Prominent American Bible teacher Chuck Missler aims to develop a property he recently bought in New Zealand into an internationally acclaimed base for teaching Christian courses.
Missler told Challenge Weekly that River Lodge, a 40-acre property near Reporoa, bounded on three sides by the Waikato River, had a “good reputation”.
“It has been acquired to serve as headquarters for the South Pacific arm of my ministry, known as Koinonia ministry,” he explained. “The concept is to have the property continue operating as a lodge with conferences, weddings, holiday-accommodation, and to have it as a discipleship centre. If we accomplish what we expect to, River Lodge will become well-known world-wide as a place to come for study, informed and invigorating discussion and discipleship training.”
Missler, who will spend six months a year at the property, also plans to invite Christian leaders to the lodge for “fire-side chats”.
Missler, who founded the internationally-known Koinonia House ministry in 1992, said the ministry was a ‘think-tank’, which included Bible study, and correlated events in the world today with the Bible.
“The think-tank is internet-based and operates in 62 countries. “I want to see students who are part of this programme, from anywhere in the world, residing at River Lodge for periods of study and discussions,” he said.
Plans are to start with half-year discipleship courses from March to August, building the ministry to eventually running year-round courses.
A key part of the courses will be to train people to make disciples on a one-to-one basis. It is hoped there will be around 40 students in residence at River Lodge at any one time.
“There will be hands-on-training and participation, practical training outreaches, team-building activities, leadership development, in-depth discussions, and academic study. We will have world-class people at River Lodge as faculty, and guest lecturers,” says Missler. “The River Lodge base will be the world’s second of its nature for the organisation, with the other base situated at Coeur d’Alene in Idaho, United States. We have hundreds of members in New Zealand in the Koinonia programme, studying on the internet. We intend to have ‘Friends of River Lodge’, people who will subscribe to a series of quarterly ‘fireside chats’ with internationally-known speakers, who will answer questions and with whom people will be able to have discussions.”
