In case you missed it … a “must” read blog entry at Darrow Miller & Friends

Darrow and Gary from the DNA International Secretariat office recently wrote a powerful blog post that speaks to two highly pertinent issues.

The post, The Moral Poverty of the West: Its Cause, Effect, and Solution, focuses on what is required to reverse the cultural decline in the West. At the same time, the piece applies equally to struggling nations everywhere.

Because it presents ideas that are so central to the DNA—the need for church-based social and cultural transformation—we wanted to share it at this page as well.

Who is not stunned by today’s news stories of violence?

• On July 22 Anders Behring Breivik murdered 91 fellow Norwegians.
• Just two weeks later we witnessed the August riots in England.
• Riots tore apart France in the fall of 2005.
• “Flash mobs,” organized by social media, are bringing mayhem to increasing numbers of US cities.

Much of the Western elite, arguing from atheistic/materialistic assumptions, locate the root of these problems in poverty, lack of jobs, and poor education. … Such thinking fails to recognize that the life of a nation is rooted in the soul of a nation.  …

Go here to read the rest of the post.

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Francophone Africa Vision Conference to Impact Widows, Orphans, Gangs

Samaritan Strategy Africa, in collaboration with local churches, held a Vision Conference in Ngaba location/Kinshasa last May. The conference was facilitated by Harvest and Samaritan Strategy trainers Jeff Sikabwe, Jean N’soseme, and Byamungu Kisangani.

Sixteen churches were represented, including Ministère International pour le salut des âmes, la Croix de Golgotha, Bethesda Miracle centre, Assemblée Chrétienne Ecole des vainqueurs, Centre des gagnants, Ministère Evangélique la colonne de feu, Eglise de la résurrection, Eglise Pentecôtiste pleine Evangile  Assurance de salut, Temple d’Elohim, and Ministère Evangélique la puissance  de la délivrance.

Jeff Sikabwe noted that the conference “was a good opportunity for church leaders to discover new ways through which they could serve their communities to see positive change in the lives of their people.”

The 33 participants included pastors, choir leaders, deacons, ushers, Sunday school teachers, youth leaders, church elders, evangelists, and community development staff.

Participants committed themselves to demonstrate God’s concern to their surrounding communities by carrying out four Seed Actions:

• Distribution of soap, clothes, sugar, and food to poor widows and orphans living on Kisangani Avenue in Ngaba location.

• Organizing recreational activities (boxing, karate, soccer) as a public awareness campaign with the goal of helping youth in various gangs in the Lobo area learn to lead productive lives.

• Evacuation and collecting of the rubbish on Lobo/Ngaba avenue.

• Enhancing the street lighting on Kongo Avenue in order to increase security in an area which has cost many human lives.  

Small group Bible study

In addition to these seed actions planned during the training, participants committed themselves to more acts of service in the future in order to experience positive substantial change.

Several participants expressed their appreciation for the training.

Thank you for the work done with love and sacrifice. May these teachings go farther. I have just discovered that the whole Bible is filled of God’s love and therefore, we must show it to others. Christians are really Christians if they are for God’s kingdom.

My prayer is that these teachings become a curriculum for Bible studies in our churches for strengthening believers for a good understanding of the expression of God’s love.

All these lessons converge towards only one goal: love. As God is love, and Jesus being God’s fullness, he is also love. The church being Jesus’ fullness must therefore be rooted in this love to play effectively her role in the community.

These teachings of the Strategy Samaritan are a light that helped me to criticize my worldview.

This training helped me to change my way of doing Bible studies, of understanding things and of seeing the world as God created it. Now, I understand that one of my major tasks is to invest in lives of others – that means to help the poor, the orphans, the widows; in other words, to support the weak ones

This conference has just given me a new vision on how to live according to the Gospel. That means it’s about putting in practice the Word God for the development of the church and the world around me in all aspects of life.

Pastors Jimmy Ekakola and  François Matumona served as the organizing team. At the close, pastor Ekakola summed up the week:

The teachings reminded us of things we already knew, and gave us new discoveries as well. These teachings were a big blessing for us. We are convinced that they also will help us direct the church of Jesus Christ towards a new horizon. We know that the task is not easy to change our ways of doing things but as we had learned it, the development is a process that starts today with me and as the Holy Spirit guides us we will reach that point.

DNA at the Top of the World … Vision Conference in the Land of Everest

Vision Network Nepal (the DNA affiliate in Nepal) and Kanchanpur Christian Community (a group of churches in Kanchanpur district of western Nepal) jointly sponsored a Vision Conference in September in Mehendranager, Western Nepal. Some 45 pastors and leaders from various churches participated.

Madan Shah, Paul Rana, and Tek Rijal facilitated the sessions, which included The Transforming Story, The Church’s Role in Society, The Irreducible Minimum, Luke 2:52, The Three Relationships of Man, The ABCs of Culture, Kingdom Math, The Kingdom of God, and Seed Projects.

Vision Conference Seed Projects

Most of the participants said they never had such training. One pastor shared, in tears, that God had changed his heart through the conference and he wants to apply these principles in his ministry.

At the end of the conference, most of the participants returned home planning to implement the seed projects they had planned.

Meanwhile, a Vision Conference held in 2007 has been bearing fruit. Several conference alums in Tansen, Western Nepal began serving and counseling needy women and children in the community. In 2009, they launched the New Hope Counseling Center. Since then, they have been actively involved in the church and community, and in the local prison. They are demonstrating God’s love by providing counseling services and vocational training, visiting prisoners, and assisting those in need of health treatment.

These efforts recently bore fruit in the form of a three-day womens’ conference in Tansen, offering training in how to be a good wife and mother, and how to walk faithfully as a believer in Christ. Around sixty women participated in the training.

During these three days they shared the Love of Christ with a number of women, and several responded by praying to receive Christ and following Him in baptism.

Dental camp participants

Tansen Church, a local congregation seeking to practice biblical wholism, has implemented other seed projects, including a dental camp in Damkada, Palpa, Nepal, for blind and disabled people in the community. After a short time of songs and Bible sharing, 27 patients were treated by Dr. Kharel and Dr. Theo. Family Health Ministry, an extension of Tansen Church, provided the dental equipment and medicine. For their part, the patients prepared and served a meal to the medical team! As a result, six of the dental patients came to know the Lord and were baptized few months ago.

Ram Khilawan in his new home

Piparkoti Church is another congregation to see recent fruit from a seed project, this one involving a neeedy individual. Ram Khilawan, a Hindu from Lucknow, India, came to Nepal 40 years ago to do business. Later he decided to live in Nepal. He adopted a Tharu orphan girl and raised her as his daughter. When she married, he was once more alone. He tried to begin again in the color-selling business he had done before, but this time it did not go well. Eventually he was evicted from his small house. Too old to work, and with no one to care for him, Ram was was reduced to sleeping in the streets, often with nothing to eat.

Meanwhile, the members of Piparkoti Church had received training on biblical wholism. Someone in the church knew about Ram, and they decided God wanted them to reach out to him in love. They helped him build a small thatched-roof hut near the church. Now he is living there and cooking for himself. The local church is taking care of his needs. Touched by the love he saw, he gave his life to Christ and now attends church every week. This fruit has encouraged other members in the church to do more seed projects in their communities.

(This story was written from reports filed by Madan Shah, Paul Rana, Pastor Durga Pahari, Bishnu Regmi, and Pastor Durga Pahari.)

Fifty Learners and Five Seeds: One Week in the DRC

Changed lives and cleaner streets were the fruit of DNA training in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Some local neighborhoods in Kinshasa, western DRC benefitted from an April 2011 Vision Conference held in a collaboration between Harvest Foundation, Samaritan Strategy Africa, Reach Africa, and 17ème Communauté Evangélique du Christ en Ubangi (CECU). During the week, 50 participants from five parishes were trained in worldview and development and wholistic ministry. Also, five Seed Actions were planned, one per parish.

Trainees gathered from several churches, including 17^ème CECU, Communauté Pentecôtiste Christ Roi, Communauté Evangélique au Kwango, and Arche de l’alliance. Among the participants (10 women and 40 men) were pastors, choir leaders, deacons, ushers, Sunday school teachers, army chaplains, missionaries, youth leaders, church elders, evangelists and community development staff.

From these, 30 were selected for a training of trainers session to be held in the near future.

Rev. Buingo Mateene and Pastor Jeff Sikabwe, joined by Romain Diakou and Martin Mambula, facilitated the sessions. The facilitators reported that the week was “a good opportunity for church leaders to look for new ways through which they could serve their communities to see positive change in lives of their people.”

Small group plans seed action

Participants committed themselves to six seed actions:

1. Garbage collection at the Mabanza market in Mokali
2. Mobilizing population to clean Limeté Avenue in Luka
3. Cleaning gutters on the Djabir roundabout in Matonge division
4. Filling potholes on Maluku street
5. Collection and distribution of foodstuffs for poor families in the neighborhoods
6. Visiting and distributing fruits and soft drinks to patients at King Baudouin Hospital

In addition to these Seed Actions planned during the training, participants committed themselves to do more acts of service in the future. Some of them testified to the impact of the training.

We thank Reach Africa for its concern of seeing the local churches of Congo standing on its feet in each area of their life. We thank God for Harvest and Samaritan Strategy for their efforts in behavior changing of Congolese society through teachings on the holistic ministry. We also thank 17^ème CECU/Kinshasa which provided all necessary logistics for success of this conference. This teaching enabled us to have a new vision of the Gospel, one of considering human being in his entirety according to the model of growth and service provided by Jesus in Luke 2:52. We have discovered that we do not need to have a lot of resources to help someone else (street children or beggars) to grow in the image of Christ. … We have the conviction to be well equipped and able to put into practice the lessons learnt for change in our society. Nadine Deco: On behalf of women  

This training helped us to identify many bad practices in use in our cultures which are the root causes of many problems which lead to selfishness, hatred, poverty … We have discovered that we suffer for lack of practical application of the assets and by bad stewardship of what God has given to us. Through this training we have discovered that the human being is the master of his destiny, able to change situations and to help other people to grow holistically by accomplishing small acts of sacrificial service. Reverend Alenge Nabwe Cyrille: 17^ème CECU Church

Rev. Selenga receives his participant certificate

We thank Harvest/SSA because they are a source of blessings for us – you have an appropriate message for Africa at this particular time of history. We are convinced that through such messages our church can come out of poverty … now we are informed that we are also able to do something for the change of our current situation. Let’s try putting this message into practice and wait seeing what will happen in our families and communities. Pastor Silas Selenga: Reach Africa

Reverend Buingo Mateene,  Central Africa Cordinator for Samaritan Strategy Africa, summarized the conference:

We thank the congregations and organizations which came to joinHarvest and SSA for the planning of this conference. Truly speaking, we believe that through this partnership the call of standing on our own feet and fight against poverty of mind can reach many African church leaders. … our aim is to equip trainers for spreading this message through many congregations in Congo. 

A Right Turn to Aquascalientes

It started when David Roberts read LifeWork: A Biblical Theology for What You Do Every Day.

David, a missionary with Evangelical Mission Ministries based in Pharr, Texas, has distributed books in Mexico for 22 years, including some of Darrow Miller’s titles. David is also involved with a Christian school. Given that, he picked up on a name in Darrow’s book.

“I read about Elizabeth Youmans from LifeWork, a book that impacted me much,” David said. “We had been involved with our Christian school for 15 years, but felt we needed to improve the Christian philosophy behind our education.”

David contacted Elizabeth and eventually corresponded with Rick Lane, an AMO board member who is deeply involved in Christian education in Mexico. (AMO is a principle-based curriculum for children published by Chrysalis International, Inc. Go here to read more about this outstanding program.)

When Rick learned about David’s interest, he was happy to do whatever he could to accommodate David’s desire to bring training to his school. David was “well prepared to receive AMO training,” Rick said.

To David’s delight, Elizabeth and Rick modified their schedule of training sessions, moving the session scheduled for Ciudad Acuña to Aguascalientes, David’s city of over 800,000 in population in the center of Mexico.

Chrysalis sent trainers Jacqi Gough and Cristina Inchaustegui to give the course, entitled “The Rudiments of Christian Education.” Among the topics discussed were: the Biblical view of the child, educating the heart not just the mind, the AMO program, and Wellspring of Wonders.

Thirty- seven people attended, representing four Christian schools, two orphanages, a seminary, a church denomination and several individual churches. 

“I believe that all were impressed with the difference between a truly Christian education and the typical government planned education,” David reports.

A Vision for Burundi, Rwanda and Beyond

In 2001, Christopher Holimbere was a student in Bible College in Rwanda. He had the opportunity to attend a vision conference, and for the first time heard the DNA message as presented by Bob Moffit, Darrow Miller, and Chris Ampadu.

Today, Christopher pastors Good Shepherd Community Church, and is an associate staff member of Harvest Foundation in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.

In this video, he  tells the story of his personal transformation and the beginnings of a Samaritan Strategy harvest in his part of Africa.

“We Are Not Cursed!”

Some long-believed lies in southern Africa were exposed during a recent Biblical Worldview and Transformational Development Conference.

Over 40 people attended the three-day event, conducted at Mawilini in September. They came from the communities of Mawilini and Kandeni and represented four denominations: the IRM, Kalibo Church, Methodist, and Catholic.

Hein van Wyk (center) facilitating with Pastor Jose Ganhale (L) translating into Takwane and Rev. Danie Murray (R) translating into Portuguese.

The session was sponsored by four partners: Hope for Africa (Hein van Wyk), Hande Vat Project (Rev Danie Murray), TOPIA (Rev Johannes Aucamp) and The Tumbine Synod of the Reformed Church of Mozambique (IRM). The IRM Synod was represented by Pastors Souza Estaforde (IRM Liazi) and Jose Ganhale (IRM Namitimba) who are both being trained as conference facilitators.

The IRM congregation at Mawilini, pastored by Pastor Carlos Herbert, Moderator of the Tumbine Synod,  hosted the event.

This conference was the first in Mozambique to be arranged and funded by the local community. The desired outcomes were: 1) a growing vision for community development through cultural transformation, 2) a basic understanding of worldview and of the role of the Church in society, 3) all of this practically applied through the demonstration of God’s love in every area of community life.

The facilitator team debriefing

During the conference the delegates had the opportunity to deal with cultural lies like tribalism, male superiority, the lie that work is a curse, and fatalism. In small groups they discussed the roots and fruits of these lies, how they are transmitted in the culture, what the Bible says about them, and what practical steps can be taken to expose these deceptions.

The group made one practical application during the week. The married men left their benches to cross the aisle and sit with their wives on the floor on the other side. The next morning the wives in turn sat with their husbands on the benches. This simple action showed a changed mindset, one which acknowledged that Jesus Christ had demolished the wall of separation between male and female.

The following are some of the comments delegates made during the course of the conference:

A wide range of ages was represented

• We as Africans are not cursed; we do not use our opportunities and what we have. Because of this others take away what we have.
• Now we know that God sent us to work.
• I’m encouraged by Galatians 3:28 which say that there is now no separation between different tribes and between male and female. It liberated me.
• We discovered Africa has two sides – blessed and broken. We know the reason is our thinking; our glasses. We should change our glasses.
• We now have new ideas to start new things.
• We talked about fatalism that we cannot change anything, but now we know that we can change things.
• All things are possible in Christ.
• Wives can now sit with their husbands in Church.
•  Church is not the building but people who believe in Jesus Christ.
• Christ is the Head; we are the body who demonstrates His love.
• Christ came to reconcile us; all of us – with one another and with God.
• Jesus is who God is.

Pastors Souza Estaforde (R) and Jose Ganhale (L) being trained as facilitators

As a result of the training, three Seed Projects were done by the participants. The first was the repair of a damaged bridge at Maramotondo. A second project, done by people from different denominations to demonstrate unity, was repairing the house of Pastor Kalito Mario (the pastor from Kalibo Church) which had recently burnt down. The small group also raised 100 Malawi Kwacha and presented the gift to him at the closing of the conference.

A group of youth did the third project. They composed a new song and sang it to the conference attendees at the conclusion of the three-day gathering. One of the truths of the conference lessons was captured in the lyrics: “To work is not a curse; it is a blessing. Go and read Genesis 2:15.”

By Hein van Wyk

My Business Is My Ministry

When Singaporean businessman James Teo first read Discipling Nations in 2000, he gained a new understanding about “how to connect my belief with what I’m doing as a business person.” In April 2010, James attended a conference in Manila where he heard Darrow Miller speak.

In this brief video, James shares how DNA teaching has transformed the way he thinks about being in business.

“In the past I felt that I had to be a pastor, I have to be a missionary, to spread the message of the gospel, but now my business is my ministry.”

The Explosive Power of Listening

Shun Jinnai serves as co-leader of Friends With The Voiceless, a ministry bringing a message of hope to churches in Japan and around the world. Shun was introduced to DNA in 2005 when he heard Darrow Miller and Bob Moffitt at a Vision Conference in Japan.

“I attended one session especially held for youth. Bob taught us about the Discipline of Love.”

The conference was held in Yokohama, hosted by Japan Food for the Hungry and Japan Cell Church Mission Network.

“Right after the conference, Bob mentored our Kikiya group for a year. His encouragement helped us continue the ministry.”

In this brief video, Shun tells the story of a remarkable movement that has spread all over Japan; a movement that started with the simple act of picking up garbage at a train station.

Transformation in the Shadow of Kilimanjaro

Paul Kibona lives in Tanzania near Mt. Kilimanjaro where he works with Imara Ministry Foundation as a Seminar Coordinator.

Paul first heard the DNA teachings in 2007 when Darrow Miller spoke at a YWAM Leadership Training School in South Africa. Later, he attended a Vision Conference co-sponsored by the Imara Ministry Foundation and Samaritan Strategy Africa, which Dennis Tongoi facilitated.

In this video, Paul shares the story of what happened in his life and the church in Tanzania when he discovered the teaching of DNA.