The Basics

For some time we at Spearhead Ministries have seen the need to teach believers in many nations the foundational truths of our faith in God so that they might press on to maturity as outlined by Hebrews 6:1-3.
In many gypsy churches there is not much grace in evidence, in fact significant degrees of legalism are common leading to fear which keeps the believers from having the relationship that God really wants with them.

This was brought home to me during a recent trip when a lady who ministers regularly in her home church shared that she sometimes only attended church meetings out of fear of what God might do to her or her family if she did not turn up! To me this revealed something of the way she saw God; not as a loving Father but rather as a vengeful master, a view which would always limit her relationship with Him.

Now I believe that meeting together as the church is important, but our motivation is to be one of love for God and for His people and a desire to spend time with both, encouraging each other and worshipping Him. The Bible tells us that ‘perfect love casts out fear’ 1 John 4:18. God loves us as sons and daughters and we don’t need to fear Him or coming into His presence.

So having talked with many of the pastors we work with we felt that it was right to draw together those in ministry and those emergent ministries and seek to teach them the basic truths of the Christian faith. Our heart is to equip them and see them move on to become mature in their faith and encourage others to do the same. Paul writes to the Colossians in Col 1:28, ‘we proclaim Him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone complete in Christ.’

We set ourselves to study and discuss the Word of God looking specifically at the tenets of our faith. These sessions have now been filmed and made available to the pastors so they can review the teaching and pass it on to members of their churches. Many of the gypsies don’t read or write too well so simply giving out notes is of limited use although all materials were translated and we did make notes available for each session along with the audio and video recording.