Perspectives course trains believers in essential outreach skills

Jenny Burr
Special to Spur Ottawa

The Metropolitan Bible Church is hosting the Perspectives Study Program, starting January 18, 2016. Perspectives is a 14 week course that equips believers in effective outreach techniques for both local and international missions.

“The course is interdenominational and uses local and national missions experts as instructors,” explains Love Ottawa director, Richard Long. “It offers biblical, historical, cultural, and strategic perspectives of being a global Christian. It also teaches people to think and act cross-culturally. We have many cultures that have come to our city that need to be impacted with the gospel.”

Perspectives was started by Ralph Winter, founder of the missionary community Frontier Ventures, to provide prospective missionaries with some orientation before they were sent to the mission field. It has been offered around the world for more than 40 years, including at Regent College, in B.C., since the early 1980s.

Ron Nehring first took the program with his wife, Sharon, in 2003.

“Every week we learned something new that gave us a different view of who God was,” he says. “It was during a time that we each had our own busy and different ministries. Perspectives moved us into looking at life’s situations from God’s viewpoint instead of our own. Instead of asking, ‘God what is my ministry in life?’ We made statements like, ‘Lord, where are you working? How would you like us to join in?’”

Nehring is now the program coordinator for Ottawa. As part of the program, he says, participants will seek out an unreached group in Ottawa. They are then coached in how to develop a strategy to reach the group they’ve identified.

“We show Ottawa demographics and the makeup of various neighbourhoods based on ethnic or religious breakdowns,” Nehring states. “Generally, newcomers group with others who share common beliefs. We usually have less than three years to reach out to newcomers to Canada and invite them into new customs and support groups.”

Eric and Hephzibah Bannem explain that they are participating in the upcoming program “to deepen our current interdenominational ministry and outreach as lay people.”

Another participant, Jaye Herman, says, “God is calling me out of my workplace and I don’t know to what or where. I have not left yet, but this felt like the right direction to take for God to shape and prepare me.”

Ron and Sharon Nehring returned from serving in China five years ago. They noticed that believers in Ottawa have a heart for missions, but that something more was needed, such as techniques, strategies, and an understanding of other customs.

“Perspectives is the best way that we know to begin this journey here in Ottawa,” Nehring states.

Correction:
A previous version of this article stated that Perspectives was started by Urbana. It was, in fact, started by Ralph Winter, founder of Frontier Ventures, following Urbana 1973, to help provide orientation for missionaries with an orientation, before sending them into the field.