HOW TO SUCCESSFULLY MANAGE YOUR CROSS -CULTURAL MINISTRIES
Introduction - Imagine Pastor David who loves his youth, successfully leads many young people to Christ, but struggles to know how to administrate his ministry. He knows his Biblical imperatives for youth ministry. He has successfully understood most of the felt, perceived, and real needs of his youth. He has even come up with several excellent goal statements for each level of youth in his ministry. He has read just about everything he can get his hands on about methods for youth ministry.
Pastor David’s gifts lie in the areas of teaching, evangelism, and counseling. Whenever, he tries to plan an activity something always seems to go wrong. He has tried reading books on administration, but he just can’t seem to keep everything organized. Part of Pastor David’s problem comes from the difference of world view assumption he has on leadership from most western style management books. First, let us examine some of the critical differences between Western and non-western assumptions about administration.
Non-WESTERN ASSUMPTIONS - WESTERN ASSUMPTIONS
1. Consensus Collectivism contrasted with Individualism
a. This leader tries to find out the consensus of opinion of those significant voices in leadership and goes with the power brokers. He is at the same time sensitive to the wishes of the masses, but just enough so as not to fuel any rebellions.
b. This leader makes decisions based on the rights of the individual. He is very sensitive to the fact that each person has different gifts, strengths, and weaknesses that should be taken into account. He also recognizes that unity does not have to mean unanimity of every decision. He works through decisions on their individual merits. He however, is often insensitive to the consensus opinion if he believes in something strongly.
2. Large Power Distance contrasted with Small Power Distance
a. This leader believes in large distances between him and his superiors. Likewise, he expects his staff to respond immediately to his orders. Any attempt to bridge this gap is considered a breech of respect, honor, and subject to discipline.
b. This leader is very approachable by all of his staff. He is open to suggestions from everyone, not just his superiors or peers. He feels that staff should address him by his first name and feel free to interact with him on a warm, personal and open basis. He does not feel threatened by superiors or his employees.
3. Toleration for Uncertainty contrasts with one who Avoids Uncertainty
a. This leader deals with problems as they arise. He recognizes that many problems cannot be planned for. He manages his people by walking around, dealing with issues as they arise. He is not bothered that much of his leadership revolves around crisis management style of leadership. He is flattered by how much the organization depends on his decision for everything from purchasing stationery to buildings.
b. This leader plans as far as it is possible in advance. He is very annoyed when his people do not plan ahead. He is concerned that prior planning can prevent poor performance in all of his organization.
4. Synthesis, Spiritual, Cultural, Financial, and Political Factors contrasted with one who Distinguishes between Spiritual, Cultural, and Political factors.
a. This leader is more wholistic in his outlook of management. He cannot always see the sharp distinctions between financial, cultural, or spiritual factors in making a decision about staff selection and training for example.
b. This leader prides himself on his objective analysis of each situation. He is apt to make a decision based upon the Spiritual objectives set for the group. He spurns those decisions that are made for "cultural reasons only."
5. Puts Little Trust in Admin Theory.Prefers to Learn by Experience contrasted with one who Puts Much Trust in Admin.
a. Likes to say that he learned leadership by doing it rather than reading it from a book.
b. Likes to see how the different theories will best apply to his situation. Often he is eager to study different leadership styles to see which ones will work best
6. Stresses Power and Force Leadership contrasted with one who Stresses Representative leadership
a. Likes to reserve his big guns of power and forcefor important confrontations. However, he is not hesitant to use power if he senses that the position of authority is called into question.
b. Insists that he was elected to appointed to the office. By the power and authority entrusted to his office, he exercises control. He stresses the policies that guide the execution of his responsibilities given through his job description.
7. Emphasizes Relationships contrasted with one Emphasizes the end goal
a. This leader recotgnizes the old proverb that says,"It is not what you know that matters as much as who you know."
b. This leader recognizes people as essentially means to an end. He often fails to have staff development as an enough of a priority.
8. Focuses on Events versus Focuses on The Tasks
a. This leader can become so involved in the event that he can forget the goals of the organization of the people.
b. This leader can become so involved with the accomplishment of the task that he forgets the significance of the importance of the process to get the job done.
9. Emphasizes His Felt Needs versus Emphasizes Right Behaviour
a. He intuitively senses the needs of his organization through his strong style of control. When he senses someone disrespecting authority he comes down hard on that individual or group.
b. As long as this leader sees everyone performing their job with the right actions he is happy. However, he is sometimes insensitive to people’s motives.
10. Stresses problem-solving Perceiving Through versus Stresses problem-ideals
a. This leader responds best when he can see concrete problems to be dealt with. He is able to gather his energies and resources to solve specific difficulties as they arise.
b. This leader prefers to teach his staff the ideals and leave the execution to their individual preferences. He looks for the ideal truths to guide the organization rather than the situational ethics that are too subject to the whims of the moment.
11. Followers Are Dependent versus Followers Are Independent
a. This leader wants his followers to look to him for direction continually. When he is not present, however, his followers are lost.
b. Followers are independent to make their own decisions
Some of the above ideas were taken from Geert Hofstedt, Cultural Relationshipps of Organizational Practice and Theory, Journal of International Business, Fall, 1983.
Next, Pastor David attends a seminar on management conducted by a world class thinker in leadership. (Taken from Alec McKenzie’s Management Process of the Harvard Business Review, 1979)
These are some of the gems of information that helped Pastor David begin to correctly manage, administrate, and organize his youth ministry:
1. Planning
a. Formulate ideas with the leadership. This involves discussing needs, Biblical imperatives, aims, and methods for building the youths’ maturity in Christ.
b. Idealize the profile characteristics of what a mature youth will look like in his intellect, character qualities, emotional maturity, social skills, spiritual traits, behavioral actions, philosophies, theologies, and views of God.
c. Analyze the problems that plague most youth. Search out the causes, reasons, and motives behind the great difficulties of youth. Discuss the roots of temptations that seem to limit the youth from maximizing their potential in Christ.
d. Gather facts by interviewing youth and conducting informal and formal research into the needs, methods, programmes, and ideals of youth.
See what factors are contributing either positively or negatively to the fulfilling of the will of God for individuals and groups of youth. Determine what specific ways the youth are best enabled to use internal and external motivations to please the Lord in all respects and bear fruit in every good work. (Col.1:9-11)
e. Predetermine a course of action that best helps youth fulfill the Biblical imperatives for their vocational, social, spiritual, physical, educational, economic, and intellectual growth in Christ. This will entail searching together. This leader respects the rights of his followers to make their own decisions. He expects his followers to perform as effectively when he is present as when he is absent. with youth in more personal visits and discussions. Otherwise youth tend to be inhibited by what their friends will think of them.
Train your leaders in learning how to counsel with the youth in one-one dialogues about their plans for life.
f. Help youth and leaders forecast the facilitating factors that will catalyze their growth, development, and maturity in their faith. This will involve working with individuals who have different learning styles, personalities, and backgrounds.
g. Plan programmes that will best fit the goals, needs, and resources available to your youth group. Try to gain literature, counsel, and suggestions from experts in Christian education or youth ministries for the best programmes for your needs.
h. Set Procedures that will establish tracks for your youth group to run smoothly on. By setting up precedents for youth planning and programmes to operate on you will allow your ministry to be reproduced by other innovative thinkers and leaders.
i. Develop policies that will guide your youth group. In the event that your principles and practices are called into question, you can refer them to the policies rather than engaging in heated emotional arguments. Each church or denomination should have a handbook for Youth Ministries. This will eliminate confusion about the guidelines Biblically, doctrinally, administratively, methodologically, socially, educatively, and economically.
Be careful that you do not allow the policy book to become a legalistic club that is used to keep youth in line. Remember Jesus told the Pharisees, "You error because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God." (Mk. 12:24)
j. Plan how best to allocate your resources in terms of personnel, groups, time, talents, gifts, money, commitments, leaders and activities. If we aim at nothing, we hit it everytime. If we fail to plan we are planning to fail.
k. Establish priorities with your planning. Realize that no youth leader can do everything. Therefore, establish in order of importance the most significant goals, needs, and programmes you want to accomplish. Ask the Lord for wisdom in guiding your selection of priorities. Be flexible enough to change your priorities if you see that your previous ones are not best utilizing your resources.
l. Plan for the most intelligent sequence of activities, training, and organizing of your people. Pace out a schedule of activities that will best help take you to your destination. By chartering a course, the milestones you plan to hit, and the pace by which you will travel, eliminates the need to feel frustrated when you seem to fall behind your time table.
m. Decide when and how to achieve your goals with the cooperation of adult and youth leaders. Realize that many of your plans will be carried out in and through your leaders so give them a healthy share in the decision-making. Get these ideas down in writing so that you can refer to them later. Otherwise, people will tend to change their minds on how to best achieve the goals. Remember, a man changed against his will, is a man with the same opinion still! We may paint a leopard with stripes, but he still is a leopard.
n. Visualize your desired end results for your youth and your youth ministry. What will the major themes, activities, programmes, personnel, organization, administrative structure, resources, disciple-making ministries, evangelism, relationships, and methods look like.
o. Evaluate where you, your youth, and your youth ministry are presently at in relationship to your plans. This will help you to know the areas of deficiencies that exist between the ideals and your present realities.
2. Organizing
a. Set up your organizations structure according to the proper chain of command that will maximize your effectiveness and the execution of the responsibilities in your youth ministry.
b. Write up job descriptions for each of the positions and their relationships to various offices.
c. Establish the necessary qualifications for each of the positions and being promoted to the next highest level.
d. Map out the relationships that should allow for the best integration of the people and communication between their positions.
e. Limit the scope, responsibilities and accountability of each position as well as their incentives for excellence.
f. Arrange for proper policies in meetings, committees, and terms of reference for the execution of authority.
3. Staffing
a. Recruit and train qualified people for each of the positions of leadership in your youth ministry. Select each of them on the basis of scriptural criteria.
b. Match the gifts and talents of each person with the tasks they are to perform.
c. Learn to observe, discern, and analyze how to select people that will be most helpful in working with various levels and sub-cultures of youth.
d. Do not push people too hard or too quickly to assume leadership roles in your youth ministry.
e. Give clear description of the tasks you want accomplished. Provide enough freedom for your workers and youth so that they are allowed to exercise their callings, commitments, and communications in ways suitable to the will of God.
f. Provide a suitable amount of authority with each task given to your leaders.
g. Orient your staff to the tasks and the youth by helping them adjust to the youth and their world views.
h. Train your staff to equip them with the knowledge, character traits, and skills necessary to be effective.
i. Develop your staff in their faith, knowledge, relational skills, teaching, leading, organizing, and evangelizing skills.
j. Give your staff adequate time to familiarize them with the kinds of activities and the level of commitment you expect of them. Do not push them into doing tasks that they have not thoroughly understood the principles and practices of.
k. Give your staff plenty of opportunities to gain competency by practice, supervised instruction, and leadership opportunities.
l. Give your staff tapes, books, and Bible study assignment to deepen and broaden their knowledge of youth ministry.
m. Work with your staff on setting goals for themselves and the whole youth ministry. Help them feel a part of the decision-making process, but only when they have proven themselves faithful in little things.
n. Give specific training in interpersonal skills. This will involve communication, listening skills, personality differences, speaking tactfully, methods of encouraging, handling criticism, resolving conflicts, relationships with the opposite sex, taking interest in others, aspect of loving others, characteristics of a friend etc.o. Give training on handling money, resources, time, and provisions. This will involve stewardship, accountability, and integrity.
4. Directing
a. Provide supervised direction in bringing your goals to reality.
b. Delegate authority and responsibilities equally. Entrust the tasks to faithful people who can carry out the tasks in ways that the Spirit of God leads them. Find the right balance between freedom and supervisory control.
c. Assign responsibilities that require evaluation from the individual as well as from the supervisors.
d. Persuade and inspire people to do their best with their tasks. Help each leader to perform his absolute best in every job. Assist by counseling and providing necessary encouragement as anyone might have need.
e. Coordinate the efforts of everyone in the group by relating the fine jobs done to others. Keep the mutual encouragement flowing between leaders and youth.
f. Resolve conflicts between staff and youth. Help to synergize differences so that diversity becomes a catalytic element for growth rather than a deterrent. Encourage individuals to follow the Biblical guidelines for eliminating conflict and bring reconciliation and harmonious relations.
g. Boost creativity and innovation by suggesting steps for change. Give personal examples of how you are creatively bringing about change within and without side of the organization.
h. Try to be directive without being too pushy. A good director has the ability to bring out the most of his actors without stifling their motivations.
i. Try sharing the overall direction of the youth group with your leaders. They will put more of their heart into the work when they have a feeling of ownership.
j. Deal with rebellious leaders personally rather than publically. Be careful of youth leaders who are trying to gain too much personal power for themselves. Encourage "lone wolf types" to cooperate in supporting group decisions.
k. Stress and reward characteristics of honesty, faith, love, optimism, servanthood, friendliness, discipline, joyfulness, kindness, self-control, initiative, determination, purity, simplicity, and humility.
l. Discipline leaders gently but firmly for characteristic demonstrations of pride, jealousy, bitterness, grumbling, back-biting, dishonesty, inconsistency, carnality, lust, hatred, anger, nit-picking, prejudice, negative, dogmatic, political ambitious, legalistic, incompetent, gossipy, sarcastic, scolding, stingy, ignores hurts, cold, harsh, impatient, disrespectful, abrasive, naive, abrasive, uncooperative, unconcerning, or unethical.
5. Controlling
a. Reward the youth and youth leaders for jobs well done. Provide both positive and negative incentives for excelling in doing the will of God.
b. Help people take corrective actions. Helps youth and leaders adjust their plans through counseling. Guides people in ways that allow them to attain to the standards of the upward call of Christ and His will. c. Ascertain the degree which the youth or youth leaders have deviated from the goals and standards set for and with the group. This usually should be done both on public and private level.
d. Establish a reporting system so that youth and leaders have plenty of opportunities to give feedback to what works and what does not. This will enable you to make corrective steps before something drastically becomes a negative precedent.
e. Set performance standards for youth and leaders depending on the level of maturity and commitments. The standards should be agreed upon by people if they are going to cooperate inwardly as well as outwardly.
f. Determine conditions of service for both youth and leaders according to their commitments. The conditions will depend on the youth and leaders levels of faithfulness, excellence, and attitudes in serving.
g. Encourage several youth to pursue further theological education so that they can multiply quality youth ministries throughout the country.
h. Give youth and leaders opportunity to take retreats where they can receive inspiration and information. "As iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another." (Pv.27:17)
i. Allow people who are eager for growth to refine their skills, commitments, and knowledge by furnishing extra training. Eccl. 10:10 says, "If the axe is dull and it does not sharpen it edge the worker must exert much strength. But, wisdom has the advantage of giving success."
j. Help leaders and youth determine what they need in order to make up any deficiencies in their walk with God, their relationship with youth, or their ministry in or outside of the church.
k. Give everyone who is trying a sense of progress. This is important to ensure a sense of advancement emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, socially, educationally, and especially interpersonally.
Note: Some of the above ideas were taken from Alec McKenzie’s Management Process from the Harvard Bus. Review of 1975.Integrative Management of YouthExample -
Whenever, a cross-cultural leader of youth wants to manage a group of people he should think in terms of these five processes:
a). Gain Their Attention - Give a story that illustrates the reasons why your truths are so vital to THEIR INTERESTS.
b). Discuss Their Greatest Need - Start with a felt need that the cultures has such as the need to overcome evil forces, or hunger, or poverty etc. Begin to demonstrate why this need will continue to be unmet unless they practice the principles of truth from the scriptures. Jesus said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied."
c). Give Proof Of Satisfaction of Those Needs - Give examples of others who have had their needs met through the application of the principles from scripture. Give them information that will provide short term as well as long term means of satisfaction. Give them your own personal examples of how the Lord has satisfied you with testimonies of your own fulfilling experiences.
d). Visualize Ways of Bringing Positive Results - Provide illustrations of several people who sought for answers for specific problems and got answers through applications of the truth. Bring vivid results to the people through demonstrations of how fear can be avoided through faith, obedience, and love of Christ in all situations.
e). Challenge Them To Take Specific Actions - Give them assignments that will lead them to discovery of how the Bible solves the most perplexing problems of life. Show them how the Holy Spirit leads us into all truth through His abiding presence in our lives as we pray asking Him for leading.
8). Another helpful grid in understanding how to manage youth cultures and sub-cultures comes to us from David Hesselgrave, a long time reputed scholar of missiology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield
Illinois. He makes the distinction between a collectivistic-dependency cultural background versus as individualistic-independency cultural perspective. Here is a brief adaptation of his chart from Communicating Christ Cross-Culturally, p.433:
Collectivistic-Dependency Cultures versus Individualistic-Idependency Cultures
Ancestor versus Peer-Group Subjectivity versus Objectivity
Values - Traditional versus Popular Intuitional versus Lawful
Avoidance Shame verssus avoidance of guilt Goals versus dishonoring or disappointing or disregarding the ancestors or the group
III. Cross-Cultural Perceptual Analysis For Leaders
David Hesselgrave in his book, Communicating Christ Cross-Culturally, depicts three main perceptions that we need to help us understand the mindsets of different cultures. Edmund Perry credits F. H. Smith with the elaboration of the ways on which we know and look at life. These three include Western which tends to view life first from a conceptual then a concrete perspective then a relational dimension and finally through a psychical framework.
For the Western man life is seen from the ideal which is then translated to concrete actions which are in turn communicated through relationships and finally to the realm outside of the physical universe implying their spiritual meanings. Coming from a western perspective, one tends to crave principles to explain the universe. However, this perspective often tends to rub against the other two perspectives which view life through a different priority of lenses. Often, the other two views will criticize the western man for over intellectualizing the simple issues of life that revolve around relationships, spiritual matters, and concrete experiences. For example, some one from an Africa perspective will normally view life with the following order of perspectives.
First, he wants to be able to visualize reality so he gives concrete experiences and relationships before anything as abstract as a concept. Just yesterday, one of my students at the seminary wanted me to tell him exactly how to do his assignment in advanced teaching methods. To him the assignment should be explained in explicit terms showing him in detail an example of what I want him to do. I chaffed at his expectations, coming from my western perspective. I wanted the student to be able to understand the principles of cognitive, affective, and behavioral education which he could then apply to his lesson plans integratively. Eventually, I realized that I had to become all things to all men so I wrote a detailed example of the kind of lesson plan that I want to see from him on the blackboard. This made him happy. He went away having a visualized model of what the teacher expected him to do. I gave him the information in concrete - relational terms that made sense to him. Hopefully, someday, he will understand the concepts behind what he is doing or I am afraid he will be stuck in the rut of only being able to design a lesson plan in one way - as the teacher has taught him. Neverthelss, I risked giving the student the answer he was looking for in the way that he learned best. It seems that for a cross-cultural leader it is better to error on the side of the perspectives of accommodating to the majority cultural perspective in cases of learning and applying.
The concrete relational thinker prefers the following order of priorities in his lenses of life:
Concrete-relational then psychical or spiritual and finally conceptual. For example when I first came to Africa ten years ago, I remember feeling frustrated that the Pastors "could not get to the point" in their sermons. I remember one instance in particular, a Pastor was explaining the differences between a hyena who slept so long during the raining season that he could not cross the river when he wanted to. He contrasted the hyena with the turtle who diligently plodded ahead and was able to cross the river on the stones in the nearly dry river bed. He likened a wise man to the turtle who planned ahead, taking advantage of the God given bridges in the rivers of life. Finally, he explained that a godly man will be given many such bridges in crossing over the obstacles of life. However, the wicked and lazy man will be faced with overwhelming hindrances in his path. All of this took about 90 minutes to explain. As I sat writhing in pain during that hot Sunday morning, I remember the 3,000 fellow worshippers were enthralled by the Pastor’s story. The more he detailed the struggles of the turtle became the greater the crowd’s interest. Special grunts of affirmation came when the audience learned of the wicked practices of the hyena which made him think he could allow his trickery and his network of devious friends to carry him over the harsh realities of life. Roars of laughter spontaneously rolled over the auditorium when the hyena woke to face the consequences of his folly. It all seemed so simple to my western mind, but it struck a chord with the concrete relational thinkers of Africa. I quickly learned how to adjust my preaching, teaching, and communication styles to suit my African seminary students’s perspectives.
Example - Recently, I completed writing How To Successfully Study, Preach, and Communicate the Scriptures, a basic textbook for African theological schools on hermeneutics, homiletics, and communications. Within a year, the book sold 12,000 copies because it is written to African, with a concrete-relational perspective using cartoons, multiple case studies, stories, and proverbs that reflect the way that most Africans view life. What a significant difference this has made in way we are developing textbooks for the entire curricula of English speaking African theological institutions. Several of us concerned professors have allied to form the African Christian Textbook Association (Act) in order to produce textbooks written from and to the concrete relational perspective. We are presently working on a textbook in West African Church History, New Testament Introduction and Survey, and Doctrines of the Bible. We are anticipating, by faith, the same kind of enthusiastic response throughout Nigeria and Africa. This has sweeping implications for writers of all types of literature for Africa.
100 EDUCATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE PASTOR-TEACHER-LEADER(HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR TEACHING IN THE CHURCH)
1. Genuinely care about each member, his needs, wants, and goals. Pray with and for each of your members. If they know you care, it will help them learn better.
2. Give the members plenty of handouts that summarize the main points in your lessons and preaching. Teach for competence in what you want them to know, believe, and practice.
3. Provide numerous stories from your student’s cultural context to illustrate the principles in the lesson. Study the history, people, and traditions of your students.
4. Allow the members to engage in trial and error learning with what you are teaching them. For instance use role plays, simulation exercises, speeches, reports, and debates etc.
5. Encourage the members to work in cooperative groups where the learning can effectively be transferred, reinforced, and retained.
6. Provide models for what you want your members to learn. First tell, them show, then do it with them, then allow them to do it under supervised instruction, and then assign them their own responsibility. Demonstrate servant leadership before them.
7. Use case studies to allow the members to be able learn through relevant models.
8. Teach using problem-solution approaches to learning. Try to avoid just listing principles and expecting them to be able to solve their own problems. Work through the problems with the principles together.
9. List the main points that you want your members to remember on the board. Provide visual aids to reinforce what you are telling them.
10. Provide members with a list of study questions that they will answer "what, why is it important, and how do I apply it to my life and ministry" type questions. This will provide them with a record of the most important points in the course.
11. Involve members in the essentials of what they need to be competent cognitively, affectively, and behaviorally. Avoid tangents that give undue emphasis to details.
12. Provide contrasts and comparisons for most things you teach.
13. Give members analogies that are close to their traditional styles of learning. For instance, the apprentice form of learning is a popular way of teaching in Nigeria.
14. Learn how each local group learns traditionally and apply the methods to your teaching.
15. Study books like Where There is No Doctor or Helping Health Workers Learn. These books will help you gain ideas for methods in teaching different levels of learners. Learn the methods of non-formal education as well as formal education.
16. Read Martha Leypoldt’s 40 Ways to Teach in a Group. Remember,"Variety is the spice of life."
17. Personalize your teaching by showing your members how the lesson has impacted you and your family.
18. Allow members to give you plenty of feedback. They may understand something entirely different than what you think you are communicating!
19. Think contextualization in your teaching, testing, and assignments.
20. Practice the Larry Richard’s plan in writing your lesson outlines:
1). Hook - Grab their interest with a story, quote, or question
2). Book - Teach them the principles of the scripture or the content of your subject
3). Look - Provide illustrations to give examples
4). Took - Ask the members how they will apply the lesson to their lives.
For example:AN EXAMPLE OF A GOOD LESSON PLAN FOR PREACHING ON CHOOSING A LIFE PARTNER
1. HOOK - The founder of the Methodist Church, John Wesley, gives us an illustration in errors to avoid in choosing a life partner. When he was serving as a missionary in the U.S. he thought it was about time that he should pick a wife. Soon, he met a beautiful woman who he felt would be a perfect wife. Wanting to know God’s will he took three pieces of paper and wrote the following on them to help him discern God’s will on marriage: a). Marry her b). Wait one year before marrying her c). Think no more of her and return to England. He folded the papers, put them in a hat, and selected one of the slips of paper. Upon opening the sheet, he told the Lord he would do whatever the paper said to do. The paper read: "Think no more of her and return to England." He did just that. Seven years later, he thought he might have missed the will of God regarding marriage. So he wrote out a list of the desirable qualities that he preferred in a partner. Finally, he found the woman that matched his descriptions. On the way to ask her to marry him, Charles Wesley, John’s junior brother met him insisting that John not go ahead with the marriage. John became so nervous that when he entered the woman’s house he fainted on the floor. This angered the woman so, that she left town never to return.
Seven years later, John met a wealthy widow named, Mary Vazeille and married her. Unfortunately, he made a mistake in discerning God’s will. After 25 years of marital misery, she left him. In John Wesley’s diary we find these sobering words: "She has left me now and I will not call her back, I believe that I missed the will of God in marrying this woman." Here was one of the greatest men of God in the history of the church. Yet, he made a mistake in marrying out of the will of God. We must be very sure of God’s calling to marry. God may even be calling some to be single for the kingdom’s sake! (Tan, 1979)Propositional Statement or Thematic Question - What are ways to avoid mistakes in choosing a life partner?
2. BOOK - Gen. 2:24,25 says, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame."a. While some people are seeking to satisfy their own needs through marriage, let us look at the first reasons God gave for marriage:
1). God gave Adam a suitable helper
2). God wanted the man to start his own family unit.
3). God wanted the man to be fruitful and multiply.
4). God wanted the man to fully realize his potential.
5). God wanted the man and the woman to have a monogamous union as one.
6). God wanted the man to leave his parents. Many problems today are caused because husbands or wives are still depending on their parents before trusting in their partners.
7). God wanted the man to cleave. Many marriages are unhappy because husbands and wives are not fully committed to each other.
8). God wanted the man to become one flesh with his wife. This implies a oneness of body, mind, wills, emotions, and goals.
9). God wanted the man to be intimate with his wife so that he would be completely open and without shame with his wife. Their communications should be transparent, not hiding secrets from each other.
10). God wanted the man and his wife to have no fears of exploiting one another. The nakedness suggests that they were at ease with one another without fear of potential evil intentions, words, or acts!
3. LOOK - Instead of looking for beauty, riches, and circumstantial reasons for selecting a future partner, God wants us to consider the above criteria in a partner. Will he or she be able to help us best fulfill the will of God for your life?
Let us look for the following characteristics in a future partner:
a. A love for the Lord above everything else
b. Commitment to do the will of God
c. A knowledge of the scriptures
d. Servant’s attitude.
e. Teachableness and hard working
f. Faithfulness and hospitable
g. Humility, honesty, and truthfulnessh. Courage and perseverance
i. Eager to witness for Christ and disciple others
j. Commitment to you and your new family
k. Adaptability and flexibility
l. Ability to be a good parent
m. Financially responsible
n. A person of prayer
o. A person committed to the church
Illustration - One man in Italy recently regretted that he had married his wife. Since he felt that the need to get away from his wife he tried to divorce her, but she refused. Next, he tried to run away, but her relatives brought him back to their house. Finally, out of desperation, the man stole some money from a store. When the judge learned that he was a first time offender, he said to the man, "I am willing to show mercy and let you off with a stern warning." "No", the man pleaded, "Please, put me in jail!" I was so desperate to get away from my wife that I stole the money to get caught so that I could spend the rest of my life in peaceinside of the prison!" Two days later when the man woke up in his prison cell, he nearly fell over from shock. To his surprise, his wife had gotten drunk the night before and been thrown into theprison cell right next to his. For days, he was a captive prisoner to his wife’s scolding. Be sure your sins will find you out! What are some ways, that you think men and women try to hide things from one another? (Tan, 1979)
4. TOOK - Share one way that each of you can put into practice the principles of Gen 2:24,25 in choosing your future partner:
a. The principle of severance - "Leaving your father and mother."
b. The principle of acceptance - "Cleave to his wife" (Be united to his wife).
c. The principle of commitment and permanence - "The two will become one flesh."
d. The principle of intimacy - "The two were both naked and felt no shame."
21. Do not ask closed ended questions like, "Who betrayed Jesus?" Judas. Ask thought provoking questions that challenge members to ascend the ladder of cognitive development:
a). Knowledge
b). Understandingc).
c). Applicationd).
d). Analysis
e). Synthesis
f). Evaluation
22. In your unit planning follow Lois LeBar’s educational cycle:
1). Biblical Imperatives
2). Needs
3). Aims
4). Methods
5). Materials (Books, handouts, and articles
6). Programmes (Evangelism, athletics, field surveys, research, debates, film shows etc.)
7). Organization (The chain of command)
8). Administration (Planning, Leading, Organizing, Delegating, Controlling, Supervising etc.)
9). Evaluation
Where this cycle is useful is writing a sermon, lesson plan, or a speech. Begin by determining what the Bible’s commands are on the topic. Next, assess what needs your audience has related to the topic. Next, determine what aims you will concentrate on to help meet those special needs. Move on to determining the methods you will use to reach those goals. Proceed to deciding what materials, resources, and references you will need to support your ideas.
Continue by suggesting certain programmes-applications-illustrations that will prove your points. Provide plans to help your audience administrate that topic in their lives and ministries. Suggest key ways of organizing that topic in their priorities and schedules. Finally, help them select key criteria for continual evaluations of their lives in respect to that topic. Then give guidelines for repeating the cycle continually for individual mediation.
23. Praise the members for their worthwhile contributions in class.
24. Provide a course outline at the beginning where you state your objectives, assignments, itinerary, grading scale, learning activities, reading list, and bibliography.
25. Provide a preview, review, up-dates, feedback, questions, and transference opportunities for the members regularly.
26. Since some of your members may not be analytical, provide a synthesis of the main points at the beginning, middle, and end of the lesson. For example, "There are three things that you will learn from this lesson..."
27. Distinguish the different needs of your field-dependent (Those who learn from their surrounding experiences, friends, models, and what they can see others doing) and field independent learners (Those who prefer learning from books, analysis, induction and personal discovery) . Generally you will have a 90% - 10% ratio, but this will vary. (Earle and Dorothy Bowen have researched this area for their Ph.D. dissertations at Florida State University in 1984)
28. Teach to the four types of learning styles according to the 4-MAT System: Learners fall into four categories depending on the questions they like to ask:
1). Why learners
2). What learners
3). How learners
4). If-then learners.
Note in each category there will be 50% right brained learners and 50% left brain learners. This leaves you will eight different main learning styles to teach to. Provide variety in your instruction to hit all eight.
29. Distinguish the difference of the needs of left brained learners:
1). Rational
2). Responds to verbal instructions
3). Systematic
4). Objective
5). Analyzes
6). Controls feelings
7). Problem solves by logically and sequentially looking at the parts of things
8). Sees cause and effect relationships
9). Is theoretical
10). See details
11). Digitalized - likes lists
12). Draws on previously accumulated, organized information. (4-Mat, 1985)
30. Distinguish the difference of the needs of right brained learners:
1). Intuitive
2). Responds to demonstrated instructions
3). Likes open-ended, random experiments
4). Subjective
5). Looks at similarities
6). Spontaneous in thinking,speaking and acting.
7). Relies on images in thinking and remembering
8). Free with feelings
9). Problem-Solving by hunching, looking for traditional ways of dealing with problems.
10). Is experiential
11). Needs stimulating environment to do well
12). Uses pictorial language
13). Prefers essay tests to objective tests
14). Engaged by patterns of sound in music
15). Diffuse organization
16). Draws on qualitative rather quantitative aspects of life.
(4-Mat, 1985)STUDY THE LEARNING STYLE OF RIGHT BRAINED LEARNERS
31. Use the apprentice style of learning generously in your teaching assignments, and transference of learning.
32. Give your members small bite-sized units of work to do. Do not overload them with too many facts.
33. Give groups projects, group discussions, and group accountability.
34. Do not grow impatient with having to repeat, review, and reinforce.
35. Members need textbooks, duplicated notes, and things written on the board. The Nigerian members are generally better served through visual and auditory stimuli together.
36. Give members pictures, charts, posters, and models for them to study and observe.
37. Provide members with plenty of external motivation such as: praise, grades, measures of success or failure, peer-pressure, criticism in love, and opportunities to show others what they have learned or have not learned. Be careful not to criticize people publicly.STUDY THE LEARNING STYLES OF LEFT BRAINED LEARNERS
38. Realize that motivations are usually individual, social, and goal oriented. Know well the condition of your flock and pay attention to your herds.
39. Use animal stories a lot to illustrate your principles. For instance as Solomon does in Proverbs "Go to the ant you sluggard."
40. USE African stories to help understand how your members think, reason, and learn best in their African traditional forms of education.
41. Observe how the parents teach or fail to teach their children in family situations.
42. Generate interest in your subject through personal expressions of enthusiasm, stories, and field trips.
43. Provide enough rewards to offer the members a variety of incentives to do their best.
44. Provide a balance of intrinsic (internal) and extrinsic (external) motivations.
45. Do not tell your members to do the assignments "Any way they like." Give them instructions in not only what you want them to do, but why and how to do it, preferably with written instructions. Be available to answer personal questions and concerns.
46. Support your lectures with time for questions, examples, pictures, handouts, and generous amount of humor.
47. Adjust your teaching and learning to socially oriented elements. This will allow the members to transfer the relevance of your lessons to their surroundings.
48. Allow guest speakers to come in and provide a variety of models that the members can look up to for living examples of what you are teaching.
49. Visit your members to discuss their personal problems as well as their academic concerns.
50. Pray about your members’ needs, concerns, hopes, and problems.
51. Allow your learners to see that you are a learner too. Ask them how things are done in their culture. Say, "What are the traditional ways of solving this problem." Respect their opinions, but speak the truth in love. This helps contextualize your teaching.
52. Provide opportunities for the members to critique each other in class after papers, projects, or reports are presented. They will observe things that you have not.
53. Apply local proverbs to illuminate a truth in your lesson.
54. Move from what is known to what is unknown.
55. Remember, "The teacher hasn’t taught until the learner has learned."
56. Apply the principles of Observation, Interpretation, Correlation, Application, Evaluation and Communication when you are studying the Bible. Howard Hendricks has said, "Bible study without application is abortion!"
57. Ask members to solve problems, quote verses, pick out something erroneous, or write the main points of a previous lesson on the board. Involving your members in learning is an essential part of the give and take cycle in African learning.
58. Learn to ask a variety of questions looking for the following kinds of answers:
1). Informational 2). Analytical 3). Applicational 4). Implicational 5). Enabling 6). Puzzling 7). Confrontational 8). Biblical 10). Experiential 11). Clarifying 12). Evaluative 13). Correlative 14). Cultural
59. Pre-test your members to know where you should begin with your teaching levels. Post-test your members to see how far they have come.
60. Use simple language, speak slowly, and emphasize good diction.
61. Tell them the wrong ways and then let them correct you or provide alternatives to solutions that are less than the best.
62. Keep bridging your teaching between the concrete and the abstract (Practical and Theory)
63. Differentiate between surface problems-causes and root problems and causes. Observe how Jesus does this in the beatitudes. (Mt. 6)
64. Model Christ’s teaching in circular styles rather than only Paul’s linear style of teaching and learning.
65. Share with the members what God is teaching you through the scriptures. Let them read your writings in handouts, articles, or books that you have written. 66. Encourage the members to memorize key verses to the most common problems faced in Nigerian society. Read Scriptural Solutions to Your Problems by Paul J. Fritz, a collection of 263 commonly asked questions of Nigerian Pastors and their scriptural solutions.
67. Point more than push.
68. Aim to reach the early adapters in your classes who will influence the others (Innovators, majority, late adapters, and resistors)
69. Understand the World View of your members:
1) What is reality
2). What is true
3). What do I believe
4). What do I value
5). How do I behave
6). What are my feelings
70. Include the following aspects in your teaching: 1). Hearing 2). Reading 3). Studying 4). Memorizing 5). Meditating 6). Writing 7). Watching 8). Doing 9). Teaching 10). Creating 11).Experimenting 12). Taking responsibility
APPROACH PEOPLE FROM THEIR WORLD VIEW PERSPECTIVES
71. Cooperatively work on producing change (Like Planting an Urban Church) with your class using steps of:
1). Building relationships
2). Diagnosing problems
3). Acquiring relevant resources
4). Choosing solutions
5). Gaining acceptance
6). Stabilizing the change and stimulating self-renewal
72. Provide opportunities for your learners to be active with as many of their senses as possible: Sight, touch, smell, muscles, hearing, and tasting.
73. Give your members advance organizers. Assign key elements to certain members who will be responsible for reporting at the end of a class or unit.
74. Allow for certain aspects of your lesson to include:
1). Reflective observation
2). Abstract conceptualization
3). Active experimentation
4). Concrete experiences
75. Help members discover the relationship between ideas. Use word associations, synonyms, antonyms, and object lessons.
76. Design your curricular and instructional approaches (Including contents, programmes, philosophies, and methods) to correspond to the member’s needs, goals, world views, backgrounds, and abilities.
77. Augment holistic learning with content-specific teaching.
78. Apply an integrative approach to learning as opposed to mastering one subject in isolation of others.
79. Have individual conferences with members about their work.
80. Allow the members to apply what they have learned in new situations. Ask the members to tell when they see violations of the principles taught. Ask the members to demonstrate certain concepts in a new situation.
81. Provide learning activities where the learners break material down into understandable parts.
82. Allow members opportunities to brainstorm the solution to a problem before you supply them with your own.
83. Allow members to judge the worth of something based on given standards.
84. Help the learners put together elements of the lesson to form a new product like a sermon.
85. Help the members ascend the affective ladder of development:
1). Attending
2). Responding
3). Valuing
4). Organization
5). Characterization
86. Help the members ascend the ladder of behavioral development(Skills of action and lifestyle):
1). Perception
2). Set
3). Guided response
4). Habit
5). Complex overt response.
87. Realize that African religions do not have a formal set of creeds. The non-western mind usually separates the dogma (Doctrine) from the practice. Help link the two together.
88. Help the learners experience a truth such as faith. Allow them to pray for something specific and have them share the answers to prayer.
89. Express the joy of the Lord as your strength!
90. Allow for the exercise of members’ imagination in drama, role-playing, and discussions.
91. Do not create motivations through competitions, but impetus through cooperations.
92. Balance the use of power, force, rationale, authority, and fear.
93. Take an interest in local customs, cultural norms, and languages.
94. Gear your teaching to people orientation more than to business as usual orientation.
95. Be careful of the dangers of dualism. For instance, western dualism tends to separate the secular from the divine. Africans tend to see life as holistic where one’s religion, work, family, culture, and tribe are all inter-related.
96. Be careful of being too utilitarian. The African mind set is ontocratic (The nature of being). Here man is viewed as a small part of the whole. He is a segment of his family, his tribe, and his nation.
97. The western mind set is hypotatic subordinating points under one main principle. Westerners like the three point outline in their sermons. Some Africans like the symbiosis of many illustrations into one unifying whole theme.
98. The western person tends to emphasize individual choice. The African tends to emphasize family, emotion, conversation, and interaction.
99. Emphasize the intersection of God’s sovereign and moral will in the wisdom will of God.
100. Teach the Bible when its convenient and when its not!
IV. Learning to Lead The Intuitional Thinking PeopleThe intuitional thinkers tend to view life first through the psychical-mystical or spiritual perspective. This mind predominating thinking is the center organ of deliberation and liberation for an intuitional thinker. He puts a great deal of emphasis on training, purifying, and instructing the mind.
When one has reached a high enough level a person is able to transcend human realities such as place, teachers, rules, experiences, and suffering. Perhaps this is one of the reason why intuitional thinking has attracted many of Africas’ educated class. It appeals to desire to attain to a knowledge that brings one to higher state of spiritual power. When an intuitionalist is able to attain mind control he is able to see the world as the gods see it. According to some intuitional thinkers the world is composed of two kinds of knowledge:
1). The knowledge of ideal soul
2). The lower knowledge of the science and the arts. Sadly, the intuitionalist believes that philosophies, theologies, and church policies come under the category of lower knowledge. In a real way the intuitionalist looks at these aspects through the eyes of suspicion. To him, logic, reasoning, and scriptural exegesis are useless mental gymnastics. The highest level that an intuitionalist seeks for is through a mystical realization of being one with the universe.
Furthermore, the higher an intuitionalist can go in linking his unconscious with the whole of the human race, the greater he becomes. It is for this reason that many intuitionalists’ cultures are most open to mystical appearances like the theophany of Melchizedek and the angels appearance to Mary and Elizabeth. There is a great concentration on the love and devotion to attain to that higher knowledge of the highest deity. As David Hesselgrave has indicated there are consequences of an intutionalist’s thinking on page 216 of Communicating Christ Cross-Culturally:
1. A stress on the universal rather than on the local
2. A preference for the negative rather than the positive
3. A minimizing of individuality and particulars and a maximizing on the whole of humanity and generalizations
4. An emphasis on the unity of all things with a stress to finding harmony in the universe
5. The static quality of the universe rather than an emphasis on change
6. A subjective comprehension of personality rather than objective analysis.
7. The supremacy of the universal self over the individual self.
8. A subservience to universals rather than an appeal to the tribal, family, or individual incentives.
9. An alienation from the objective natural world to the subjective impressions.
10. Introspection rather than looking out to external examples.
11. Tolerance and conciliatory rather than aggressive and critical.One can quickly see that there are several chief differences between the intuitional thinker and the African viewpoint.
First, the Africans’ perspective is essentially external from his context versus the internal perspective of say someone from India whose mystical views of the higher deity guide him subjectively and uniquely. It is important for leaders working with intuitional thinkers to appreciate the value of intuitive perspectives in assessing problems.
For example, when the objective realities do not provide for a correct analysis of the problem about curriculum, an intuitive sense of the needs of the church will greatly aid the choices in course contents for say a new graduate school of theology.
