsity group at McGill University. From 1972 to 1980 he developed and directed the ministry of the Groupes Bibliques Universitaires du Quebec. In 1980 along with his wife and two children he returned to Egypt, where he became the IFES Regional Secretary for the Middle East. He attended the first Lausanne Congress and was appointed as a youth representative to the Lausanne Committee in 1975.  He served on the Committee from 1974 to 1994.  In 2006 he rejoined Lausanne as Program Chairman for Lausanne III Cape Town Congress.  After the Congress, he was appointed as one of the Deputy Chairs of the Lausanne Movement until 2015. Since 1990 he has been the General Secretary of the Bible Society of Egypt, the position he still holds until now. 
 

Mike Chalmers works at Cor Deo as a mentor and administrator. Previously, he was a staff worker in Wales with UCCF. He enjoys preaching and discipling and continues to support and encourage university students by speaking at training events and missions. He is in his first year of study with Union School of Theology as part of one of their Learning Communities. Mike is an uncle to three nephews, a brother to one sister, and is getting married in the summer!

Stefan Gustavsson is a member of the European Leadership Forum Steering Committee. He is the director for Apologia – Centre for Christian Apologetics and makes his home in Stockholm. He was the founding General Secretary for the Swedish Evangelical Alliance. Stefan travels widely with apologetic teaching and training and is often involved in university evangelism and public debates. He is the author of several books on Christian apologetics and the Christian mind. Stefan is married to Ingrid and they have three grown children.

Jim Turrent is married to Jane and they have a son called Ally. He is originally from Glasgow. Jim worked as an engineer-surveyor before studying theology at the Scottish Baptist College. He is lead pastor at Central Baptist Church in Dundee, a church that is committed to preaching, planting new churches, and discipleship. In his spare time Jim likes to read, cycle, and watch football.

 

 

Day 1

The Pastor’s Bible  
Jim Turrent

The Bible is God’s instrument of change, transformation, and, above all, a revelation of His heart. We should expect that whenever the Bible is opened and faithfully taught, lives will be changed and transformed. This session will consider the importance of the Bible in the life of every disciple and the local church. How should the pastor/preacher approach the Bible in order to see transformation in their own life as well as in the lives of those who hear?
 

Shaping a Message: From Text to Ideas
Mike Chalmers

How do we move from personal Bible study to preparing a message that is biblical, clear, engaging, and relevant to our listeners?  This session gives an overview of the steps from the study of the text to understanding the main idea.  A group exercise will engage the process with a specific biblical text.
 

Day 2

Shaping a Message: From Idea to Message
Mike Chalmers

This session gives an overview of the steps involved in shaping a message based on previous study of the text.  Following the presentation, we will work in facilitated groups to apply the learning to a biblical text as we move from text to sermon.  
 

Interview with Ramez Atallah (Combined with Advanced Track)
hosted by Peter Mead

Ramez Atallah is a preacher with great experience of biblical ministry in many settings and cultures.  This combined session with both Bible Teachers Networks will offer a unique opportunity to hear and learn from Ramez Atallah as he talks about the Bible, ministry and how God wants to work through us all in our various settings.
 

Day 3

Preaching with Variety: Narrative, Poetry, and Discourse
Peter Mead

The Bible God has given us is overflowing with variety.  It was written by over forty authors, in three languages, on three continents, over a couple of thousand years, and yet is united by the Spirit into a single masterful work that points us to Christ.  The Bible is anything but dull.  The Bible God has given us is what you might expect from the kind of God we find in it: creative, diverse, and fully united.  It doesn’t remain aloof and abstract, but engages with real life in all its fullness.  This session looks at the main three types of literature in the Bible: narrative, poetry, and discourse. If we can rightly understand the types of literature, we can tap into their unique strengths to make our preaching the best it can be!
 

Sermon Exercise
Mike Chalmers and Steve Mitchell

Working together as a learning community we will seek to reinforce the learning that has already taken place as we work with examples of the different genres introduced in the previous session.  How will a different genre of passion change the approach we take to shaping our message when we preach?  How can we make sure that the main idea is effectively communicated, and how can we be certain that God’s inspired genre influences the message we fashion?

 

Day 4

Preaching the Bible Evangelistically
Stefan Gustavsson

Biblical preaching is not simply a matter of building up the church by instructing believers.  It is a ministry of proclaiming what God has done in Christ.  The Gospel should be at the centre of all true preaching.  Yet the idea of preaching evangelistically can be daunting.  How should we approach preaching the Bible to mixed audiences?  How should we seek to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a culture that rejects any notion of Scriptural authority?  In this session we will be given instruction and example which we will process in our learning community.
 

The Preacher (Combined with Advanced Network)
Peter Mead and Mike Chalmers 

Preaching is not only about the message, but it is also about the messenger.  In this final session we will engage with three different aspects of the life and ministry of the preacher, allowing what we hear to provoke our thinking as a learning community.  Finally we will use some of the session to conclude the week and reflect on the journey we have been on during these days.