Overview of Shepherd’s
Storybook
·
Biblical. Shepherd's
Storybook follows New Testament guidelines for combining pastoral
training with church planting, which have been proven most effective in many
fields.
·
Available with no charge.
Paul-Timothy trainers offer Shepherd's Storybook without fees
or restrictions to all who need training, including to shepherds of limited
education and income.
Pastoral training should be available to all whom God has gifted as to serve
their people as
shepherding elders. We urge users to add no man-made
requirements for enrolling, by using
only God's New Testament requirements for elders.
·
Readily applied.
Shepherd's Storybook has three sections: witnessing for Jesus, planting
churches and training their shepherd
·
Easy to read and translate. Less educated readers can easily understand Shepherd's
Storybook. It avoids big words and English colloquial jargon. Biblical
stories convey vital
truths, rather than teaching doctrine with abstract, systematic analysis.
Anyone who meets
New Testament requirements for 'elders' can use it easily. Again, Paul-Timothy
trainers
strongly urge church planters and pastoral trainers in pioneer fields to add
nothing to the
New Testament requirements, to see churches multiply in the normal way.
·
Available to the Needy.
Use Shepherd's Storybook to train new leaders in neglected fields
where literacy is low and education is limited.
·
Practical. Fieldwork and
planning are integrated with theoretical content.
·
Easy to download with old computers and software.
·
Unbiased. Shepherd's
Storybook explains the great doctrines of the church without
denominational bias. Authors of Paul--Timothy training cooperate with nearly
all major
denominations and mission agencies.
·
Based on Stories.
Shepherd's Storybook uses Bible stories rather than systematic analysis
to teach divine truths. The book itself is also a story about church planters
and new shepherds
in a pioneer field. The stories help new
believers and leaders to pass on biblical truth to
others the way our Lord Jesus Christ did. It also saves much time for
translators. They need
only to refer to the biblical stories that provide the doctrinal instruction,
rather than translating
long, abstract explanations.
·
Scriptural. In the Bible
God laid historical foundations for His teachings and church practices.
For example, the books of Romans and Hebrews are philosophical but they assume
that their
readers already know the stories that provide the basis for the philosophical
teaching. These
historical events include:
o
Adam and his fall,
o
Abraham's faith in
action, his journeys, battles and offering of Isaac,
o
God's promise to
Abraham, because of his faith, to bless all nations,
o
Moses, the Law of the
Old Covenant and the wanderings of
o
Aaron, original high
priest, and the need of blood sacrifice to cover sins,
o
David's victories and
the
o
o
Jesus' birth, life,
death, resurrection, ascension,
o
The coming of the Holy
Spirit at Pentecost,
o
And many more.
All basic Bible truths grow out of historical events. The prophets' and apostles' inspired comments
about them make up basic Christian theology. The Holy Spirit uses these stories
to bring men to
repentance, transform them, and provide models for the Christian life and
congregational activities.