One of my responsibilities I am engaged in for our global Pathways Bible training is doctoral studies. I’ve completed all my coursework for the Intercultural Studies degree I’m working on, and my dissertation proposal has been approved, so for the past several months and next several months I’m working on field research.

That means I go to networks all over the world where our trainers have completed the three-year cycle of Pathways, and I interview them to learn how much of it is being incorporated into their lives, and what factors influence how they use Pathways. I am learning a great deal from these amazing people, and it is my desire that the results of my research will not only bless our team and the thousands of pastors with whom we work globally, but will also benefit other groups that take western training programs globally. This research is what took me down to Brazil with my colleague Mike Gunderson.

We conducted several interviews, and his help was invaluable since he is fluent in Portuguese and was a missionary in Rio for 20 years. We were encouraged to learn that the majority of the Pathways principles we teach have stuck and have transformed the process these pastors follow in preparing and delivering sermons. Congregations are changed as a result of strong, biblical preaching. For example, the discipleship mentality Pathways teaches has spread throughout Pastor Fabio and wife Lia’s church, so that expository Bible study methods are used in all the small groups in their 300 person church.

Fabio shared how mishandled the Old Testament is by most Brazilian preachers who put people under the Law and legalistic OT standards rather than tying together with New Covenant realities. There is a “culture of eloquence” in Brazil where the way I preach is more important than what I preach, with popular preachers just reading a biblical text and then going straight into application rather than giving any explanation of what the text means. These are reasons why Fabio and Lia shared Pathways is desperately needed all over the world.

Because I want to redeem every opportunity for the biggest kingdom impact possible, whenever I do research, I try also to tie in training of pastors. So Mike and I also headed down to southern Brazil to work with a new group of participants excited about starting Pathways training. The relative income of these people is much higher than most I work with in Africa, but they are just as needy and hungry for biblical training.