The IFCA Bible Institute is one of IFCA's best-kept secrets, and one that could be a tremendous asset to your church or ministry's arsenal of tools for proclaiming the Scriptures. In this article, I'd like to walk you through a how-to for navigating this simple website and then offer a few ways that you and your ministry can benefit from this resource. Did I mention that it is free to all current IFCA members and churches?

NAVIGATING TO THE IFCA BIBLE INSTITUTE
In order to use the IFCA Bible Institute you can easily navigate through the regular IFCA website at IFCA.org. The short video below will show you how to get to the Bible Institute website in three different ways: 1) through the large banner graphic, 2) through the button in the middle of the front page, or 3) through the drop down menu under resources.

Once you are at the Bible Institute website, you can navigate to the video courses where you will be required to sign in. The login information required to get into the video part of the Bible Institute is available by either emailing the IFCA Home Office to verify membership (office@ifca.org) or by calling the IFCA Home Office at (616) 531-1840. Please don't share the IFCA login info with anyone who is not an IFCA member.

CHOOSING A VIDEO LESSON
Once you are logged into the Bible Institute Video Course section, you will see several categories of courses offered. We are working to add more video course materials in the future. Currently we have hundreds of videos that represent many hours of Bible and theological teaching--including many courses in Spanish. Once you have chosen a category, you can pick one video to begin. Click on the video and it should begin to play on your screen within seconds. Also, note that every video lesson can be downloaded for offline viewing.

HOW TO DOWNLOAD COURSE NOTES
Some of the video courses also include notes in PDF form. These course notes follow along with each lesson offered. To download the notes, go to the link below the video window and look for the associated files. Click on the link to download the file taking note of where your computer will save the file. You may need to give your computer permission to allow a file to be downloaded from our website. Once you give approval, go to the downloaded file and open the PDF document. You can now follow along in the video with your notes!

LOOKING TO OUR MINISTRY PARTNERS FOR MORE LEARNING
Much of the content found in our video courses was produced by IFCA members--individuals, schools, and ministries. This decision was intentional, so we could confidently say that all the contributors to our courses hold to our IFCA doctrines. The IFCA Bible Institute has a page that tells you which ministries contributed to the video content of our Institute and we wanted to make you aware of it for two reasons: 1) we want you to know which ministries have been generous in providing this wealth of resources to our IFCA family. These courses took a lot of time and money to produce, and we are very thankful to all of our ministry partners for making them available. 2) The IFCA Bible Institute is not a substitute or in competition with solid biblical training ministries. We don't offer degrees or certificates and don't have any plans to do so in the future. Our Ministry Partners offer more teaching and many offer certificates and degrees for you to gain more training and preparation for wherever the Lord might use you. Seek out these ministries to find out what other training opportunities they offer.

If your school or ministry would like to become an IFCA Bible Institute Ministry partner, you can contact us through the Home Office. We are only accepting IFCA related ministries and only video course content.

HOW CAN YOUR CHURCH USE THE BIBLE INSTITUTE TO ACCOMPLISH YOUR MISSION?
When we envisioned IFCA Bible Institute, we were thinking about the future--pastors and churches in majority nations that don't have computers, but have smart phones that are capable of viewing video. We thought about pastors who have been out of school for a long time and needed some help brushing up on doctrine and theology. We thought about church planters who need to train elders and deacons and Sunday school teachers, and could use a resource that could be a sort of independent study. We thought about small churches that need a replacement Sunday school teacher or a Sunday evening message in a pinch. We thought about young men looking to prepare for ordination exams and for laymen in the church that are hungering for more Bible. The IFCABI is a discipleship tool for the church. It cannot and should not replace one-to-one discipleship, but can help with teaching.

How can you use this resource? Maybe you could use it to teach a course in a women's Bible study or for a group study in a home. Perhaps you might want to pick several courses and put them together for a layman's certificate program in your church. Print up your own certificate with your church's name and logo! You can find some great designs on websites for free (here's one: https://www.canva.com/certificates/templates/). As I mentioned earlier, you could use these courses on Sunday nights and spend some time in discussion groups. You could also get together with other local pastors to refresh your soul around a topic or to discuss a video course together. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination! Our prayer is that the Lord will use the Bible Institute all over the world to train up a new generation of Christians in His Word.

Soli Deo Gloria!