Church Leaders Conference

Church Leaders Conference:

The Church as a Force for Positive Change
(written by the Ship Writers)

Sierra Leone is a poverty-stricken country hosting an array of diverse religions.  This is a potentially combustive environment, yet its people live peacefully side by side.  Intertwined with these religions is a strong underlying Animist belief system – a belief that souls or spirits exist not only in humans, but also in animals, plants, rocks, geographic features, or natural phenomena (e.g., thunder).  Syncretism – the merging of contrary beliefs – results in a religion that practices Christianity solely for protection from evil (demonic) spirits.

Mercy Ships has observed this fusion of Animism and Christianity in Sierra Leone.  Mercy Ships is a global, faith-based organization that deploys the world’s largest, non-governmental hospital ship to serve the desperate needs of the forgotten poor in Western Africa.  In addition to the medical services offered onboard the hospital ship, Mercy Ships also offers a variety of off-ship services, including dental and eye care.

One of the prime objectives of Mercy Ships is to improve health care delivery systems in the host country in order to increase services, lessen dependence upon surrogate providers, and improve quality of care in a sustainable environment.  In recent years they have included a whole-person ministry that recognizes the physical, spiritual, and emotional aspects of the individual and community.

Mercy Ships has approached this whole-person ministry by offering training opportunities for the church network.  In other words, the catalyst for transformational development has been identified as church leaders. 

The strategy is simple, yet highly challenging, in the religious culture of West Africa.  It is to live in the image of Christ among the local community – ultimately demonstrating unconditional love to the whole community.

Church leaders can leverage change through their congregations by actively serving their communities, thus breaking the cycle of inactivity and promoting development.  The Mercy Ships strategy for church leaders proposes “a change of worldview and recognition of the tools already at their disposal . . . to become a force for positive change.”[[1]|http://navigator.mercyships.org/#_ftn1]

In the 2011 Field Service to Sierra Leone, church leaders’ conferences, called “Partnership in Whole-Person Ministry,” were held in Freetown, Bo, and Makeni.  In Freetown, the three-day conference agenda featured guest speaker, Chris Ampadu, the West Africa Coordinator of Samaritan Strategy Africa – an organization that encourages, prepares, and equips local churches to carry out wholistic ministry in their communities.  He defined biblically supported worldview concepts that form the basis of specific goals which can be accomplished through projects delivered by local churches.

Fundamentally, the key to change starts by understanding current belief systems.  Chris emphasizes, “If you understand the African worldview, then you understand the way they see the world.  We have been born with glasses… the lens of the glass is formed by culture and tradition ... you think your way is dark until you examine the glass.  Oh, the world is not dark! This is the glass that I wear.”

The belief systems are compared to biblical truths.  Core realignments include Kingdom mathematics, whereby generosity reaps multiple rewards; equality in men and women, as both were made in the image of Christ; and a positive attitude to work and time because successes are born from hard work and effective time-management.

The groups of pastors were arranged according to their African tribal roots to compare belief systems to the Bible.  In the following workshop, they applied the biblical truths to their own belief systems.  It was a journey of self-revelation.

Finally, the conference taught participants how to change their communities. Previously, the church was considered as only spiritual. However, the next step is to grow in Christ in four areas – mental (wisdom), physical, social, and spiritual.  This is the turning point in order for the church to lead transformation.  In workshop sessions, Chris taught the pastors that, “All of us have something in our hands that can bring about God’s transformation.  We are all part of the formula.  Give to the community, even in the smallest way, and then greater provision will occur.”

Overall, the strategy changed mind-sets from theoretical ritual to practical demonstration. The workshops were designed as brainstorming sessions for church-driven community projects.  Chris was delighted with the pastors’ responses to the conference.  He said, “_Their mind-set has been opened to a godly mind-set.  We can now do something for ourselves.  I’m so touched by their deep love of the message.  I praise God for Mercy Ships to make this happen.”  _The final day of the conference was led by Community Health Evangelism (CHE). They provided the structure and process to create, design, and implement small “seed” projects.

The conference in Freetown was attended by 160 pastors from seven denominations, in addition to some Muslim representatives.  It provided a unique networking forum to unite churches.  Sharing knowledge on a regional basis will support optimal investment and increase success of the community projects.

A more long-term benefit is that educating communities to improve welfare through church-led projects will impact society at the “grass-roots” level.  This creates a foundation for development for generations to come.

The potential transformation was realized by many of the attending pastors, as evidenced by their comments:

“An eye opener!  So many churches have very little transformation because of the mind-set that Africa is poor.  We should start with
us
to change things around us.”

“I thank God for this conference.  It will help a lot. Look at the people as yourself.  Love church and non-church people.  Community is a more important focus now.”

“It’s opened my eyes to see that Africa . . . here we are blessed with natural and human resources, yet we are living in mass poverty.  We need to change and take up the biblical glasses.”

“The first day teaching revealed all the potential that Africa has and all that we are capable of as a continent.  And also the potential to unite and make disciples of all nations.”

“I am a Muslim.  But having learned something from this conference about Christ, I now decide to be a Christian. . .”

“For me, it is the transformation.  It is what the pastors can do in the country when Mercy Ships leaves . . . passing on tools to local people . . . embracing vision and strategy to initiate national transformation.”

“What I like most about this conference is it is eye-opening to new ways of overcoming the issue that we face here in Africa, such as blaming demons for our backwardness and not using our God-given talents and gifts to bring ourselves out of the darkness.  This has shown me new ways of doing things for community and individual development.”