One good result of the 30th Anniversary celebration of UBF in Germany and the 50th Anniversary of UBF in Korea is that the world now has documented, official teaching material. The lectures in the “blue book” are important material to understand UBF teachings. Even more valuable are the following public UBF presentations.
UBF employs a business-like, B.I.T.E model of ministry which has become a religious machine intended to produce super-apostles to lead the world. UBF activities are geared toward behavior control, information control, thought control and emotional control.
These seminar presentations have the look and feel of a classroom-style lesson. Could these be the foundation for the textbooks to be used in the new private schools: UBF K-12 curriculum, UBF University (as mentioned on page 150 of the “blue book”)?
Here is a summary of teachings from Lecture 101:
1. The success of UBF comes from a great strategy (slide 6).
2. The UBF lifestyle is an endless cycle of work (slide 8).
3. UBF fishing is done in order to keep the UBF workforce young and dynamic (slide 15).
4. One purpose of UBF fishing is to reproduce 2 UBF people, derived from a woman’s average number of children (slide 17).
5. Another purpose of UBF fishing is to hand down the UBF ministry to children of UBF people (slide 18).
6. The odds are against UBF fishing being fruitful (slide 40).
7. UBF fishing is intended to make a good impression and break down emotional defenses (slide 47).
8. UBF fishing is an exercise in ruling situations (slide 52).
I will leave it up to my readers to see what UBF officially teaches in these lessons. Such things make me sick, and I never would have believed all this was official teaching, except that I lived UBF for many years.
I’ll just leave it to this picture from one of the UBF presentations. I think this says it all…
And this slide makes it clear that UBF really, really, really wants to raise super-apostles:
And what does this teach? If this is serious, it is bad. If it is a joke, it’s even worse:
And yes, UBF is attempting to follow a pyramid-scheme model of making disciples:
Screen-captures of the presentations:
Official UBF links:
2010 Leadership Forum Presentations
Seminar 101: Introduction to Outreach and Fishing
Seminar 102: Hardcore Contents of 1:1 Bible Study
Seminar 103: Discipleship Explored
Brian, I followed the link posted to ubf-lecture101 and found it so thoroughly revolting in how christian mentor relationships are reduced to slick business-like transactions and its justification that God commands it so we must obey it(i.e.fishing). It’s unbelievable that something like this can be presented in a leadership conference as a serious discussion on how to reach the new generation. No one likes to be treated like a number and unfortunately, the slide reduces precious souls as just numbers to be had to accomplish a man-made numerical goal. And to boast so proudly of “UBF’s success” and yet admit the statistic that going fishing regularly at twice a week will possibly generate one faithful bible student per year is an impossible burden these UBF leaders are placing on the next generation of leaders. I’m appalled at this presentation. There is virtually no mention of faith, guidance of the Holy SPirit, true friendship and love- nothing but pressing the point of getting that one Bible study appointment. And my question to UBF as a whole is that if this does not represent their heart or motivation in reaching the lost, why endorse it? Why not challenge this flawed mentality? It really sickens me to think that this church has traded in the Great Commission for this self-serving model of discipleship.
@Jennifer: I agree with your thoughts. It was disheartening to me to read the 50th Anniversary book. 50 years of so much sacrifice for God’s name, and it amounts to this? Christian life is not life for God or from God, but life with God. “Christ in you” is the mystery!
@Chad: Why limit what God can do, indeed! That is the point. In fact, every time we rely on ourself, we limit what God can do. The all-surpassing joy and peace and love only can be found when we stop, and know that He is Lord. By doing nothing, we do everything. That is the great paradox of Jesus. We fail and become destructive when we attempt to resolve this paradox with some form of conformance to an ideology.
Lecture 1 slide 9 i believe…not about business….then slides 10-22 are all business material related to stats, figures, sales techniques, results, numbers….repulsive
Lecture 2, 1to one the best and right way o raise disciples? Why limit what God can do? The right way? No…your way….these terms open my heart to ne to one…”Hard core facts….intensive….”…automatic turnoff…ubf neds to be oncerned about who they allow o teach or mentor one to one…that is where a lot of the controlling and persuasion takes place….the taking advantage of the younger an immature….one to one here is very dangerous. Did Jesus do one to one? Sure, but he also did groups, public, hiusehold, and many other ways to reach out and raise disciples…dont get me started on world class leaders.
Chad, just a comment regarding the pyramid slide above about making disciples. The “global leader” way of thinking goes like this (at least this was my thinking in the past)…
If all UBF people worked 100% for mission, in 20 years UBF could have over 1 million disciples of Jesus raised up into missionaries. Each leader just has to raise 2 people.
This sounds so easy. But UBF leaders have come to understand that most shepherds are not going to be able to raise 2 people. So they think that if even 10% of UBF leaders raise 2 people each, then 100,000 missionaries would be so easy to raise up within 20 years. Since 10% seems like such a small amount of work, the conclusion is that most UBF leaders under them must be really lazy.
I used to think like this even a few years ago. I used to think that I was one of the only leaders “doing the work” and that others were really lazy. I repent of this false pyramid-math approach to disciple-making now :)
Lecture 3 let us nor forget who the sheep belong to…Jesus. Global leaders?
If UBF training is the “best ways”, then we should put such training to the test. The best Christian training in the world would have to equip leaders who could lead in any context.
Could a UBF trained leader lead in another church? Could UBF training be transferred to other denominations? The answer is a resounding “no”, not without major re-training using the ancient creeds, a healthy dose of correct gospel-teaching and a solid review of the great preachers of both old and new fabric.