“If you’d come today, you could have reached the whole nation,
Israel in 4 b.c. had no mass communication.”
This is one of the criticisms of Jesus’ work in the film Jesus Christ Superstar (Watch the the song from the movie here). Or, perhaps it’s just non-believers mocking the idea that he really was the incarnation of God since God would obviously want to take advantage of mass communication. But believers know that’s not how God works. He likes to call individuals that change the world (Augustine, St. Thomas, Martin Luther, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Theresa etc.)
And yet Christianity is the one world religion with the most adherents. I believe that God prefers to work through humble available people over working through amazing mission and church growth strategies.
I know that, but it’s so easy to forget. So, I started this literacy program all wrong. I chose strategically located churches wherein to start literacy courses. The end result is that one of the three literacy courses has completely fallen on its face because there is no real teacher to take the class by the reigns. Besides, there is no way in my original strategy to then take a literacy course to a church that doesn’t even have one reader. So, God has now shown me once again that I need to concentrate on those who would champion the cause of literacy among the Dagara.
This week I visited the Nawile class. Two almost completely illiterate ladies were trying to review with each other the same lesson they had been going over for weeks. Nobody else had shown. Robert, the original teacher, abandoned the class from the beginning. Then the poor kid that they put in charge of the class after Robert turned out to be a poor choice also bailed due to the pressure and possible backlash from Robert. I told the ladies that they could do whatever they wanted, but that I was going to concentrate on developing a teacher training program. I’m not going to go back to Nawile until I get that teacher training program in place. I’m doing this because my belief has been renewed once again that God prefers working through humble available people to working through my ‘amazing’ mission strategy. I told them not to feel bad, that it was my fault for not putting my energy where it should have been - in the development of literacy teachers.
So now, I’m refocussing on developing a literacy teacher training guide and then seeking those humble available people whom God may call to be literacy teachers. Do you find that working with the right people is more important than the program you work? Why do you think that is? Seriously folks let’s get a discussion going. I’ve never had one of those on my blog and I’d like to see what it’s like.
2 comments:
Hi! Are you one of those missionaries Jordan Harris was telling me about? He's just wrapping up a 5 week stay here in Papua New Guinea where I am a missionary with churches of Christ. But I got to this blog by a recommendation from another friend Ryan Richardson. In my ten years I haven't started (or witnessed the birth of) NEAR as many churches as you folks (in your 30 villages!), but sometimes our house churches are preceded by the conversion of people who can't lead well, and then later the leaders are converted and it actually gels into a church. Don't know if that applies at all. Maybe it means you could be open to the possibility that those interested women may find a teacher for you to train? On another topic, why do you want a discussion? Just to see what it's like? --Marcus
Marcus,
Yes we are one of "those" missionaries. I'm jealous of your time with Jordan. We really enjoyed him and were excited to have him back until things got a bit dicey here in Burkina. I'm glad you got to have him for a while.
Tell Ryan thanks for the recommendation. I hope to meet him in person someday.
I like your reword of "witnessing the birth of," because only about 10 of these churches we work with were "started by us," the others are 2nd or third generation churches planted by Dagara evangelists from those initial churches. One of the things I've found though is that church plants are sort of like snow flakes. Almost every single one is unique. In some of our churches some of the older natural leaders were converted at the beginning and some others are still struggling to find leadership and there's every level in between out there as well. Nawile happens to be one of those churches with some strong female leadership, but some kind of bullying self-important male leadership sometimes - which just points to the need for what we spend most of our time on - leadership training (and now literacy training).
On your question about the ladies from Nawile finding a teacher for us to train, they had already hand picked Robert's replacement and he has been a no show for training. I suspect it's because of fear of a backlash from the older more respected Robert. Anyway, it's complicated further by the fact that my training materials are still not completely ready, but we keep getting closer.
And finally as far as getting a discussion . . . well, that's a good question. First, I need encouragement and when people comment it shows that they have noticed God's work here. Second, I see our work as the inbreaking of God's kingdom among the Dagara. God's kingdom is so much bigger than the few missionary families that have come here, so I'd like to get not only encouragement but continuing ideas, gentle rebukes, etc. from "the kingdom." I did sort of joke about just wanting to see what it's like, but there's something to that as well. I really appreciate your thoughtful response to my post. So much social media is neither really thought provoking or meaningful. Sometimes that's what I need - mindless meaningless interaction, but I would like to see what some not so mindless meaningless interaction is like as well. So, also, in a way, yes, just to see what it's like.
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