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| Some of the theological students at the Seminary |
The theological course the students are doing lasts 4 years. Every January they travel to Tefè for 4 residential weeks of intensive lectures. The course costs them 250 reais a year, which is about £80, and includes all their food. That doesn't sound like a lot, but for many of these students it's a big sacrifice. After their 4 years they get a certificate in theology.
But only if they pass enough of their assessments!
They get a mark out of 10: 4 marks for attendance and 1 mark each for correctly answering 6 questions on what we have looked at this week.
They are likely to do well, because the pastor of the church here (The '1st Independent Christian Evangelical Church of Tefè') - who is also the Director of the Seminary - took them to task yesterday about the fact that some of them weren't studying as hard as they should in the evenings and were on Facebook too much! Social networking has even reached the middle of the Amazon.
His stern approach sums up the very different attitude there is to authority in this culture, particularly in the church.
Church discipline is used much more frequently and openly here. I have lost count the number of times I have been told that someone was put under church discipline for something or other.
A believer caught in some kind of scandal or immorality, be it private or public, expects to be disciplined by their church leaders and often submits to it. This almost always involves bringing the matter before the whole church and withdrawing membership privileges for a period.
In the UK, church discipline is often kept private, and often results in resistance, conflict and leaving the church.
The purpose of church discipline in the Bible is to bring about repentance, restoration and growth in godliness in the individual involved. The greater respect Brazilians have for those in authority, particularly church leaders, means that restoration and growth is more often the outcome of church discipline here. It still causes conflict, but usually only among those who are unconverted: a great number of church members here are not even Christians!
Andrew has many stories of such positive outcomes. In many cases the result of such discipline has been relationships healed, lives cleaned up and churches more united and focused on the gospel. In the church where Andrew was pastor in Manaus he faced a very serious challenge from some in the church who wanted to get rid of him. However he wisely and firmly stood his ground, and while some sadly left, the result was a much stronger and united church.
Perhaps the stronger position of pastors here is partly due to the fact that the biblical model of Eldership teams are virtually unheard of, at least in this area.
Peter's lectures on 1 Timothy have generated a lot of discussion because of the Elder/Deacon church leadership model Paul outlines there. At the end of my session yesterday the students fired questions at me about the Eldership at Woodgreen and how we operate. They were amazed to hear that I had 8 fellow Elders and that we discussed matters and made decisions together and that I saw myself as accountable to them.
(They were also amazed that I knew how to iron and wash up and had changed my children's nappies when they were babies! I think I lost some brownie points with the guys when they discovered this as Brazilian men don't do any of these things.)
However as we have worked through 1 Timothy they have also seen the wisdom of a team of Elders working together, holding each other to account and supporting each other in difficult times.
This afternoon we spent some time doing some video interviews with some of the students which I plan to use as part of our report back video.
Tomorrow we plan to see a bit more of Tefè and meet up with some pastors and missionaries working in the town here before heading over the lake and into the interior for 2 nights. This is where we are likely to get closest to the more traditional amazon way of life.
Peter had a foretaste of the 'real amazon' last night when he left his window open and woke up to find a large bat had got into his room!
Andrew has told us we can expect more of the same as we go deeper into the interior.
