Intensive Reading of the Life-studies in Ukraine
Dear Brother Benson,
I’d like to give you a short report experiences that the coworkers and the students and the leading brothers had in Ukraine last couple of months.
In 1989 when you were heading up the full time training in Irving Texas we had to read a large amount of the ministry everyday. I believe we read 5 life studies every day plus 11 pages of the Recovery Version with footnotes plus a chapter or so of a ministry book. For most of those who were in that training we experienced a revival personally and corporately. Based upon that experience we began to have student trainings in Moscow 20 years ago according to this structure. We would read 4 or 5 life studies in the morning and then go out to preach the gospel in the afternoon. The evening times would be taken up with home meetings etc.
Recently I felt that our enjoyment of the truth among the coworkers has been lacking. Therefore we took one week in which we read at least 5 studies a day in the morning. We would read the life studies individually for 30 minutes and then come together to fellowship and pray about them for 15 minutes. All the coworkers were very encouraged and strengthened by this practice. It is now part of our weekly schedule. On Thursday morning we come together to read 4 life studies together in such a way.
In the week following this we had the students training with 120 in attendance. We read 11 life studies in two days according to the same schedule.
The students were revived by this practice. After this experience many of them signed up for the video training. Before the students training we had 40 registered for the video training. After the students training another 40 saints registered. We had a total of 80 saints participating in the video training in Kiev this year which is more than we’ve ever had.
Two weeks ago we gathered with over 100 the leading brothers from Ukraine and we read 135 pages of life studies in one day with the same format. We would read one message or two messages inidivually and then fellowship and pray over the messages in groups. The leading brothers testified how much they had been lacking in the reading of the ministry, the Word and prayer. The light that they received from the intensive reading of the life studies resulted in much confession and prayer. We read the first 10 life studies of Ezekiel.
These experiences were so impactful and prevailing that we decided to conduct a weekend training with a small church or a group of the leading brothers. We decided to invite the church from the village in Orlivka to come with their families. 37 saints came and we arranged to watch the kids while the parents participated in the training. We began Friday night with a message on the need to be constituted with the truth. The next day, we began at 6:30 with a two hour morning revival in which we asked the saints to try and read the entire week of the HWMR. After breakfast we gave the saints 30 minutes to read one life study. Then they would come together in groups for 15 minutes to fellowship and pray over what they read. We read 12 life-studies in one day. At the end of the day at 8pm we had an hour and a half of fellowship and overflow. The sisters, especially the mothers testified that it was the first time in their life that they were able to read so much of the ministry without any distractions or worries about kids or cows or chickens etc. They told us that they were cherished to the uttermost.
From the experience this last weekend we felt that 12 life studies is too many, however, it seems 8-10 is just right. We plan to invite more groups of saints to come and experience the same thing. Perhaps a group of saints could come and read God’s NT Economy in one weekend. Anyway, we are just experimenting but it is clear that there is something to coming together to read the ministry in an intensive way.
Grace to you,
Peter
Source: http://ministrypropagation.org/intensive-reading-of-the-life-studies-in-ukraine/
