When talking to folk in churches I sometimes get the idea that what they really like is A and we are doing B. The A is rather immaterial. It might be church-planting or development work or something like that. It is what this person, or church, sees as the important work. What is really needed. 'If I were there in such-and-such a place, I would get involved in A.' The trouble with this is:
- We are often unaware of the real needs of the community
- It's not really up to us to tell them what their needs are. That's rather patronising
- That may be somebody else's specialism, not mine (as a Bible-translator type)
So what do we generally do about that? Well, we spend a lot of time listening and learning, basically. Development work usually starts with building relationships with the community and finding out what they want, so that's what we do. If the community is a village, they might have development ideas. If it is a community of believers (a church), they might have scripture engagement ideas. Once we have listened we can begin to draw up a plan, with them, about how we might meet those needs, including language development, scripture engagement and translation work.
Some folk in churches have even got the idea that doing any kind of work overseas is counter-productive. It can be, but not if we start right and are prepared to serve and facilitate, rather than dictate and do.
No comments:
Post a Comment