At the beginning of February I began to teach English at my home. I thought a long time before doing this. I’ve taught English before, but I shut it down in the weeks before my marriage. I did try to start it up again shortly after my marriage, but it never took off.

But recently I’ve wanted to engage the community around me, and get to know some new people in order to build some real relationships. An English class is a great way for me to do that. So, I started them up again with the mission of creating some solid relationships with the people around me.

My prayer to God was that if I started teaching again, that He would then bring in people whom He was preparing to hear and believe the Gospel. I don’t get religious with my students at all–I just teach English, and talk to them about ordinary, everyday kind of stuff.

I like Darrin Patrick’s formula: GL (Gospel Life) + RR (Relational Rent) + GC (Gospel Clarity) = MI (Missional Impact) [1]

“A community where members live a Gospel life, build relationship with non-Christians, and have the ability to communicate the Gospel clearly will have a missional impact.” [2]

You’ve got to show that you actually live what you say you believe before you can expect people to follow your lead. You’ve got to pay the Relational Rent before you can start speaking into their lives. And when they’re ready to listen to you, you’ve got to know how to clearly articulate what you believe, so they receive the truth from your words.

One cool thing is that God has sent me some Buddhist Monks. I’ve read quite a bit about Buddhism (and wrote about it here). The funny thing is, is that I probably know more about Buddhism than most Buddhists. What the theory behind the religion is, and what the reality being lived out of the religion is, are two very different things. But it doesn’t matter; these young men are no different than anyone else–they can hear and believe the Gospel.

The other group of people God has sent to me are a bunch of feisty junior high school girls. They get bored real easily, and they like to laugh at me when I mispronounce Khmer words. I’m not sure how to approach these girls–maybe I’ll just leave that up to my wife.

**References [1] and [2] come from this article: “Church Planter: Build an Acts 2 Community”**