Africa Taxi Man - Do You Remember Me As I Remember You?

  In February, 2006, I was in Mali, West Africa, researching the Bankagooma people for the first time. Today, December 31 2011, on the New Years Eve to 2012, I am here, living and working in Mali, about to move among the Banka people.  I want to tell you a story back when it all started..... I first published this in 2006...I'll add the story here.

After days of exhausting village research 600 Km east of Bamako, I made the long bus trek back to the capital city. With some time to kill, I had an adventure in mind. So I quickly found a place to eat and began to set the adventure in motion. I waved to a dilapidated piece of junk, it's referred to as a taxi in West Africa, that had fenders and door panels that flapped like wings. I was not totally certain whether I should get into this rust can or not. But the driver gave me a reserved smile.

I threw caution to the wind and said to the taxi man; “I will give you 5000 cfa ($11) to let me sit in the taxi with you as you pick up other clients. I would like to see every corner of the city, and drive with you all day”. He smiled and waved for me to get in the front seat. That was the first of many conversations with him smiling and nodding, but not really understanding much of what I said, because of his sparse French ability; he only spoke Bamabra. However, I did get to see every back corner of the City of Bamako, and crossed the famous Niger River 5-6 times.

Mali taxi man eventually took me to meet his son at the moto shop where he worked as a mechanic. A quick stop to greet and meet his uncle at a road side shop. Later, I was taken to meet his sister and her children. More clients picked up and dropped off in various alleyways, all over the city, and then a trip home to introduce me to his wife and kids. 

Twenty stops on the road to meet and greet other friends we happened to encounter, and conversations with everyone he picked up along the way, as well. I kind of felt a little like a freak show. But on the other hand it was just what I came to Mali for – the people. It was nice. I smiled and gave genuinely sincere greetings, and warm thanks to each person to whom I was “presented”. I was very touched.

This taxi man did not know this strange white guy, yet he saw fit to share his time and use his expensive gas to take me home to meet every person he loved and cherished most. This Malian taxi driver did not merely give me a ride, he gave me part of his life. I had received something significantly more precious than the gas money I gave him. 

We separated, and there I was standing on the side of the road, having graciously been given a mind full of memories, and a heart full of mixed emotions. I was genuinely touched by this mans gesture. A precious man, who's name I don't even remember, so in my prayers I simply refer to him as "The Malian Taxi Man". How I would love to spend more time sharing life with this Muslim man. Over the years since, I wonder if this Malian taxi man even remembers me? Does he remember the day he took this unknown Canadian to those he loves? I can't help but remember him, and what he did for me. I will never forget him the rest of my life.

The Africa No Author Adequately Describes!

Neighbor Girls, up since 5 am - preparing breakfast!

There are advantages to living in a section of town with no power. The car battery running the neighbors stereo last evening, eventually goes dead, and the LOUD "rave" style African bar music .... with the tinny electric guitar and the guy rapidly shouting Hey, Hey to the off beat..... will eventually fade, as it always does.

But then, we wake up to the 4 & 5 am calls of the myriad of Mosques around us, the roosters crowing, the sound of moto's with men going to the fields. We wake up, and the very first thing we see, as we venture out our front door, are the calm routines of real life in Africa. 

The African sights that no camera can capture. The African smells no author has yet adequately described.  And the feelings no one like me could pen to any satisfaction.

The break neck speed of the west has no place here, and would wound a new generation of humanity that, for now, still has time for life in community.

When Western Life Hurts..... In Africa!

Our neighbor getting her hair done, while we chat and giggle under the mango tree

Opportunity, adventure, possibilities; tempered by reality.....Bambara Language Study. Living as a learner first....... and last........ is a theme etched in the sands of daily life in Africa. 

Where knowing, greeting, being greeted, and sitting under the shade of a mango tree in the hot afternoon sun, is the place where the Malian people constantly remind you that being in a relationship, spending time, is one thousand times more important to them, than ALL the pre-planned programs of "things" that you, and the folks back home, feel you need to "do" to be "productive". 

They remind us that our western idea of "being productive", often means running by, or over, them. Remember "who" you came for, more than  the impersonal "what" you came for. 

Lesson #1 Malians are not nearly as impressed with our "stuff" as we are....and they really question the value we westerners place on our "plans", often over time and relationships with them.

Things Are Meant For Use!

I want to tell you about an old friend I had in my College days. I never saw him again after the day he left college. My Sister kept in touch with George some. I wish I had done the same. However, it's too late now. George died expectantly at the age of 43 a few years ago.

George was a typical “take life as it is” person from Cape Breton. I remember the day I bought my first brand new car – a shiny deep red 1990 Volkswagen Jetta with a 1.5L Diesel that got 55 miles to the gallon. I took the new jewel over to the student center and told George what I had done. Grinning ear to ear, he said; Let’s go to Tim’s for a coffee and try it out”. We climbed back into the fresh new smelling car and drove to Tim Horton’s for coffee and muffins.

We ordered, and George came out swinging his coffee cup and coffee was running down the sides of the cup as usual. He got into my new car and set the dripping coffee cup down on my new dash, with the coffee drops running in every direction. I bit my tongue. George then opened his muffin bag and took out the first muffin and tossed it up on the dash with crumbs flying everywhere, including down the defrost vent, and then proceeded to peal the paper off the second muffin. I finally blew! “George, take it easy on my new car will ya!”, I said. He looked at me and snorted; “What? Got a new car now and you can’t even use it?”
George was right. We enjoyed the old car better because we did not care so much how clean or dirty it was. We just did what guys do and enjoyed "out" time.

I know my friend George had a hard life. But you know, he taught me what it meant to value friends, and enjoy your day as it comes. Life, people, are more important than things.
I needed to be reminded of this more. Things are meant to be used, people are not.

Tell Your Story Before You Die!

This Story reflects the sentiment of the people in Mali very well...

"Two old African men were sitting on that bench, but there was room for me, too. In Africa people share more than just water in a brotherly or sisterly fashion. Even when it comes to shade, people are generous.

I heard the two men talking about a third old man who had recently died. One of them said, “I was visiting him at his home. He started to tell me an amazing story about something that had happened to him when he was young. But it was a long story. Night came, and we decided that I should come back the next day to hear the rest. But when I arrived, he was dead.”

The man fell silent. I decided not to leave that bench until I heard how the other man would respond to what he’d heard. I had an instinctive feeling that it would prove to be important.
Finally he, too, spoke.

“That’s not a good way to die — before you’ve told the end of your story.” 

By HENNING MANKELL The Art of Listening. Published: December 10, 2011 

(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/opinion/sunday/in-africa-the-art-of-listening.html?_r=3&src=me&ref=general)

People Are More Than A Flash Drive!

We often have stopped short of the personal reality of discipleship. Spending time! Walking with, hanging out with, over an extended period of time like THE disciples did with Jesus.
Myself,  often approached those canned home personal Bible study studies with a lot of preparation and study so that I could wow people with all the information. Needed information, at some point. However,  they had a whole lot of Jesus stuff, but maybe not so much Jesus, as his person.

Read this statement today:

Jim Downing of the Navigators taught me that information transfer alone is inadequate; guided experience is also necessary to impart the skills and motivation for disciples to reproduce. Robby Butler

I think in the past we often saw "Sharing Jesus" more like an information giving session. You know, we are the computer with the processor and ram, and our job is to plug in the little Flash drive from time to time and transfer some little its of information on to it. Certainly, biblical information is always required, and helpful However,  I have come to see that people want to walk where this is all lived out, and weaved into a life that makes sense.

The Dreams of Distorted Leadership Leaders do not need to be "The Marlboro Man"

This is modern leadership- You're to be this rare, special, elite visionary, charting a path no one else has ever walked....and you need to bring the muddling masses of people along to that vision, as they will have noting to do without you.... 

Ideas and plans are great, and I have my share of them. However, I have come to realize I don't need to "create" an "sell" vision. The vision is Jesus, and the vision comes from Jesus. I need to do more pointing to him, as He can keep his children busy enough, if they are actually looking at him and listening.

CEO views of leadership- we have to go back to the OT, where we find these rare and special anointed figures. In the NT, we are all the anointed and our direction comes from him. What about accountability we ask,,,, Well, what about that in the NT? I'm not seeing what many are talking about.... Lately, I have been sensing that Jesus is enough. He will move us to serve others, if we are looking to serve. And we can nurture that in the body... But this "out to make a mark" smacks more of "in the eyes of men", than of Jesus. 

I want to get off the platform. I don't want people thinking I am such "Hot" servant. I think all new leaders wrestle with that, and its an ego thing, not a God thing.

I am just so glad to hear others are seeing a different path. My friends, yes, you with the huge Kingdom heart. You do not need to be this kind of leader to be "Sucessful". Share and live the vision of Jesus. His Yoke is easy, and his burden is light..... When the churches is not, you know there is a real misalignment.... Be you, as light, free to follow Jesus, and flow with him into the various relationships before you. And step out of the muddling crowed. How? By willingness to plant your light in the very dark place of this community, and world. That is the core of kingdom vision being the light of Jesus, where their is none.  You are released to be you, doing your part as you point others to His path... You need chart no path of your own. You just need to look, find darkness, and go there and love your neighbor, and keep loving God.

Your young family will thank you.

 Jesus and the Marlboro Man

Posted on November 27, 2011 by kinnon

I’ve been away from blogging for a little longer than I intended. More on that in a later post.
I originally mindmapped this post in the spring with plans to make it part of the Celebrity Driven Church series (which has multiple mindmaps but no prose as yet).

My decision to sit down and finally write this was triggered by a recent post from my blog world friend, JR Briggs. The post was about his response to the image on the right - you can see a much larger version of it at his blog. He wrote this,

I absolutely love this image.

It reminds me of the role of the leader, the visionary, the church planter, the pioneer, the entrepreneur, the kingdom fire-starer, the person with an apostolic wiring.

Visionaries do the hard work of going ahead, going before and creating paths that no one else has thought about or dared to travel . (Emphasis in original)

I asked, in the comments, whether he was being ironic. No response. So. I’m assuming he wasn’t.

The image he professes to love leaves me cold. It’s an image that fits with America’s love of the mythic super-hero. The one who saves the damsel in distress and by extension the world.

This is the myth of the rugged individual and it is one, I’d suggest, that has done more damage to the church in the west than we care to realize.

As I was lamenting JR’s post, an email from Leadership Network arrived in my InBox talking about the latest study by Thuma & Bird on Mega Churches. This bulleted point from the email reinforced the American Church Leader myth:

— The leader at the helm makes all the difference.
Seventy-nine percent say the church'€™s most dramatic growth occurred during tenure of current senior pastor.

It’s all about that one man at the top, now isn’t it. (The document tells us that these leaders are, on average, 51 and male.) As my friend Sonja said in an email exchange,

“ As I read that report all I could think was, “well, of course, most of that data is self-identified. I wonder if the surveyors did any kind of independent quantification of those markers?” That’s what you think when you’ve grown up with a statistician for a dad ”

And as I read the report, I was reminded of the saying popularized by Mark Twain, “There are lies, damned lies and statistics.” And yes, I have used that one here a time or two before.

However, the original trigger for this post was Darrin Patrick’s book, Church Planter. Note the image from the front cover. The mythic pattern persists. Darrin, a leader in the Acts29 network promotes the prophet, priest and king model of church leader.

Kings develop strategies for bringing the vision and mission of Christ-centered living to fruition. They tend to ask the question How? They function like executives of the church because they spend a great deal of time and energy building and executing plans to sustain and grow a healthy church. Church Planter (Darrin Patrick) Highlight Loc. 1464–71 (Kindle)

I don’t quote Darrin approvingly. In fact, I heard this same kind of language in my charismatic mega church days and witnessed (first hand and otherwise) the kind of damage done by this warped belief to both the “kingly leader” and his subjects. (Jesus’ powerful statements on servant leadership in Matthew 20 and Mark 10 are strangely missing from Darrin’s book. ) Darrin writes a lot about the need for and qualifications of elders - but then focuses on the single person church planter/senior pastor (with hopefully a wife supporting him.)
The full title of his book is Church Planter — The Man, The Message, The Mission.
The Man and thus my concern with those who buy this message and buy the myth that they are singlehandedly called to plant God’s next great church in whatever neighbourhood.
Believing they are called to be, in J.R.’s words, visionaries (who go) ahead, going before and creating paths that no one else has thought about or dared to travel. No wonder so many of them fail.
This is far different from the Matthew and Mark passages mentioned above, as well as the equipping and sending that Jesus does in Luke 10. A hint, he sent them out in twos "into the harvest" with no resources other than prayer. The single "harvester" on the front cover of Darrin's book runs counter to what Jesus teaches in this passage. How odd.
The American church (along with its global acolytes) has bought the myth of the rugged individual as conqueror and builder,€” represented well by the iconic Marlboro Man a character created by Ad Agency, Leo Burnett. It’s a fabulous marketing image… for selling toxic substances.
A final aside: A horrible irony is that two of the men who portrayed the Marlboro Man died of cancer from consuming what their images had been promoting. (http://kinnon.tv/2011/11/jesus-and-the-marlboro-man.html)

I Resign from Your View Of Leadership!

 This article so resonated with me. It addresses the warped practice, dialogue and view of leadership today. Leadership philosophies that are placing impossible burdens on people, crushing the spirits of men and women with a huge heart for Kingdom. Where the huge emphasis on management, and juggling the "Stuff", far out weighs any actual ministry to the community happening, other than a few token "projects' here and there.

If the sentiment resonates with your experience you may wish to also read How Leadership is like the Marlboro man...... (http://kinnon.tv/2011/11/jesus-and-the-marlboro-man.html)

Leadership is viewed as being, my vision - trumps your vision (Non "leader").... and it leads to manipulation because we will not allow another other "vision" to be voiced as we use people as tools to move our wheels, and pay for it too. But the avergae person is not really suppose to step out an live as a priest of the light, as God leads them.

I here by make it known. I tender my resignation from your kind of leadership....  

AJ

 

The People formerly known as The Congregation

Posted on March 28, 2007 by kinnon

Jay Rosen created the meme of The People Formerly Known as the Audience – those of us who are no longer content to be content consumers – but have become content creators ourselves.

The people formerly known as the audience wish to inform media people of our existence, and of a shift in power that goes with the platform shift you’ve all heard about.
Think of passengers on your ship who got a boat of their own. The writing readers. The viewers who picked up a camera. The formerly atomized listeners who with modest effort can connect with each other and gain the means to speak— to the world, as it were.
Now we understand that met with ringing statements like these many media people want to cry out in the name of reason herself: If all would speak who shall be left to listen? Can you at least tell us that?

The people formerly known as the audience do not believe this problem—too many speakers!—is our problem. Now for anyone in your circle still wondering who we are, a formal definition might go like this:

The people formerly known as the audience are those who were on the receiving end of a media system that ran one way, in a broadcasting pattern, with high entry fees and a few firms competing to speak very loudly while the rest of the population listened in isolation from one another— and who today are not in a situation like that at all.

Let me introduce you to The People formerly known as The Congregation. There are millions of us.
We are people – flesh and blood – image bearers of the Creator – eikons, if you will. We are not numbers.
We are the eikons who once sat in the uncomfortable pews or plush theatre seating of your preaching venues. We sat passively while you proof-texted your way through 3, 4, 5 or no point sermons – attempting to tell us how you and your reading of The Bible had a plan for our lives. Perhaps God does have a plan for us – it just doesn’t seem to jive with yours.
Money was a great concern. And, for a moment, we believed you when you told us God would reward us for our tithes – or curse us if we didn’t. The Law is just so much easier to preach than Grace. My goodness, if you told us that the 1st century church held everything in common – you might be accused of being a socialist – and of course, capitalism is a direct gift from God. Please further note: Malachi 3 is speaking to the priests of Israel. They weren’t the cheerful givers God speaks of loving. 

We grew weary from your Edifice Complex pathologies – building projects more important than the people in your neighbourhood…or in your pews. It wasn’t God telling you to “enlarge the place of your tent” – it was your ego. And, by the way, a multi-million dollar, state of the art building is hardly a tent. 

We no longer buy your call to be “fastest growing” church in wherever. That is your need. You want a bigger audience. We won’t be part of one. 

Our ears are still ringing from the volume, but…Jesus is not our boyfriend – and we will no longer sing your silly love songs that suggest He is. Happy clappy tunes bear no witness to the reality of the world we live in, the powers and principalities we confront, or are worthy of the one we proclaim King of Kings and Lord of Lords. 

You offered us a myriad of programs to join – volunteer positions to assuage our desire to be connected. We could be greeters, parking lot attendants, coffee baristas, book store helpers, children’s ministry workers, media ministry drones – whatever you needed to fulfill your dreams of corporate glory. Perhaps you’ve noticed, we aren’t there anymore.

We are The People formerly known as The Congregation. We have not stopped loving the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Nor do we avoid “the assembling of the saints.” We just don’t assemble under your supposed leadership. We meet in coffee shops, around dinner tables, in the parks and on the streets. We connect virtually across space and time – engaged in generative conversations – teaching and being taught. 

We live amongst our neighbours, in their homes and they in ours. We laugh and cry and really live – without the need to have you teach us how – by reading your ridiculous books or listening to your supercilious CDs or podcasts. 

We don’t deny Paul’s description of APEPT leadership – Ephesians 4:11. We just see it in the light of Jesus’ teaching in Mark 10 and Matthew 20 – servant leadership. We truly long for the release of servant leading men and women into our gifts as apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. We believe in Peter’s words that describe us all as priests. Not just some, not just one gender. 

We are The People formerly known as The Congregation. We do not hate you. Though some of us bear the wounds you have inflicted. Many of you are our brothers and our sisters, misguided by the systems you inhabit, intoxicated by the power – yet still members of our family. (Though some are truly wolves in sheep’s clothing.) 

And, as The People formerly known as The Congregation, we invite you to join us on this great adventure. To boldly go where the Spirit leads us. To marvel at what the Father is doing in the communities where He has placed us. To live the love that Jesus shows us.
Addendum: This is a polemic. The first-person plural pronoun, “We”, is not used as Pluralis Majestatis (the Royal We) but rather is based on the post-charismatic/post-evangelical conversations that are occurring in the blogosphere. I have no more right to speak in this voice than any other person living in the liminal reality of the church in 21st century.
Please note also that I have many good friends who lead within a more traditional church context for whom I have great love, as well as deep respect. They are doing their very best to be missional within their worlds.


(http://kinnon.tv/2007/03/the_people_form-3.html)