Learning to be a Missionary From a Crested Barbet

On a flight from Nairobi to Johannesburg, I was catching up on reading newsletters from colleagues around the African continent. The first one I read was written by Donna Fort (Zimbabwe). (It was actually the last one I read on the plane because I immediately stopped and wrote a draft of this post.) It struck me as very appropriate to the purpose of this blog -- to talk about how to do missions among Sub-Saharan African peoples.

From Donna Fort:

A few days ago I was home alone on an unusually quiet day and I kept hearing a strange noise. I opened the door to our tiny screened-in porch and found a crested barbet beating himself on the screen trying to get out. My presence distressed the bird so much that I went back in the house for a few minutes to try to decide what to do. It was such a beautiful bird and amazing to see its variety of colours up so close.

A little later I went back armed with a long camp spatula and spoon thinking if I opened the door to outside and guided it I could get it back outside ... but God told me just to sit and watch, so I did. The bird again was disturbed by my presence, but I sat as still as I possibly could. It kept flying back and forth and around. It landed beside the open door, above the open door, but it never went OUT the open door! I was really getting frustrated. However, I prayed that God would help the bird find his way out. Not long after that, the barbet flew to the top left corner of the screen where there was a tiny rip and squeezed his way back out into the world. I was amazed. I thought I knew how he should get out, but God and the barbet had other plans!

God spoke to me through that experience about several issues we are concerned about in Zimbabwe. Sometimes it seems that there is a very obvious answer, so obvious that NO ONE could possibly miss it, but then maybe that is not the answer or open door God has in mind. Sometimes, it is best to sit and pray - In God's Words, "Be still and know that I am God." I did what I could - I opened the door - but that is not what needed to be done.

As I was reading Donna's letter, I was listening to Brandon Heath's Give Me Your Eyes.

Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your arms for the broken-hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach
Give me your heart for the ones forgotten
Give me your eyes so I can see

   
Then, just as I finished my first draft, the song by Sierra, When I Let Go, came on:

I have tried to guide my circumstance
But there's just no way I can.

When will I learn this lesson?
Your ways are not like mine.
Lord, help me to surrender
The control I try to have on my life.

When I let it go,
You take my hand and gently lead me
Then you let me know
Just how peaceful my life can be
When I let it go
The never ending blessings, like a river, start to flow,
When I let it go

What an interesting confluence of messages.

I don't believe that Be still and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10) is intended to be an excuse for inactivity or laziness or a lack of initiative in Kingdom work. But usually (yes, tongue-in-cheek), He has a better idea about how to build His Kingdom in Africa than I have. It is God's revelation that He and He alone sees from His perspective; He and He alone knows what needs to be done; He and He alone will be exalted among the nations. The writer of Ecclesiastes said, There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven ... a time to be silent and a time to speak.... (Ecclesiastes 3:1a, 7b). We can only figure out when to be silent and when to speak when we know Him and when we spend time with Him before taking action to see what He wants us to do. That's a hard lesson for me to learn.

• How have you learned this lesson?
• Is there a time when you waited and God worked, letting you observe his exaltation?
• Is there a time when you have gotten ahead of God's plan and timing?

For the Kingdom,
Bob A

Donna Fort and her husband Gregg have served in Zimbabwe for almost 23 years. They currently live in Gweru.

Crested Barbet. Photgraphed in the Madikwe Game Reserve, South Africa. August 2008. From Wikipedia.

This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
Attribution: Vjosullivan at en.wikipedia

Using Research to Inform Strategy Decisions

How do you use research data to inform your mission efforts, your evangelism, your discipleship, your church planting?

Research may not seem so interesting to some, but it’s really fascinating, especially people group research.  I work with a team that gathers the information about people groups all over Sub-Saharan Africa.  We’re really pretty specific about what we’re looking for – do these people have access to the Gospel or not.  Or even better, is anyone implementing church planting strategies among this people group.  Yes, worldview studies can be helpful in planning strategies, knowing more about culture is helpful, but in the initial stages what is most important is whether or not the peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa (and the rest of the world) have had an opportunity to hear and understand the Gospel in their heart language.

Sometimes we find that workers who have been assigned to various parts of a country start a church in the middle of  people group “A” but they are using the national language or language “B”, their heart language, from another part of the country.  The question is, Does people group “A” have the opportunity to hear and understand the most important message of all time in their language?  I don’t think so.

In one country we found that one of the largest people groups is close to 10% evangelical, but in many parts of that country there are still others that have never heard the Gospel in their language.  My initial thought was that the people with the Gospel need to take it to the others – until I learned that those with the Gospel also held the others as slaves.  The former slave-owners might not be the best messengers in this situation. 

Research isn’t easy because as others have said, one reason the lost are lost is because they’re hard to get to.  It sometimes takes days of driving on very bad roads, sleeping in less than luxurious accommodations, asking lots of questions and getting lots of not-so-useful information.  But, it’s worth it when we can confirm that among this people group there are churches and they are reaching out to those around them.  Or we find a people group that has no church planting strategies, but they are open to the Gospel.  You see, research can also be used  as a filter – how are we received when we arrive in their town or village, do they seem open to evangelicals, etc.

Research is important as we think about deployment.  How do we determine where to place personnel?  Wouldn’t it be among the lost?  I once met a couple who said when they were trying to decide where to serve, they asked, “Who are the least reached?”  And when they got the answer, that’s where they went. It’s like I heard over and over again when I was in seminary (a long time ago) – Why should so many people have the privilege of hearing the Gospel over and over again when so much of the world still hasn’t heard it once?  Let’s take the Gospel to those who haven’t heard – and let research show us where those people are.

Revelation 7
 9After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10And they cried out in a loud voice:

"Salvation belongs to our God,
  who sits on the throne,
  and to the Lamb."

In my opinion, research helps us get to Revelation 7!!

For the Kingdom,
Lucy D

Lucy is the Research Strategy Associate for the Sub-Saharan African Peoples Affinity Group (IMB, SBC). She and her husband have served in Africa for almost 24 years. In this position, she helps coordinate research information and helps people group teams and leadership interpret the research data so that they can make informed decisions about strategy.

The Next Month

In my job responsibilities, I will be traveling most of the next 5 weeks and possibly even 3-4 weeks longer. This blog is so new that I don't have a backlog of posts written and just waiting to be uploaded. I currently have a soft target of 2 posts per week but, for the time I'm traveling, there may be fewer posts.

Early next week, I will upload a post by the Sub-Saharan Africa research strategist. She has written about the importance of people group research in making strategic decisions.

I think I will turn off comment moderation and see how that works -- I turned it on to catch spam and attacks but that hasn't been a problem to this point. I will do my best to keep up my end of the conversation but that will depend on my internet access -- always uncertain here, no matter where we are.

If there's a topic about which you would like to write, let me know -- sta[dot]ssap[at]gmail[dot]com -- I'm open to guest posts.

For the Kingdom,
Bob A

A Church Planter's Tests

In an article for CatalystSpace, Perry Noble writes about the five tests that he says every church planter and every pastor will face -- Five Tests a Church Planter Will Face. I believe these tests will be experienced by both the expatriate or national missionary and by the national pastor. In this post, I've taken Noble's tests and applied them to a missionary context.

#1 Financial Test: The danger is that strategy is built on the assumption that the largest financial contributor or contributors will continue to provide financial support. Inevitably, dependence on financial support from humans will lead to disappointment. Noble rightly affirms that EVERY church planter/pastor need to understand that GOD IS THE BIGGEST GIVER IN YOUR CHURCH! (Emphasis is Noble's)

A principle of church planting movements is that God has placed the resources in the harvest. Keeping that principle in mind helps the church planter to develop strategies are sound:

1. avoiding dependence on outside funds that may dry up and that redirect loyalty and accountability to an outside group or individual rather than to the Lord and to the congregation. (A good resource for material on dependency is the World Mission Associate's website listing articles by Glenn Schwartz.)
2. helping to ensure methods that are sustainable by the church being started.
3. developing strategies that are reproducible by the local congregation -- implanting a DNA that leads the new church to accept its responsibility to reproduce.

#2 The Critics Test: Eventually, the dreams, visions, and methods of the church planter are going to be questionned and critiqued by someone. It might be individuals in the target PG; it might be members or leaders of other churches; it might be fellow workers. Nehemiah face criticism and opposition; Paul faced criticism and opposition; a church planter in the 21st century will not be immune.

#3 The Faith Test: The temptation for the church planter is to limit his dreams to only what he can see and what he can do. The challenge for the church planter is to operate in the realm of faith and to attempt God-sized tasks -- tasks that can only succeed if God intervenes. (Hebrews 11:1 and Hebrews 11:6) A second challenge is for the church planter to be sure that his God-sized dreams and tasks are also God-initiated and not just his own desires.

#4 The Commitment Test: Every church planter and every pastor will likely come to a point where there are two groups in the new church -- those who like the church and those who are committed to the church. According to Noble, you cannot be afraid to ask for commitment. God intends for the church members to do the work of ministry -- the task of the pastor and other leaders is to equip, train, enable, and challenge members to actually commit to the work of ministry (Ephesians 4:11 and Ephesians 4:12).

#5 The Focus Test: In his booklet on Church Planting Movements (International Mission Board, SBC, @1997), David Garrison says:

Church Planting Movements are sovereign acts of God, but in His sovereign grace and mercy He has chosen to partner with us. There are some practical things that missionaries can do to help initiate or nurture a Church Planting Movement...the effective strategy coordinator is ruthless in evaluating all he or she does in light of the end-vision -- a Church Planting Movement -- discarding those things that do not or will not lead to it.

The same principle applies in the planting of an individual church -- experiment but evaluate everything and discard those things that do not lead to the fulfillment of the God-initiated vision for that congregation. Not everything that is a good thing to do is the best thing to do.

• Which of these tests have you faced as either a cross-cultural missionary or as a national pastor?
• How did you handle the test?
• What would your advice be to a new missionary or young pastor in regards to facing these tests?

For the Kingdom,
Bob A

Google Public Data on Sub-Saharan Africa

I will acknowledge at the outset of this post that I am an information junkie. I just discovered Google's Public Data Explorer and I find it fascinating. But beyond fascination, when I look at information on Sub-Saharan Africa, I find that it puts into perspective what has happened and what is happening on the continent and in the various countries.

For instance, looking at the population growth chart below, the thing that immediately stood out to me was the incredible drop in population growth in Rwanda in the mid-90's. The mid-90's was the horrific genocide in Rwanda. As incredible as it is, it seems that the genocide resulted in a net population decline of 8.27%, followed by a net increase 5 years later of 10%. The data and the graph really drive home the severe impact of the genocide. (This is my initial, lay assessment and certainly needs further research to confirm my assumption that the genocide and the population decline were related and that there is not another explanation for the changes or that it was not just a glitch in data gathering at that particular point in time.)

Beyond satisfying my curiosity and helping me get a perspective on reality, statistics and data can also inform Kingdom work among the peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa. For example, if 52% of the Kenyan population lives below the poverty line (as defined by Kenya, not as defined in the US), then that speaks volumes to me about methodology -- western methods, no matter how effective they are in the US or the UK or Germany, may simply not be sustainable in Africa (I would also need a good understanding of the PG or segment that I'm working with). That means I need to evaluate what I do and how I do it so that the continuance of the spread of the gospel of Jesus is not dependent on my presence and my funding.

Below are some graphs that I found most fascinating on Google's Public Data Explorer. I've just barely scratched the surface of what's there. Also, this is a Google Lab project and very much at a beta stage -- they will add much more information in the future. Put your cursor over a country name or a line on the graph to explore the data.

Poverty Headcount Ratio at National Poverty Line (% of population)

World Bank Definition: National poverty rate is the percentage of the population living below the national poverty line. National estimates are based on population-weighted subgroup estimates from household surveys. Source: World Bank staff estimates based on the World Bank's country poverty assessments.

[Note by Bob] It is important to note that the graph below does not reflect that actual number of people who are living in poverty. In his blog on African poverty, Africa Can ... End Poverty, Shanta Devarajan, World Bank Chief Economist for Africa, recently wrote a post asking the question, Is African Poverty Falling? in which he said:

...aggregate poverty rates have fallen in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) since the mid-1990s ... [however,] the decline in the aggregate poverty rate has not been sufficient to reduce the number of poor, given population growth.

GNI per capita PPP (current international $)

World Bank Definition: GNI per capita based on purchasing power parity (PPP). PPP GNI is gross national income (GNI) converted to international dollars using purchasing power parity rates. An international dollar has the same purchasing power over GNI as a U.S. dollar has in the United States. GNI is the sum of value added by all resident producers plus any product taxes (less subsidies) not included in the valuation of output plus net receipts of primary income (compensation of employees and property income) from abroad. Data are in current international dollars. Source: World Bank, International Comparison Program database.

[Note by Bob] Again, it is important to be aware of what this graph does not say. Just because a country like Equatorial Guinea has seen a dramatic increase in its Gross National Income per capita, it does not necessarily follow that families and individuals in that country have seen a dramatic increase in their income or wealth.





Population Growth (annual %)

World Bank Definition: Annual population growth rate. Population is based on the de facto definition of population, which counts all residents regardless of legal status or citizenship--except for refugees not permanently settled in the country of asylum, who are generally considered part of the population of the country of origin. Source: United Nations Population Division, World Population Prospects: the 2008 Revision and 2006 Revision, Eurostat, national statistical offices, and World Bank staff estimates from various sources including census reports, national statistical offices, World Population Prospects, and household surveys conducted by national agencies and Macro International.




Prevalence of HIV, Total (% of population ages 15-49)

World Bank Definition: Prevalence of HIV refers to the percentage of people ages 15-49 who are infected with HIV. Source: UNAIDS and the WHO's Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic.




How do you use research data to inform your mission efforts, your evangelism, your discipleship, your church planting?

For the Kingdom,
Bob A

Connections -- Long Distance Mobilization for Missions

After reading Clint Bowman's guest post on People Groups and Prayer Support, David Pope asked, How do we get churches to connect with UUPG's without personally meeting the [missionary] that works with that UUPG? I asked David to write a guest post on that topic.

I just read a recent memo from Dr. Rankin (President, IMB) that stated (concerning the subject of relationships with our Southern Baptist Convention churches), "These opportunities to speak serve as reminders that relationships with our SB (Southern Baptist) constituency is an important element of successfully reaching a lost world as well as overseas strategies and organizational structure."

I would heartily agree.  I am a firm believer that more and more of our Southern Baptist Convention family are prone to give along the lines of relationship than any other connection.  Whether it is their money or their time, our churches are more likely to combine their efforts with the work on the field if a relationship exists between the church, its membership, and the missionary.

How many times have churches that have taken the initiative to work among a people group relocated their ministry with the missionary unit when the missionary changed ministries?  Or ceased to continue their ministry at all when the missionary came home?

I believe that a significant part of our missionary strategy, where it pertains to engaging unreached unengaged people groups, involves promoting and facilitating the relationships between the field and our SBC constituency ... especially as we move into the future.

As a pastor in the US for over 20 years, I understand the trepidation that exists in the hearts and minds of those who desire to make a difference, but wonder if it is possible to be successful.  This tension is heightened when there is no relationship between the church and the missionary.  I'm not sure what the answer is, but somehow we need to increase the amount of "face-time" outside of a stateside assignment every three to four years.  I am not convinced they will come if they do not know "to what' or "to whom" they are coming.

David Pope

Ralph Winter has been cited as saying, ... you can go, send or mobilize, but if you have a choice then choose mobilization because it’s a strategic contribution to missions if you can mobilize ten people to go in place of you as one. I don't know the context of that citation or even the exact quote (I'm trying to track it down) and don't want to be seen as criticizing Ralph Winter. (Update: I cannot verify that particular quote. In the Jan-Feb 1995 edition of Missions Frontiers, Dr. Winter did say, Mission mobilization activity is more crucial than field missionary activity and goes on to explain what he meant.) However, I don't think those are mutually exclusive options. The call to go is also a call to mobilize -- those of us on mission want others to join us. So, how do you mobilize churches and individual believers to be on mission in your setting? Are there effective ways to do mobilization from a distance?

For the Kingdom,
Bob A

David is sent out by the IMB and is the Engagement Team Coordinator for Burkina Faso, northern Cote d’Ivoire, and northern Ghana and, in June, will become Engagement Team Leader for the Cluster that the IMB calls the Central Sahel Cluster. The Engagement Team is charged with the responsibility to look at people groups that are not being engaged, verify the research on the status of those people groups, enlist partners (usually, either local Baptist churches and/or US Baptist churches) to engage those people groups, and provide strategy training for those partners.

Guest Post: People Groups and Prayer Support

This is the first "guest post" for "Strategic Missional Thinking for Africa". In reality, however, there are either no guest posts -- because I want this to be a blog for all of us who are called to and interested in missions in Africa -- or every post is a guest post -- because this is God's work and He has invited each of us to participate.

Clint Bowman has served in West Africa for a number of years. He and his wife led the Engagement Team for IMB work in West Africa -- their tasks were to research Unreached, Unengaged People Groups* (UUPGs), identify UUPGs for engagement by Southern Baptist congregations in the US, and to train and facilitate those engaging churches. Clint is now the Network Strategies Coach for the IMB's Sub-Saharan African Peoples Affinity Group, working with IMB teams and national partners who want to effectively engaged UPGs (Unreached People Groups) in Sub-Saharan Africa.

I was recently reminded once again that our Baptist folks are truly people of prayer. They are always seeking new and better ways to be involved in praying for the work of reaching the UUPG's of Africa and beyond. Consequently, many of our missionaries are heavily involved in promoting their UUPG's and the needs of others as well. However, we get so caught up in this that we tend to forget that the world... even the African world.... is constantly and quickly (at times) changing.

Some years ago, I was leading a team which focused on surveying UUPG's in order to help facilitate their engagement with the Gospel. We were fairly new at this line of work and we jumped in excited to get churches from the USA to get on board and help us to reach the UUPG's. One such church from the US state of Delaware joined us and adopted a UUPG in which to begin work. Since it had been several years since this group had been surveyed, I went with the adopting church on their first trip into the area. We were assured by Baptist leaders in this country that the people group in question were most definitely a UUPG. Imagine our surprise when we discovered 33 churches located in the 30 villages of this UUPG! I wish I could say that this kind of thing doesn't happen very often but it does.....small indigenouus agencies and other denominations are working all the time to engage the UUPG's of this world. Praise the Lord for this!

However, this leads us to a problem. We often put out the names of UUPG's for our folks to pray for them and then we forget that those same folks who are praying often begin to feel God's leading to reach out to their adopted group. This is almost exactly what happened in the example I just gave of the Delaware group. They were given a name off a list which had been compiled a long time before to get churches to pray for UUPG's. No one realized that things on the ground in Africa were changing. Hence, a church was given the name of a group to adopt which did not any longer need adopting. This tends to make those of us involved in this line of ministry look as if we do not know what we are doing. I feel that it is important that those on the field side of things doing the research and those on the home side of things need to be in constant communication about what current needs are for getting UUPG's adopted. Care should be taken that only the names of those which need adopting are presented to churches for prayer or else that the church is made aware that the people group they are adopting has already been adopted by others as well and that work is moving forward there.

Having been involved in more than one situation where these kinds of things have happened, I can say that it is very uncomfortable to have to sit with a church team which has spent thousands of dollars and folks have given up the only vacation time they will get in the year to come out to Africa and then discover that the reality on the ground is not what they had been led to believe that it is. We must seek ways to avoid abusing our supporters back home in this way. The basic rule which my team adopted to try and stop this from happening was that we never took a church into a UUPG without first going and looking ourselves to determine the status of the UUPG.

The second thing we did was to try and convince the stateside prayer promoters and missions media folks to take the time to coordinate with us before they let out names of UUPG's for adoption. Though this seems to be common sense it actually took quite a bit of discussion to get them to do these things, but once we accomplished this we began to avoid those embarassing situations of churches, who thought they were the ONLY ones adopting a UUPG, showing up to evangelize their UUPG only to discover that others were there ahead of them and that the work was well on its way to bearing fruit.

I am not saying that we don't want stateside churches to pray for UPGs which have already been adopted..... I am saying that if we put those types of names out there for others to adopt for prayer and engagement, we need to be as sure as we can that they are not misled into thinking they are the only ones who are praying for that UPG. We must remember that pray-ers tend to become goers in the work of engaging the UUPG's of this world.... Praise the Lord!

Keeping the lists which float around in our missions world as current as possible and coordinating between all of us who are involved in this work will help us to not waste our valuable resources.....such as the vacation times and the monies of those precious folks whom God is calling out to the harvest fields of Africa. Folks who are today successfully sharing the love of our Lord and Savior in some of the toughest areas of our continent.

Clint Bowman
Network Strategies Coach
Sub-Saharan African Peoples Affinity Group, IMB

* UUPG - Unreached, Unengaged People Group. This is a standard designation for a people group in which less than 2% of the population are Evangelical Christians, there is no active church planting, and there is no church planting strategy under implementation. The Joshua Project has a good page that gives definitions of a number of terms commonly used among those involved in cross-cultural missions.

How can we best ensure that we share accurate information about the status of the peoples of Africa with those who desire to pray for them and to engage them? What are you doing to ensure the accuracy of your information?