Small Group Testimonials

Paul and Cathy Berner were past Volunteers at New Hope for several years. In 2010, God called them to be missionaries and followed His leading to move to Tyler, Texas. They weren’t sure exactly what mission work He was calling them to do or where, but believed they would receive further training there for the mission field. After awhile of getting settled in there, they began to see that for right then, Texas was their mission field. They became sort of like New Hope Missionaries there, taking groups through the New Hope Series and the testimonies they share with me through tears in their eyes always brings tears to my eyes. The last time the Berner’s came back to Iowa for a visit, Paul thanked me over and over for all that we’ve done to put the New Hope Series together. He’s said as he shook his head from side to side, “You have no idea what this is doing for people…you have no idea.

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We have people in our group that have never been to church in their life. One man said, as he was tearing up, “You know, there are times when I can’t even read because I’m so touched by it that I can’t get the words out.” So the Holy Spirit’s really working. You can tell as we are going through the material, they’re really paying attention and letting it sink in. There’s another guy who had been in prison for years. So we go from that extreme of people who are totally unchurched to a couple who have been Christians for probably 40 years. And they say they are always learning new things, things they haven’t ever thought about, and things that challenge old, wrong ways of thinking. So there’s really a broad spectrum of people the material reaches. You can have people who are on so many different levels in their Christian life going through it at the same time together and it reaches them no matter where they’re at. That’s the thing I like about it most. You can tell in a group when there are people who are just going through it to be nice. That doesn’t happen in our groups that are using the New Hope materials. The Holy Spirit always comes and it’s just a real, real solid teaching time.

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Some of the people we are working with don’t go to church and this has become their church family. So the work you’re doing there at New Hope is pastoring people, because it ministers to people who wouldn’t feel comfortable in a church setting. The churches down here are up to 15,000 people and that’s too big for them; they don’t know anybody; they don’t trust anybody, so they would never go in there. But with this, you get to those people, as it starts out with all the core truths about who God really is and who He says they are. When you go through that with people, you build such a foundation with them that they’re comfortable with you. You can talk about things. All those years ago as you were putting this material together, you may have thought, why is it going like this starting out so basic, but the Lord knew that I would need it like this going through it with people right now that really need the basics. It really helps people get started. And yet my wife and I are going through it now for the fourth time and already we are reaping even more benefits ourselves. We are using the newly re-written materials this time with our new group and we are finding that there’s more to it, and it’s even easier to understand.

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(Note from Cindy: We have woven throughout the 6-book series, a continuation of a theme of them seeking the Lord’s heart on things and them discovering who He created them to be individually, and what He what purposes He created them to fulfill. It gives people meaning and purpose for their lives.)

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Paul said: We’ve also seen this make a tremendous difference in people’s lives in past groups. One lady in particular you can see it continually in her. She was in a real bad accident awhile back and she is coming out of it and walking again now. But through all of that, she has had a peace about her that I haven’t seen in many people. These materials helped her get through all of that. The Lord brings things back to you that you need, right when you need them. This would have been a lot tougher for her if she hadn’t had this. Her husband is now going through the materials with us in our newest group. He was a little skeptical at first, but now he’s the one keeping us on track and moving along in the materials. It’s amazing to watch. If we would have come to Texas for no other reason than to minister to these people, it would have been worth it. I told Paul, “Yes. When you are discipling a group of people, it doesn’t matter if you’re doing it in your own neighborhood or in the bush in Africa, it’s still making the same difference in the lives of the same number of people. Your mission field is wherever God places you and you’re making a difference in their lives for eternity.

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So this is good for people who are totally unchurched, giving them a solid foundation and bringing them along, but also good for people who’ve been Christians many years. We have people who are at total opposite ends of the spectrum and it ministers to both at the same time. Now how can that be? That doesn’t happen with any kind of worldly teaching. It would be like putting a kindergartener in with a senior in high school, giving them the same material, and having them both learning and growing and getting it. It works that way because you’ve done such a wonderful job of using Scripture. If you first come to know that the Bible is true, then you can’t disagree with any of it, because it’s all grounded in Scripture. It’s because the Holy Spirit can take all of us no matter where we’re at and apply things to us, and it applies to different people in different ways according to what they need right then. And it’s the same for me too; I never walk out of a session and think, well I could have used that hour and a half in a better way. No, it’s the highlight of my week too. Even though I’ve been through it so many times, it’s like brand new to me. Just like with the Bible, there’s so much in there that you can’t get it all the first time. The next time, you know you’ve read through that very same thing, but you didn’t see it like that before, and it’s like, Oh, wow! Because you’re at a different place in your life.

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I really like how you have put all the articles on the plan of Salvation into a separate little companion booklet that you can go through with them or have them read it on their own. Because even if they have already accepted Christ as their Savior, it really solidifies what they’ve done. So if you have people who come to you that are long-time Christians, brand new Christians, or if they aren’t even Christians, and you don’t know whether this will work for them, I would say, Ah, just a minute…It sure will. It doesn’t even matter what their education level, it doesn’t matter. The Lord makes it come alive for them. Even if you have someone who can’t read, them just listening to it as you go through it together, because the spoken word is so powerful. I would love for you to come down sometime and just sit through one of our group times, because it is really something! They keep saying, We’d just love to meet the people who wrote this. I wish you could just drop in on it. I can’t convey it clear enough the difference this makes, but you’re having tremendous impact on people here—people you’ll probably never meet until Heaven. I can’t say it strong enough or clear enough, but we get to see it happen every week. There are times when I’ll go away from there and then be thinking about it a few hours later and am just stunned at what God does. And it’s people you’d just pass on the street and think you could never talk to them. And why God would take a couple farm kids from Iowa and bring them down here to do something like this for Him is beyond me. We had no training, we had no education; it’s all His work.

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This is why the Lord led us to put together a program that didn’t require people to be educated to a certain degree to be able to minister to others. It doesn’t require education and training (even though it still works if you do have higher education), to use the materials; you just follow the instructions and lead the people through it.

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​Paul said, Yes, for the benefit of te Teaches as well as the Students. If I had come across something that was like a seminary study class, I never would have even tried it. I would have said, There’s no way I can do that. But this…I’m not saying it’s simplistic; it’s so profoundly simply that anyone can understand.