Oct 2013, Ministry In An Animistic Context: Disciplemaking
1. INTRODUCTION
In order to help the
converts to grow wholistically in the truth of God, there are three parts we
will look into in designing the materials for disciple making in an animistic
context. First we look at the biblical way of how Jesus and Paul built their
disciples; second, we look at the normal growth path of a new convert in
becoming a disciple of Christ, and lastly, the areas that we shall focus on when
we design the materials.
2. JESUS’
& PAUL’S MODEL OF DISCIPLESHIP
God has given us a very
comprehensive way of disciple-making through the life of His Son Jesus Christ.
Jesus was indeed a cross-cultural gospel planter. He came with a heavenly culture
and message, and He intended to make an everlasting impact in the midst of an
earthly context. We could see how he functioned as a cultural breaker to close
the gap and to not just win people for the Kingdom, but to train them to be
disciples who spread the Gospel after His earthly departure.
Paul was a cross-cultural
church planter too and he was more than a church planter, but a disciple-maker
for Christ. In all the churches which he had planted directly or indirectly, we
could see a trend of his intentional efforts to build the local community
through producing local leaders or elders.
Learning how they set up the
disciple making model do help us to design the materials in accordance to the
needs of the locals.
2.1 They Lived
Among Them: Show Them the Way of Truth
Discipleship making is more
than a classroom intellectual or knowledge impartation. It involves life and
personal relationship in a daily interactive level. Both Jesus and Paul
demonstrated their Christ-like living manner in those communities they reached out
to.
Life example is a very
important portion in the disciple-making process. People have to see how you
live in order for them to grasp the meaning of sacrificial love and commitment
that are the essence of the teaching of the Christianity life or community
living. The very first material or content of discipleship that we could ever
create and produce for the disciples is the message embodied in our personal
daily life. As Paul said, “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ’. Role
model is established when we live among them.
Especially in an animistic
context where the teaching of the Bible is a total foreign message to them, a
living image of Christ would be a very great help in the process of assisting
the people to understand Christ and His Word.
2.2 They Taught
the Word of God: Convey Them the Way of Truth
Jesus and Paul made every
effort to make known the truth to the believers, in order for them to grow in
the knowledge of Christ. The faith must be built in solid foundation, and Bible
is the very basis and content of our faith. Thus it is the responsibility of
every discipler to teach their followers in Christ faithfully about the content
of the Word.
Another way of teaching the
Word is by demonstrating the power of God through the spreading of the Gospel.
Jesus and Paul performed great signs and wonders through the empowerment of the
Holy Spirit when they preached the Word.
2.3 They Delegated
Their Authorities: Train Them in the Way of Truth
Both Jesus and Paul selected
certain qualified disciples to take over their ministries. Jesus chose the
twelve and sent their two by two to preach the Gospel and to heal the sick.
Paul chose and ordained elders to look after the local churches he had pioneered
or overseen.
Delegation of authority is a
way of releasing disciples into the fields and to continue the work we have
started. Unless they are successors built up for Christ, our efforts and works started
will not be able to carry on and reproduced in the following generations.
2.4 They Withdrew
from Mission Fields: Pass Them the Baton of Truth
Jesus left behind His
workloads to be taken up by those disciples He trained after He blessed them
with the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit. Paul left his mission fields and move
on to his new grounds for another circle of plowing and planting. There need to
be a cut-off point when the locals are left to function with their trained
capacity under a constant supervision and review.
3. GROWTH
PATH OF A DISCIPLE
A normal disciple (a new
convert in an animistic context) will always go through a circle demonstrated
as below (author unknown):
3.1 Infancy
Stage
The new convert has just
started his new journey of faith discovery. He came to accept Christ because of
some power encounter, all he knows is about experience and all his interests might
be encountering more of those miraculous experiences he went through before. Christianity
is still a foreign faith to him. He is basically ignorant in all the
experiences as well as the truth of Christ. All he knows is that certain supernatural being has healed him.
New converts at this stage
are mostly very self-centred, especially they have been practicing all kinds of
animistic beliefs and their purposes are to keep themselves safe and healthy
physically or rich and prosperous financially. They have all sorts of queries
that need to be answered with the biblical truth.
The discipler sets in to
build a personal relationship with the converts, filling as a bridge to share
life and testimonies together, encouraging the new converts with his own life
and knowledge of God. There needs to have a personal touch either one to one or
one to a community. Therefore the incarnated missionary is needed, for the
discipler to live among the people groups to help the individuals or the
communities to learn more about the truth behind the experiences he or they
encountered before or after accepting Jesus.
3.2 Childhood
Stage
This stage is where the new
converts will pick up their new habits through our leading. And it is the pivot
where we shall redirect their focuses on the things of Christ rather than their
own pursues and interests. They need to discover the new meaning in a new faith
and a larger community that they will be relating to.
The discipler comes in as a
connection between the converts and the biblical truth, teaching them the Word
of God, building their habits to attend church services and small groups etc,
training them to have personal bible study and spend their personal times
worshipping God and praying to God. It is a process to help them to connect
with God and know God personally, as well as to connect with others and to know
them personally in order to live healthily in a faith community. The disciple
will first play the role as a director in leading the believers to grow in the
faith of God, and to ultimately to channel them to communicate to God and meet
God personally.
3.3 Adulthood
Stage
This is the stage that the
believers continue to grow in maturity of Christ. Since they know God
personally, they might have received personal visions and missions in God
through the truth imparted to them. And since they have overcome sense of
self-centredness and to be trained to be more Christ-like and Christ-centred,
they will automatically want to be participated in the work of God. They indeed
could be used by God to minister to their own people as they do not have
language and cultural barriers.
The discipler has to equip
the believers further by teaching them and giving them on-job training. More
leadership skills are required at this stage as the discipler will delegate
some of his responsibilities to be shared by his disciples. The discipler need
to identify the gifts of his followers and train them accordingly, creating new
ministries for them individually or as a team and providing them assistances
whenever they are in need.
3.4 Parental
Stage
This is the stage of
reproducing when the believers are independent to handle their ministries or
the local church. The trained up leaders are capable of forming their own
indigenous leadership team and play their roles as local trainers and spiritual
parents over their faith community. They will run and build their church in
their own styles and eventually creating their own strategies to branch out to
pioneer new grounds. This is how the church planting movement works.
It is thus the time for the
discipler to withdraw gradually and back up to become the supporters, allowing
the local leaders to function independently. Constant leadership enhancement and
consultants might have to be provided to further strengthen the existing local
leaders but there will be a time a complete withdrawal and breaking away will be
needed for the discipler.
4. DISCIPLESHIP
PROGRAMS & MATERIALS
Having understood the
biblical approaches of Jesus’ and Paul’s disciple-making process, and the
stages that will be undergone by the common believers, the design of the
programs and materials in discipleship should take into consideration of the
below areas:
4.1 Transformation
of Personal Belief/Daily Conduct
There are basically three
parts in transforming a person’s belief system, by converting their fears into
faith in Christ, changing them from believers of polytheism to monotheism, and
to help them to overcome the cultural barrier or to be comfortable in their own
cultural way of worship.
a) From Fear to Faith
One of the greatest enemies of
faith is fear. In an animistic context where people believe strongly in the
spiritual world and live under the fear of offending the spirits and being
attacked or punished by them, it is a real tough process for the discipler to
constantly clear up all the hidden fears caused by wrong concepts and beliefs.
Thus the disciple-making
process is more than proving them the power of God, but to help them to build a
solid faith in Christ as they root themselves in the Word of God. Faith is an
essential element for spiritual growth and faith build upon hearing the Word of
God.
b) From Polytheism to Monotheism
For animistic followers,
everything seems to connect with spiritual world and the spirits are gods to
them who could determine their fate and destination. It is a hard process too
to teach them the truth and to help them realize that there is only one true
God in the entire universe.
Many followers of Christ in
animistic context practice syncretism and they will continue their old ways of
consulting mediums and contacting spirits or gods, and still come to worship
God in the Sundays. Therefore it is the work of the discipler to make the
distinctions clear so that the locals will have a complete break away from
their old beliefs and practices. Jesus is not just one of their gods but their
One and Only God
c) From Idolism to Worshipper of Christ
One of the phenomena of animistic
problem is the spirit of idolism. The people under the animistic context might
need something for them to see or to touch in order to believe in God.
Sometimes the mediums or witches are the very persons they place their hope and
trust in. As they come to believe in Christ, they might see pastors or leaders
who look after them as ‘spiritual intermediaries” between them and the High
God.
Though initially the
discipler needs to play the role of “intermediary” to bridge the uncrossable
gap in a new believing world, yet he has to ultimately direct the focus of the
believers towards Christ and train them to seek God and to relate with God personally.
He has to identify the cultural vacancies too and help them to find ways to
worship and serve God in their own cultural styles and settings.
4.2 Character
Building
True disciples demonstrate
the character of Christ and reflect the Kingdom value through their leadership
and living. Therefore the content of discipleship should consider the big block
of materials training them to live a holy life with a God-fearing character.
They need to be transformed with the agenda of Christ and willingly give their
lives to serve others and seeking for the welfares of others.
4.3 Leadership
Skills
The skills of how we desire
them to possess once we are not in the scene of operation need to be considered
and a design of imparting leadership skills is thus important. It involves
teaching, on-job training, supervision and corrections.
The whole perspective of
five-fold ministry has to be in mind when designing the program of leadership
training. Though the gifts are given by Jesus to build the Church, it is still
the discipler’s role and responsibility in bridging the gap and coaching his
disciples to understand and to master the gifts effectively.
A disciple needs to learn the very
basis skills of evangelism, sharing his faith to others, and to share and teach
the Bible to individual as well as in a group setting. He needs to possess the
skill of a pastor, extending and showing his love and care for people under
him. He needs to lead the people with the skills empowered by God and by
practical training. He needs to know to exercise his gifts or mobilize the
church to exercise their gifts in order to build up the Kingdom of God as a
body of Christ.
The disciples need to be
trained to make strategies in outreaches and follow up. They need to be
prepared for future expansion and development, and it is the discipler’s work
to point to the local leaders a larger context and boundary found in the Word
of God than their existing churches and locations. Give them the Great
Commandment and the Great Commission.
5. CONCLUSION
Discipleship is a life-long
process but with different approaches and levels of involvement a discipler
needs to master and devote in the life of individuals or congregations. It is
more than leadership training, but it involves life participation and sharing
between a discipler and his disciples, a change of value and worldview system
in the life of the disciples, a transformed life with holiness and love for
God, and a final delegation of authority where the disciple could function in
accordance to God’s calling in his life. Therefore the content of discipleship
should take in consideration of all the above expected fruits and results.
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