Special Summer English Course

     We are currently planning for a Special Summer English Course which will begin this week.  For the past fortnight we have all been handing out flyers and inviting people from the various clubs, societies and events we have attended:

     
      The course will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, in our house and in Sapporo International Church. The purpose of this course is not only to help people with their English, but it is also our hope that from this we will be able to invite people to the Bible Study which usually takes place on a Wednesday night. (Rather encouragingly, when we told the usual Bible study group what we were planning, one of the girls piped up with, "but this is a Church! We must study the Bible here!")

     We also hope to include how important the Bible has been in influencing Western culture, for example in Week 5, Slang and Idioms we intend to discuss how a large number of everyday English phrases come from the Bible (over 122 common phrases and idioms, if you're interested). Through this we wish to introduce the Bible in a non-threatening manner.

    
Please pray for this outreach.
~Please pray that God will lead people to come. The response so far has been very encouraging, with many saying they wish to come. Please pray that they do actually turn up! (Many Japanese people say they will come to something to be polite, but then do not actually attend.) Please also pray that those coming to the Church will not find it too threatening a building to enter.
~Please pray for our planning and preparations. That we will provide lessons which are interesting and engaging, and which lead people to wish to find out more. 
~Please pray that people will wish to continue to come to the Bible study after the end of the course.