I have a great love of languages, and my desire to learn has always been limited by the opportunities open to me. But of course there are many thousands and millions of other people who have the same love of language. And not only of language but of many other skills, crafts, arts and abilities.
We love to learn things. It is part of being human, and therefore this very human aspiration can be used in the service of mission and of the Orthodox Gospel.
I am presently developing plans to organise a Coptic Language Summer School in London towards the end of August. To some extent this is because I want to have the opportunity to study the Coptic language in a formal setting, but it is also a mission possibility which I wish to make the most of.
I hope that there will be Coptic Orthodox Christians who would like to study Coptic for a week, but I am also hopeful that this will be an opportunity for others who are not Orthodox, to spend some time in the company of Coptic Orthodox Christians, studying in a situation which makes exposure to some aspects of our Orthodox Life a natural and interesting situation.
I wonder what other educational opportunities are open to other Orthodox in other situations? Perhaps it would be possible to organise an Iconography Summer School, or a series of classes describing the Orthodox heritage with representation from the various Orthodox churches. Our faith IS interesting, and contains many different aspects which non-Orthodox and even non-Christians find interesting and intriguing. Such educational opportunities are usually only the beginning of evangelism, but the friendship and trust which is experienced in such situations has great benefit for ongoing evangelism.
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