"For ages, we humans have done everything in our power to go faster, striving to be where we want to be without all the time and bother of getting there. And there I was, the thankless inheritor, gazing out the windows of speeding vehicles and dreaming of walking."
(Robert Ward. All The Good Pilgrims)
“A todos los buenos peregrinos. Y a los malos también.”
"To all the good pilgrims – and the bad ones as well."
– A PILGRIM’S INSCRIPTION IN THE GUEST BOOK OF ESTELLA
(Robert Ward. All The Good Pilgrims)
"We sometimes forget that we are heralds of a new and very shocking idea. The gospel is not just personal, spiritual good news which can be received by individuals, change their private lives, save them from destruction, but leave the society untouched. Our hearers will understand better than we do that our tidy sermons of God’s love are more dynamite than sugar; that our “good news” will have far ranging effects on their culture and lifestyle."
- Larry Vanderaa
"We sometimes forget that we are heralds of a new and very shocking idea. The gospel is not just personal, spiritual good news which can be received by individuals, change their private lives, save them from destruction, but leave the society untouched. Our hearers will understand better than we do that our tidy sermons of God’s love are more dynamite than sugar; that our “good news” will have far ranging effects on their culture and lifestyle."
- Larry Vanderaa
"We sometimes forget that we are heralds of a new and very shocking idea. The gospel is not just personal, spiritual good news which can be received by individuals, change their private lives, save them from destruction, but leave the society untouched. Our hearers will understand better than we do that our tidy sermons of God’s love are more dynamite than sugar; that our “good news” will have far ranging effects on their culture and lifestyle."
- Larry Vanderaa
"Let me give you an example of how the above paradigm influenced us. When we moved into our
village, Aamadu Suleyman was the imam of the village mosque. He was an old man, about twice
my age at that time. He was a godly man, wanting nothing more than to do the will of Allah. We
became good friends. I used to visit him two or three times a week in the afternoons. We had
discussions on religion and he taught me about the inner dimensions of Islam. Eventually, we
read Genesis and the whole of Matthew together in Fulfulde. We talked about Islam and
Christianity, Christians, churches, being Christian, etc. and etc. This went on for a long time, but
finally one day he said to me, “Laare, let’s not talk about this anymore, please stop trying to make
me become a Christian.” I was deeply disappointed. And then three months later he died,
suddenly, unexpectedly. I bitterly mourned his death.
But it wasn’t until many years later that I finally really “heard” what he had said. He had not said,
“Please stop telling me about Jesus”, but rather “Please stop trying to make me become a
Christian.” Evidently I had talked too much about religion, about Christianity, Christians and
churches to the point where Christ had been overshadowed, overshadowed by Christian religious
identity."
Larry Vanderaa
Once the (true) Gospel is preached, I doubt if the churches would be filled. Rather, we might be out on the streets living the message. The discernment and the call to a life of service, to a life that gives itself away instead of simply protecting and procuring for itself in the name of Jesus, is what church should be about. Right now, so much church is the clergy teaching the people how to be co-dependent with them. It becomes job security instead of true spiritual empowerment.
-Richard Rohr
"In the early years one of our huts became the men’s gathering hut. When men came to
visit, we would drink tea there, talk about the news of the day, sometimes discuss religion
and even read the New Testament, all with no problem. Sometimes the village would hold
village meetings in the hut because it was neutral territory. After some years, the hut
seemed a bit small and so I decided to make it bigger. I basically had the hut stretched out
into a rectangle with rounded ends. But when the work was completed, none of the men
would go into the hut. They sat outside leaning against its wall, or under our nearby lean-
to. Finally I asked them what was the problem. They said, “Isn’t this a church?” I had to
calm their concerns and finally they agreed to go inside. But they still would tease each
other about who was the pastor and assistant pastor.
It was like they had a kind of allergy to anything that smacked obviously of Christian
religion."
Larry Vanderaa
"There have been a number of attempts to fine-tune church planting strategies for Muslim contexts,
but it’s time missionaries develop radical, retooled-from-the-bottom-up strategies. We need to
begin by re-inverting our priorities. Instead of strategies that organize the few into churches, we
need strategies that prepare the masses for a movement towards Christ. This requires missionaries
with an intense focus on faithful witness. We need missionaries for whom the institutions of
Christianity do not loom large in the background and foreground of all that they do, introducing
Muslims to a Jesus with 2000 years of Christian history stuck to his back. We need missionaries
who resolve “…to know nothing while with [Muslims] except Jesus Christ and him crucified”;15 who
introduce Muslims to the Jesus of the Gospels and to the Kingdom of God; who let them take Jesus
home into their culture and trust Jesus to take care of the rest."
Larry Vanderaa
“What’s your plan B?”
What are we going to turn back to? Hasn’t the church tried every iteration of the business-as-usual model? Church growth theory. The contemporary worship scene. The charismatic movement. Neo-Calvinism. Better worship, better preaching, better small groups, more spirit-led ministry, more Bible teaching, more this, more that."
Michael Frost
“What’s your plan B?”
What are we going to turn back to? Hasn’t the church tried every iteration of the business-as-usual model? Church growth theory. The contemporary worship scene. The charismatic movement. Neo-Calvinism. Better worship, better preaching, better small groups, more spirit-led ministry, more Bible teaching, more this, more that."
Michael Frost
A missionary friend once told me he believed that if you worship in spirit and in truth, then this supersedes all musical, cultural and ethnomusicological boundaries.
Sounds like a nice idea, but it could scarcely be further from the truth. Let me explain why. Take, for example, a sitar player from India, a kora player from Senegal, an urhu player from China, a balalaika player from Russia and finally a charango player from Peru. Put them all in a room together and say: “Make music!” What will happen? There will be something close to chaos, much misunderstanding and they will be unlikely to find anything which they can all play and make musical ‘sense’ of together. And these are all stringed instruments with many structural and technical similarities. If we were to add wind or percussion to the mix, the complications would only escalate!
So, why is this? It’s because, just as each culture speaks a different language, so their ‘musical language’ differs. The choice of scale, the rhythmic patterns used, the shape of the melody, the way a piece starts and ends, dynamics, tempo and articulation all differ hugely from culture to culture."
(Rob Baker. Adventures in Music and Culture: Travels of an Ethnomusicologist in West Africa)
