Jeff Adams

Beginning with my 3:30am wakeup call Monday morning these past few days have been a whirlwind. But, they have been very fruitful and rewarding in the process of working to help facilitate the development of Latin American leadership. I’ll leave in a few minutes for our third and final evening session.

In Latin America relationships are everything. Most societies claim to value friendship and relationships, but few cultures are as relationally geared in every sense of the word as they are here in Latin American. This is a huge part of the long days. Each night after the service, Pastor Ricardo has a different group of key leaders he invites to eat dinner with us. After all, that’s what this ministry is all about. That means sitting down to eat supper about 10:0pm. You can imagine what time we get back to the room. The past two mornings have been dedicated to an informal breakfast with a smaller group of approximately 25 key pastors. Breakfast today included their wives. The format has been simple but effective: After the meal Ricardo introduces me and I speak off the cuff on a biblical theme for about 30 minutes. This is followed by interaction – questions, comments and sharing of hearts.

Yesterday I spoke about the devotional life of the leader and shared my personal devotional disciplines and habits. I attempted to get them to see our walk with God as more than some fixed “quiet time” in the mornings that is often done with a sense of duty more than loving anticipation. Today, we discussed how to read the scriptures with an eye for principles and precepts.

All of this has been designed to encourage relationships and to be seen as accessible, not just a face from a pulpit that flies in and flies out. There are a number of North American ministries that come prepared with slick packages, programs and smooth formulas that promise success and large churches if one just follows the recipe that is given. Some pastors are desperate enough that they blindly try to implement something that has been designed in another culture and setting and import it directly into a far different culture without a critical adaptation. This usually does not work and often has tragic consequences.

The heart of what Marco and I desire is not to come in and tell pastors and leaders in another culture what to do, offer simplistic formulas and prepackaged programs, but to meet with them in the Bible and seek out together those biblical truths that are to be foundational in all we do in life and ministry. We always seem to learn more from them than they learn from us. Together we can learn some amazing things! Truth that is truly biblical is always timeless and universal, applicable to any time and culture. That’s what we seek.

I believe that God has blessed us all with creativity. He gives us parameters of truth, but trusts us to use the imagination, creativity and intelligence he has given us to make application of his truth to specific circumstances. Rather than tell people what to think and believe, we want to work together to learn how to think biblically and how to cultivate the creativity and intelligence with which we have been gifted.

I mentioned yesterday that I am on the radio daily here in Panama and it has been fun to meet faithful listeners that I didn’t know I had. Among the listeners to my radio program is the Anglican Bishop of Panama! I discovered last night that he has been present each evening in the meeting and has been very encouraged. In fact, he contacted Pastor Ricardo today wanting to meet with him urgently to discuss how to implement systematic biblical discipleship into their churches to do a better job of grounding their people in the absolute truth of the Bible! Well, you just never know who is going to show up, do you? This has been very encouraging in our attempt to break down old stereotypes and barriers that divided the family of God rather than lead us into areas where we can grow and learn from each other, even while maintaining our unique distinctives, traditions and heritage.

Tomorrow it is up early once again to begin the trip home. But first we have been invited to a special and formal Chinese breakfast. Yes, folks, this is Panama, the country that defines multicultural!