The Puzzle and the Mission
- Bekah Querfeld
- Nov 26, 2024
- 4 min read
November 2024
It's not every day you get to see a group of grown men and women waddling, scooting, and sprawling across
the floor to put together a giant jigsaw puzzle. Although, your chances certainly increase when you are at a training/think-tank about children.
We walked into a room with a colorful mess on the floor and all fifteen of us (a combination of seminary professors, children's workers, international leaders, missionaries and more) had to crawl around the room putting the pieces together. If you stepped in at that time, you'd have heard "Who needs pink?!", "Ugh, I need help, I'm terrible at puzzles!", "Wait, I think this is the wrong blue. I need light blue not purple-blue," "Ok, I've got a cluster of orange here, who needs orange?", along with a lot of general shuffling.
After about fifteen minutes, our group facilitators debriefed the activity with us (apparently there was a method to their madness). The whole point of the activity was to show that when people come together in different roles and focuses, with different levels of experience, to create different project teams, the entire group can accomplish more.
As silly as it was watching college professors and global ministry leaders scooting around the floor, this activity was so profound as it really encompassed the purpose for the whole training week.
Global Children's Forum Recap:
At the end of October, my husband and I had the opportunity to participate in a training called Academic Equip by the Global Children's Forum (GCF). (For more about the purpose of the training and the goal of GCF as a whole, check out my newsletter from October.) Attendees gathered from at least three different countries and at least Part of the week involved learning a curriculum to help pastors understand the importance of children within the kingdom. However, the majority of the week involved think-tank-ing how to make this happen. We broke out into work groups grappling with questions about how to encourage seminaries and Bible colleges to integrate children into the curriculum using our mixed experiences, skills, resources, and connections. Much like the activity with the puzzle pieces, we were able to accomplish more as a group than any of us would have been able to do separately.
I left the week with tools to better understand "Gen Alpha", to teach using interactive activities in an online space, to gather ministry workers into an online network for social connection and college course-style instruction, and tools/curriculum to teach the importance of children in God's kingdom at the college level. Only the curriculum came from the training leaders, the rest just came from networking and sharing ideas with incredible people!
This week, I met with my boss at Bible Centered Ministries International, and we are already exploring how to utilize these tools within BCM Intl. as an organization and in kingdom ministry as a whole. We are hoping to potentially integrate the curriculum into a missionary training program we are developing, and we are hoping to use the online networking platform as a way to share resources, church curriculum, and general training materials amongst BCM missionaries. Both of these projects are only in the idea stages, but it was encouraging to see how God might use the time invested at Academic Equip for His kingdom.
Overall, the entire week was one long confirmation that God is at work around the world, and it was an affirmation that He has called me to be part of what He is doing.
ICETE Conference (Tirana, Albania)
A week ago, I sat down with the President of BCM, Rick Rhoads, to discuss the Academic Equip conference, and celebrate some of the opportunities made available through it. During that meeting, Rick also asked me to prioritize attending the C-25 conference put on by the International Council of International Theological Education (ICETE) in March 2025.
This conference, which only happens once every three years, is a gathering of world leaders in theological
education from around the world to think, learn, and grow together for the sake of the kingdom. ICETE's conferences are attended by Bible college and seminary leaders from around the world, as well as leaders of missions organizations whose roles are similar to mine. It is a meeting of the minds for those in the field of theological education, which makes it an excellent opportunity to network and build partnerships!
I am still in the early stages of preparing for the conference, but I am excited by the opportunity and all that God may do through it!
Prayers and Praises:
Academic Equip:
Praise God for the connections created and the work that began because of the week. He was blatantly at work during the entire week, and I am full of anticipation with what He is going to do with it.
Pray that God will work in the hearts of the trainees, myself included, so that we make wise use of the time spent together and the equipping we received. It is easy to go to a training and do nothing about it, but the work began at the training is too important to slip by the wayside.
Church:
Praise God for the success of our church's first ever Trunk or Treat! We had over 200 families come through, many of whom were community members with no connection to the church.
Praise God for a successful fall retreat for our youth teens.
Pray for God to continue working in our church's children and youth ministries so that more families come to know, love, and obey God more.
ICETE:
Praise God for the ministry being accomplished through ICETE, and the opportunity I have to represent BCM at this conference.
Pray that God will prepare my heart in the coming months to seek all that He has planned. Pray also that God will smooth out the logistics of my attending.
Upcoming Trip Dates:
(Possible) March 3rd-7th-- International Council of Evangelical Theological Education Conference (Tirana, Albania)
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