Source: Slide 6 – UBF 2010 Seminar 102 – The Hardcore Contents of 1:1

To see the UBF presentation that I am reviewing, please see part 1. This review covers section 8, the last section:

1. Introduction: Why? (slides 5 – 6)    2 slides
2. Definition (slides 8 – 9)      2 slides
3. Origin (slides 11 – 14)      4 slides
4. Importance (slides 16 – 18)     3 slides
5. Advantages & Potential (slides 20 – 26)    7 slides
6. Obstacles vs. Motivation (slides 28 – 31)     4 slides
7. Practical Application (slides 33 – 39)     7 slides
8. Conclusion: God’s hope! (slides 41 – 44)     4 slides

Slide 41 sets up the last section with two questions: What is the fruit of 1:1 bible study? What happens when we do 1:1 bible study?

I have a list of my answers to these questions… I’ll spare you that and just move on to the answers given in the next slide.

Slide 42

Here are the “fruits” of UBF 1:1….

• We become happier and more beautiful, truly satisfied
• We get to know Jesus
• We grow in Jesus’ image
• We grow to a global leader, to a servant for the world.

This is the UBF wishdream in a nutshell. The corollary is that if you don’t do these things, you are not happy, don’t get to know Jesus, you are not growing and are an ugly failure.

Slide 43

In case you missed it, the perceived outcome is listed in four bullet points.

“1:1 bible study is the way to help one person very personally”
(What the heck does that mean?)

“1:1 is the way to raise global leaders”
(Really? I wonder what global leaders have to say about that…)

“1:1 is God’s way to fulfill his salvation work”
(Oy, the binding of UBF to “God’s way” infuriates me!)

“1:1 is the way to double our ministry, to make Germany, Russia, USA, England, Portugal, Czech Republic a kingdom of priests and a holy nation!”
(I just knew KOPHN would get in here somewhere! Can anyone say “world domination”? How about 1:1 is the sure way to depression?)

To see the UBF presentation that I am reviewing, please see part 1. This review covers section 7:

1. Introduction: Why? (slides 5 – 6)    2 slides
2. Definition (slides 8 – 9)      2 slides
3. Origin (slides 11 – 14)      4 slides
4. Importance (slides 16 – 18)     3 slides
5. Advantages & Potential (slides 20 – 26)    7 slides
6. Obstacles vs. Motivation (slides 28 – 31)     4 slides
7. Practical Application (slides 33 – 39)     7 slides
8. Conclusion: God’s hope! (slides 41 – 44)     4 slides

Slide 33 introduces this section with a question: How should we practically do 1:1 bible study? This appears to me to be the “meat” of the presentation; what UBF really wants to get you to learn and accept, without much thinking.

Slide 34 – Practical Application

Four things are mentioned here: Observation, Interpretation, Application, In UBF: question sheets, testimony writing.

Apparently this is talking about a Bible study approach. I know that as a UBF insider. UBF 1:1 is all about studying the Bible with question sheets and then writing your testimony. In fact, such things are the essence of the UBF lifestyle. If you do this, you are highly praised. But you must do it faithfully every week, 52 weeks a year.

My questions: Is it possible to form “lasting friendships” and overcome fears and hesitation just by answering question sheets and writing a testimony? Maybe to a point. But this approach is fraught with failure. Relationships built this way become icy-cold, transactional acquaintances that almost always do not stand the test of time unless something else happens in the relationship.

Slide 35 asks us “What is important when you do 1:1 bible study?” Many things are presented in the next several slides:

• Gospel must be the central focus
• Present the whole picture
• Emphasize personal application of God’s word
• Be an example
• Lead people to God!
• 1:1 is a life time mission
• Do your very best!
• Know what your bible student believes
• Pray!!!
• Be a friend
• Share your strengths AND your weaknesses
• Don’t lost focus
• Help bible student to focus on God’s word
• Keep time, smile, eye contact, remember important dates
• Listen.

These are basically good ideas. But what are we trying to do through UBF 1:1? In my experience for 25 years, the goal is to create a “junzi man”, that is, a super-apostle type person (preferrably male) who can inherit the UBF heritage. In the end, UBF directors care almost nothing about the good ideas above, if only UBF heritage is preserved and passed on– that is the goal of 1:1.

Shouldn’t we be leading people to Jesus and making an environment for the Holy Spirit to make disciples of Jesus?

To see the UBF presentation that I am reviewing, please see part 1. This review covers section 6:

1. Introduction: Why? (slides 5 – 6)    2 slides
2. Definition (slides 8 – 9)      2 slides
3. Origin (slides 11 – 14)      4 slides
4. Importance (slides 16 – 18)     3 slides
5. Advantages & Potential (slides 20 – 26)    7 slides
6. Obstacles vs. Motivation (slides 28 – 31)     4 slides
7. Practical Application (slides 33 – 39)     7 slides
8. Conclusion: God’s hope! (slides 41 – 44)     4 slides

Slide 28 – Setup Questions 

The motivation section begins with two questions: If 1:1 bible study is so good, why do we hesitate to do 1:1 bible study?  And why should we do 1:1 bible study in spite of all these obstacles?

These are loaded questions. Did we actually prove that 1:1 is so good? How do we know that people are hesitating to do 1:1? What obstacles are we facing?

Before we can process this material, these questions plant the following concepts: 1) UBF 1:1 is good  2) UBF members are hesitating  and 3) UBF 1:1 faces many obstacles.

Slide 29 – A list of obstacles

Six obstacles to 1:1 are presented. I added what I think is being planted by each of these “obstacles”:

• “I don’t want to die” (fear of death)
• “1:1 is too hard” (fear of complexity)
• “I’m too young” (fear of authority)
• “I’m too busy” (fear of failure)
• “That’s not my thing” (fear facing one’s true self)
• “I don’t want to be rude” (fear of offending people)

Slide 30 then asks, “How can we overcome all these obstacles?” I would ask, “Are these obstacles real? Should Christians be motivated by fear? Where is love for people in this? Why all the negative pushing? What about positive drawing and striving to please God?”

Slide 31 – Reasons to do 1:1

We are then presented with 5 reasons why we should want to do 1:1 and led to believe these would over come the six obstacles above. But are these 5 reasons even related to the 6 obstacles?

• Thankfulness for God’s grace
• Sense of obligation
• Understand God’s heart
• Practical obedience!!!!!!
• 1:1 -> deep and lasting friendships

These “motivators” don’t quite make sense. Are these valid drivers for Christian behavior? Is UBF 1:1 the main outcome of such reasons?

The first half of this presentation tells us that UBF 1:1 is God’s way and is necessary in order to pass on the UBF legacy to future generations.

(see Hardcore 1:1 – Part 1 for the actual UBF presentation)

The second half of the presentation gives us motivation to participate in 1:1. So the entire presentations comes down to: “God said do UBF 1:1, now go do it!”

This part 2 of my review covers section 5:

5. Advantages & Potential (slides 20 – 26)    7 slides
6. Obstacles vs. Motivation (slides 28 – 31)     4 slides
7. Practical Application (slides 33 – 39)     7 slides
8. Conclusion: God’s hope! (slides 41 – 44)     4 slides

Slide 20

The “Advantages & Potential” section begins with two questions: “What are the advantages of 1:1 bible study compared to other ways of studying or teaching the bible?” and “What potential does 1:1 bible study have?”

Slide 21

Instead of presenting any other way of bible study, the next slide immediately tells us some supposed advantages of 1:1. While there are some advantages of a one-to-one approach to bible study, those reasons are not listed in the presentation. The six advantages given are rather weak and lamely thought out. Here they are:

“You can focus to help one person.”   This can also be done in a group setting and is not unique to UBF 1:1.

“It’s a personal encounter.”   Such personal encounters can happen in a group setting. Isn’t the point of study to encounter God?

“EVERYONE can do 1:1.”   Well, not everyone can do UBF 1:1 for very long. But most people can do group study just as well. Why is EVERYONE required to do this? Are all teachers? Are all shepherds?

“You can do 1:1 with EVERYONE.”   Not sure what this means…some people are not open to such a relationship.

“You can do 1:1 EVERYWHERE.”   The last time I checked, group study can also be done in most places.

“1:1 brings the church to the people.”   This is an extremely troubling statement. It reveals to me a very skewed theological thought. Aren’t people themselves the church? What is it we are bringing to people in the case of 1:1?

Slide 22 

Now we get into some wild statements. Slide 22 changes gears without shifting and tells us: “1:1 has the potential to raise global leaders!” Six pictures are presented. Who are they? Did they go through UBF 1:1? Are they proponents of 1:1? Are they indeed global leaders? If so, were they raised through UBF 1:1?

Slide 23

Now we switch back to advantages… Not only is “raising global leaders” a potential of UBF 1:1, it is an advantage of UBF 1:1.

Slide 24 – LINEAR GROWTH!

Again, we jump back to Potential… “1:1 has the potential to double our ministry!” Ah now we get to the infamous “double ministry” line. UBF leaders always talk about double ministry, usually based on Elisha’s request to Elijah for a double portion of his spirit. Slide 24 presents a pyramid that is supposed to show linear growth of everybody raising one student: somehow 1 person raises 10, after 1 year we still have 10, then after 10 years we are supposed to have 100 bible students. Indeed, this is linear growth.

The problem? The “linear growth” model assumes 100% success. Every year, every UBF shepherd successfully raises 1 bible student, and that bible student sucessfully remains in UBF for the rest of his/her life (or in this model for 10 years).

This “linear growth” model is full of built-in failure points. First, the success rate is not 100%. Second, not every person is called by God to teach the Bible. Third, most UBF bible students leave within 1 year of study. Many leave after 10 years, so the likelihood of all 100 bible students remaining is rather low.

Zero Success Rate

How many UBF chapters have patterned this “linear growth model”? My claim is that ZERO chapters have done this. No one in UBF over the past 50 years has successfully met the goals of “linear growth”. Zero. None. Nada. It is a failed approach.

Slide 25 – EXPONENTIAL GROWTH!

UBF clearly is not satisfied with “linear growth”. They want “exponential growth”. Their ideal is not that everyone raise just 1 student, but that everyone should raise 2 students. And even 2 is a low standard– many in UBF say you must raise 12 students or even 120!

The amount of guilt, self-loathing and emotional punishment created by these concepts is astronomical.

Slide 25 claims that after 10 years UBF should not only have 100 students, but should really have 1,024… if all those shepherds just weren’t so lazy… And after just 20 years UBF should have 1,040,000 students.

Nothing Strange?

This is the classic “penny a day” problem. Ever hear of the worker who agreed to work for a penny a day in service to a king? The only request is that his pay double every day. After a couple weeks, the king’s entire treasury did not have enough money to pay him!

Such ludicrous bullshit is behind the “UBF 1:1” paradigm. It just won’t work. The math doesn’t add up. People are getting hurt. Slide 26 says it all… and I share this with tears of repentance for believing such lies:

NOTE: This article is part 1 of 5 articles and part of a series of reviews of official, public UBF teaching material. My series is here: Hardcore 1:1

The UBF title of the slideshow is:
“The Hardcore Contents of 1:1 Bible Study”

If I was going to mock UBF and make up a title for fun, my title would be:
“The Hardcore Contents of 1:1 Bible Study”

This presentation was given at an event that is highly regarded in UBF and intended to convince an entire “second generation” to pass on the UBF heritage.

Official Links

Here are the links published by UBF in Germany. Before reading my review, please watch these presentations. I’m not making this stuff up and it might be hard to believe unless you see for yourself.

http://www.slideshare.net/germanyubf/seminar-102-introduction-to-the-hardcore-contents-of-the-11-bible-study

http://www.europeubf.org/2010/07/leadership-forum-seminar-slides/

My Previous Post

I blogged about this material before, but only partially. On my link below you will find some of my screenshots of the UBF slideshows, in case the links above stop working.

http://www.priestlynation.com/archives/775

My Review

Slide 2 – Who am I? What do I do?

The person presenting this material is an older “second gen” (i.e. son of a UBF missionary). He tells us who his parents are and some personal details. This is how UBF almost always introduces themselves. It seems normal enough– and it is fairly normal. UBF “comes down” to a personal level before the orientation begins. The odd thing is that we immediately get distracted by the good qualities of the person giving the presentation.

Slide 3 – Key Verses

The presenter continues to focus our attention on himself by quoting his life key verses. While having life Bible verses is a good thing, I wonder why we need to know this in the presentation? How do these verses relate to the topic at hand? What is the topic at hand? Oh yea, I’m still wondering what “hardcore content” means…

Slide 4 – Outline

Still not sure what we are talking about here, but we now are given an outline of talking points. Here they are. This Part 1 of my review covers sections 1 through 4:

1. Introduction: Why? (slides 5 – 6)    2 slides
2. Definition (slides 8 – 9)      2 slides
3. Origin (slides 11 – 14)      4 slides
4. Importance (slides 16 – 18)     3 slides
5. Advantages & Potential (slides 20 – 26)    7 slides
6. Obstacles vs. Motivation (slides 28 – 31)     4 slides
7. Practical Application (slides 33 – 39)     7 slides
8. Conclusion: God’s hope! (slides 41 – 44)     4 slides

Observations about the Introduction section 1

Asking “why” before “what”.  Before we know “what” the presentation is really all about, we are asked “why”. Why do we have to think about 1:1 bible study and why is it relevant to us today? Well the assumption by the presenter is that the audience already knows what 1:1 bible study is. Perhaps that is true, but I think the audience might still be wondering about “hardcore content”. What does “hardcore” mean?

Only one purpose: propagate UBF. On slide 6 we get the one and only “why”: “to inherit the great legacy of UBF”. No other reason is given. We simply “have to know what 1:1 bible study is about”. This clearly reveals the heart and mind of UBF leaders. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that a UBF director cares more passionately about anything besides passing on UBF heritage.

Observations about the Definition section 2

1:1 is defined as a permanent, spiritual relationship. On slide 9, UBF reveals here their all-important teaching that UBF is your “true family of God” and that your bible teacher is your “parent”.

Observations about the Origin section 3

1:1 is bound to God’s way to save the world. If you think there might be many ways to carry out Christian discipleship in various contexts and cultures, this presentation tells you that you are wrong. UBF 1:1 is “God’s way” and apparently there is no other way. In these slides, UBF ties UBF heritage to Moses, Jesus and Paul, as well most other important Bible figures.

UBF is the only result of Jesus, Bible and Church. Slide 14 says it all. What do you get when you mix Jesus, the Bible and Church together? Well according to this world-class slide, you get UBF, which is apparently the best of all worlds.

Observations about the Importance section 4

There are no alternatives to UBF 1:1.  I think, perhaps, we have hit the “hardcore” part of the presentation. In the form of questions, UBF teaches that UBF ways of 1:1 are the “best way of teaching the bible and serving God in our generation” and there are no alternatives to be seen.

Christian pragmatism 101. Not sure what slide 17 is about… but it certainly is the place where UBF would normally bash all other “hallelujah” Christians who aren’t worth anything because they aren’t part of the supremely disciplined UBF group.

More to come…

I have to stop here. I am so nauseated by these teachings that I have to stop for now. The presentation goes downhill fast from here.