A UNIQUE MATCH AND A STRATEGIC CONNECTION
Over the two and a half weeks we were with Bishop Patrick Okabe I witnessed a very amazing sense of brotherly friendship develop between that I am sure is a work of the Holy Spirit. We are different in many ways and I’m not talking about our divergent cultural backgrounds. Yet over this time I have discovered the pastor of a dynamic church in an African nation who in so many ways mirrors my own values and priorities as much as anyone I know. When you think that all of this happened because a young man from Uganda decided to take the very unusual step of coming to train in Australia. The UK or the US would have been far more likely places for him to go. I asked Patrick why Emmanual chose Australia and he responded with what sounded like an obvious answer: They both felt that it was what God wanted.
Add to that the fact that this man has not sought after connections with Christian leaders from western nations in the way that many African (and other) pastors tend to do. This man is has an apostolic ministry that has developed quite apart from any system or sponsorship. Add to that the idea that Patrick runs a network of churches involving around 200 and has a vision to support and make pastors effective across the whole eastern Uganda region. He has one of the few large churches outside Kampala and has spent himself in seeing thirty churches planted from that one church. Think that the Mbale church has only been going seven years. He has a kingdom perspective and is aggressive in seeking lost people. His heart is to see the cities, towns and communities transformed, not just churches that grow.
Think about the risk a man like this takes by inviting a name given to him by his son in Australia and on the strength of that suggestion gathers over a thousand pastors and leaders to a conference and organizes two city wide outdoor crusades. I can’t see myself taking that kind of “sight unseen” risk. When I made this observation in the presence of the church on our last time together Patrick responded by simply saying, “It is no longer a risk.”
What God will do with this I haven’t that faintest idea. I have some ideas of my own, but this is not the place to air them. I always have a lot of ideas. The success of this ministry trip almost begs some kind of sequel, but neither Patrick nor myself are prepared to speculate but are both prepared to see what God says and wants to do.
IMPORTANT TEACHING FUNCTION
I think there is a great need to build a stronger and deeper teaching ministry in churches like the ones represented in these conferences. Someone has made the (exaggerated I think) statement that “a lot of African Christianity is a mile wide and six inches deep.” I think it might be hard to substantiate, but Emmanuel has said to me that Africa can produce great preachers much more than it can produce great teachers. I think there is a vulnerability in any community where broad and thorough education has only emerged comparatively recently – especially in the rural areas. That vulnerability exists because both praise and preaching operate in that wonderfully dynamic way. Both are responsive, vibrant and emotional experiences. The excellence of the commitment by a large proportion of any congregation to participate fully and the genuine responsiveness all up creates its own vulnerability. It can, all by itself become the point of exploitation. It can become nothing more a stylized system of rhetoric. I am not here claiming to be an expert, I am merely wishing to make some summary comments. If our exposure happens to be unrepresentative I will gladly adjust my observations accordingly.
The point I am getting to is that I think there was something of value for us to contribute. Not that we are going to radically change something in a few short days, but I wondered beforehand what we from a nation like Australia might have to contribute. We have heard the great stories of revival and transformation. In reflection, I think there is a valid partnership and I think we do have something that might well contribute to the way ground that is taken could be held. Much of the community life we observed is still largely based on an oral culture. This is changing and I think there is yet an opportunity to meet these changes by providing partnership and resources that will multiply the opportunity for more believers to found their faith in their own exposure to God through the Word rather than on the preachers alone.
BROAD COMMUNITY IMPACT THROUGH A GREAT TEAM EFFORT
This team was absolutely fantastic. Everyone contributed a huge, challenging, physical and emotional (spiritually also) effort. The work of the team in schools, hospitals, jails and camps was as effective as it was appreciated. Many young people came to Christ all the way around these efforts and I will say that they were not necessarily “open season” situations. The worship and drama contributions they made were similarly spiritually impacting and greatly appreciated.
If I would venture another observation here: I think all of us (and many others who have experienced similar) were blown away by the celebration and worship. I would give all of my right arm and some of my left to see such wholehearted beautiful praise. It was simply and profound at the same time. It was engaging even for someone who couldn’t understand the language. It not only engaged the believers inside churches but it engaged the unbelievers in the crusade grounds. At the same time the level of engagement does not follow when the focus turns to what we could differentiate as worship. The Ugandans don’t do the meditative worship nearly as well as they do praise. The team from Liberty Church in Goulburn were greatly appreciated for their excellence in this area. Jaemin shared the preaching in the conference sessions and provided a hugely complementary stream. His contribution was as Jaemin’s whole approach to ministry always is: unique, clear, heartfelt and powerful.
The combination of community based ministry by the team members as parallel to the conference ministry compounded the impact overall. If I or someone else had simply gone to do the conference speaking and Crusade preaching that would have been okay, but this way it clearly multiplied the effect.
EXPOSURE TO THE CHALLENGES OF A RAVAGED BUT EMERGING NATION
It was a privilege and a great opportunity for all of us to travel to rural Uganda and get a taste of the life of a nation full of people who have endured such crippling incursions to their life and faith and remain faithful, joyful and hopeful. The town of Mbale has not seen the devastation in the same way as the Itesso people from the region around Soroti. Of course they suffered under Amin and Obote regimes. But you have to put it in context. The average life expectancy in Uganda currently is 47. There are older people of course, but Amin was in the seventies and Obote in the eighties. Those are twenty and thirty years ago now. What people are more aware of are the ravages of HIV and of the Joseph Koney terrorist war. When you put that with the hugely inadequate health system, financial poverty and the dietry and heath issues that go along with it, many people die. There are still millions of displaced people and thousands of orphans.
But there is hope. I don’t think there is a huge sense of hope in the political system. There is so much corruption and the current President is never far from being a military backed dictator in the way he has been able to manipulate the system to retain power. There is hope in the gospel. I have seen so many examples of people whose circumstances have been so changed by the intervention of the grace of God. I would make the claim based on an obviously small sampling that only the gospel deals with the real problems and only a thorough working out of the gospel in the society provides any real hope for the nation to be raised up from poverty, disease and division. This is obviously a challenge for any church. The same thing is true in Australia. Material wealth has never been much of a substitute for a heart made strong and pure by the power of the Spirit of God. The same gospel that can deliver a poverty stricken person from the ravaged soul can deliver the wealthy person from the ravages of materialistic humanism.
Patrick and I had many conversations. One of them involved the subject of true prosperity. He is clearly not taken by the prosperity teaching that has, e.g. seen a certain woman pastor of a large (5,000 member) church in Kampala purchase one of only three Hummer’s in the country as a sign of the blessing of God on her life. At the same time he preaches that God can lift a person out of their poverty and that obedience and faith must anticipate the blessing of God that includes freedom from poverty and sickness. He observed very perceptively that if he were preaching in America or e.g. Australia he would probably apply that message in a different way. I agreed totally with him. His own life is a testimony to that blessing. He wants all his people to believe God for a pathway that will lead to an increase for them, and their families. Its not a hyper spiritual thing in his case. He has been responsible for a whole raft of employment creating opportunities for all kinds of people.
DYNAMIC FAITH BUT NOT ENOUGH GRACE
If there is a strength to the faith of African people like we met in Uganda it is certainly the level of their faith. It is similar to the faith of people in China and India and other similar places around the world. Where people do not have the “support systems” we have come to depend on in the west, they are thrown directly on the mercies of God and such circumstances so many times will breed strong, deep faith in God.
This may be an observation based on an ignorance of the culture, but Jaemin raised it with me fairly early in the piece and I very much agree with him. I think there is a need for a greater understanding of grace among such people as we observed in Uganda. There is a very strong inbuilt mechanism that creates all kinds of hierarchies. We spoke about this in various ways and were told that it is built on a system of respect. But there is a very quick capacity in the people in any form of leadership to build their leadership around legalistic expectations rather than grace born expectations. I think this is a tendency wherever you have people who “have” and others who “have not” no matter what kind of “have” we are talking about. Position and authority are highly valued and often thoroughly abused across the culture and the church needs to reflect a different set of operatives if it is going to see a transformed culture, not just a reflected one. We have the opposite problem in Australia. We have such a strong commitment to “grace-do-called” that reflects the godless individualism rather than challenging it.
EXPOSURE TO THE CHALLENGES OF MINISTRY IN AN UNDER RESOURCED CHURCH SITUATION
What kinds of resources are essential for a strong, persevering and expanding church based ministry? In Australia we might have all kinds of things on the list. The church in China can prosper without buildings, bibles and budgets. I would say that they have found ways to do that and they have proved to the world, especially the west that a church can grow as it did in the first century with the limited resources available to the first century Christians. The issue is not that it can’t be done. The issue that tends to torture churches in places like we visited in Uganda is that resources do exist and can be provided but so few have them. Those of you who read “The Heavenly Man” will remember what happened in China when contacts with Western churches and church leaders began to happen during the late eighties and certainly the nineties. The people who were equally deprived in former times suddenly became unequal. Some had contacts and money and resources and others had none of the above. That single fact led to expressions of pride, competitiveness and division that was previously unknown.
That happens in Uganda. In Kampala there are churches that have contacts, money and resources and if they don’t flaunt the fact it does emerge nonetheless. Patrick has grown a church, planted thirty churches attracted leaders to his wise and trusted oversight and care. He has done this from nothing and virtually with nothing (comparatively). If I were going to make a comment about what kind of resources are most needed I would posit the following:
BIBLES I think every pastor should have a Bible and know how to use it
BIBLE PORTIONS I think every believer ought to have access to at minimum a part of the Bible
FOOD, SHELTER, EDUCATION I think orphans and widows should be loved and cared for
TEACHING FOCUS I think believers should be discipled so that they are more able to get their own revelation and wisdom from God and then confirm it through their leaders rather than being entirely dependent on their leaders with no personal way of hearing from God.
The sound equipment we had built here and shipped with us not only enabled us to do what was done during our own time in the country, but will be a totally vital tool for preaching the gospel. Bishop Patrick is Wesleyan in his approach to the Eastern region and the nation. He cannot conceive of transforming villages, regions, towns and cities apart from people getting a new heart and a new spirit by turning to Jesus. Every church in every village doesn’t need this kind of equipment, but Patrick will run crusades in all kinds of small and larger centres and will use their wonderful worship team to build a platform for the preaching of the gospel. This will continue to serve churches wherever they decide to go. We felt totally convinced that we had brought something that was going to translate an idea into a greater ministry reality.
PARTICIPATING IN A CITY BREAKTHROUGH MINISTRY
Soroti was clearly the greatest phenomenon of the journey. It was overwhelming to go to a town that has been so attacked, betrayed and ignored. The Itesso people who live in that region in many ways are considered by other groups in the nation to be the also ran people. Not only have the suffered under Kony, but they have missed out when so many other areas have been supported by government programs that facilitate real development. Even before we hit the town I had felt that we were in for the greatest challenge but also the greatest breakthrough. If you have read the diary notes you will see that we had our challenges there but we had the biggest attendance. It would be like getting thirty five thousand people to a series of evangelistic meetings in Canberra and seeing with three thousand people getting saved and half of those showing up to the first service of a new church while many of the others show up for church in other places around the town. In the diary notes you will see that there were wonderful testimonies when three hundred adults showed up at the first service of the new church along with a hundred children. Witches being saved, people walking from the hospital and getting healed and saved. Muslim people being saved a huge personal cost.
We were personally welcomed by the Mayor and his team and he said that if the hearts of people were not changed the city would not be changed. The impact of this particular crusade lifted the faith of the church leaders by sheer tangible evidence that there was a way to gather thousands of unbelievers into the city centre and minister to them dynamic worship and great local ministry people as well as the raspy preaching of a grey haired old white man. We have heard enough reports from the town even at this early stage to confirm that the city was impacted, not just some hundreds of people making Christian commitments. Add to that the welding of relationships between key pastors and church leaders and you have a very potent brew.
THE BEGINNING OF STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP POSSIBILITIES
I don’t know what will become of this set of partnerships. As I said earlier in this summary, I thing there are very many possibilities and it would not be much use to articulate them here. I do have a pretty strong sense that there are more things that we could do to support these precious people. There was such a strong and almost instant bonding between the team and a whole lot of people. I am aware of the way Africans think about white people all being a source of unending amounts of money for all kinds of worthwhile causes. I am of the opinion that this will not just be a fund raising exercise. Having said that, I am sure that there will be things that we could and should and probably will do that will involve money. But there is much more to this relationship than money. We were never asked for money by Patrick. We didn’t come on that basis. The sound and musical equipment we brought was our idea based on information that Emmanuel gave us. I am of the opinion that there will be much more important and more valuable commodities needed here than just funds. There is the potential here for a strategic alliance that will not have the “rich man-poor man” underlying assumption. I say again that I may be wrong, but this is how I see it at present.
I have invited Patrick and Christine to come to Australia in the middle of next year. They have not had a single week away from ministry for more than three years and I put forward the idea of bringing them here so that they could attend the Hillsong Conference, do some ministry with us and with Liberty Christian Fellowship and also visit their son Emmanuel. I think it would be great for us to let them relax a bit rather than just bring them for a packed ministry program.
As always I would value an feedback you might like to make. Nola asked me a very important question sometime during the last two days we have spent together since arriving in Sydney. She said, “If the Lord told you that you were going there for reasons that had to do with you and reasons that had to do with them, what are the reasons to do with you?” I am not able to give a final answer to that at this time. As with the matter above, I have some ideas but no precise summary conclusions. It was the most stretching experience I have had. I am linked to a wonderful apostolic man and his wife in a nation that I have prayed for long before I met Emmanuel. I have seen more people come to Christ in a couple of weeks than I have in twenty years of ministry in this nation. I have had a severe values check once again. All of those things have stirred things in me that I haven’t got specific direction about yet, but watch this space if it interests you.
The numbers of people coming to the Crusade in Soroti ended up being larger than those in Mbale. Considering that the size of the town is much less than half the size the impact was much bigger
The Mbale Worship Team, Voice of Faith were once again fantastic and every afternoon when they began to fill the garden park with the praises of heaven, people came and got involved in great numbers. The amount of energy expended in praising God comes much closer to the idea of "all my heart, soul, mind and strength" stuff than anything I have seen before now.
