11 Oct ION Africa Consultation – Lubumbashi, August 21- 25, 2018
By
DR VICTOR MADZIAKAPITA
REGIONAL DIRECTOR FOR ION AFRICA
AUGUST 28, 2018
Introduction
ION Africa in its 2018 plan included the introduction of oralityto a French Speaking Country. The desire was to do this in DRC and at that time Bunya in Eastern DRC was seen as the place to do it. Arrangements were made but the security issues did not allow the team to proceed with the plans. A request then came from Burundi for ION Africa to go there and introduce orality to Pastors. The Executive Team of Orality in Africa decided to take this as the place to introduce orality; however, it was very expensive to send the ION Africa team there. While this was going on, Oral Learners International and Organization in Lubumbashi DRC invited ION Africa to visit DRC and introduce orality. What was interesting was that though Oral Learners International had that name, they had never been introduced to orality. The ION Africa Team therefore saw that this was a good opportunity to work with this local organization and introduce orality. The team also realized that it was going to be reasonable cost-wise to do this because the team would drive to Lubumbashi DRC from Zambia. This short report therefore gives a summary on what was done in Lubumbashi.
Objective of the Consultation
The objective of the consultation was to introduce orality to Pastors in Lubumbashi, DRC to advance the Great Commission.
The ION Africa Team
A team of four people travelled to DRC and facilitated this consultation as follows:
Rev Lindani Dube – Southern Africa ION Coordinator
Pastor Collins Halwindi – Zambia National Coordinator
Flora Mooya (Lawyer) – Executive Secretary for ION Africa
Dr. Victor Madziakapita – Regional Director ION Africa
Participants
A total of 73 Pastors and Christians attended this consultation. Their details were as follows:
- 54 men, 17 women, 2 children
- 3 Bishops, 5 Reverends, 25 Pastors, 38 Church Leaders
- These participants came from 28 Different Evangelical and Pentecostal churches
- Leaders of Oral Learners International all attended the consultation
Presentations
Day 1
Dr Victor Madziakapita opened the consultation with an overview of ION presentation which gave the participants the broad understanding of what ION Africa is focusing on with emphasis on the Great Commission. In fact, the presentation started with the devotions centered on the Great Commission and that the laborers are few and the harvest is plenty. He challenged the participants that the church of today are so interested in maintaining the members they have, but very few churches are going out to evangelize to oral learners. The participants were challenged to have a church that is geared towards reaching out to those outside of the church, and when they convert, carrying out discipleship classes to equip them.
In speaking about ION, he clarified that ION was not just Storying, which many have mistaken it for. He went on to explain the other Gateways and Pathways to the team for their understanding and invited them to the consultation in South Africa which would give more details about these Gateways.
Rev. Dube started by challenging the Church on Integral Mission and Development. He emphasized the role of the Church in Gospel Proclamation and its demonstration. He gave several examples to make the participants understand what it is, and illustrated how this can be achieved and why it is so important in the Body of Christ.
Dr. Madziakapita followed with a Living Water Presentation, giving examples on how Integral mission and development is being done by LWI. This gave the participants a clear understanding of what Rev. Dube had presented. The session was concluded with a 5-minute clip from Burkina Faso.
Day 2
Flora Mooya led the devotions on entitled “Woman Distinguish Yourself.” She focused on Esther in the book of Esther; Abigail in the book of 1 Samuel 25; Priscilla in the book of 1 Corinthians 16:12, Acts 18:2, Romans 16; and Jael in the book of Judges 4. She emphasized the role of womenand what contributions they can make in the Body of Christ and in the Great Commission.
Rev. Dube then continued the session to finalize the understanding and practice of Integral Mission and development, which he did very well.
Pastor Collins presented what storying is and why it is an important evangelistic method in the Church today. He explained and demonstrated how it is done, the questions that need to be asked, etc. He told the first story from Mark 10:46-52 where Jesus healed blind Bartimaeus. He told the story three times and then asked people to volunteer and retell the story. Several participants volunteered, and he allowed several to do so with comments from others if they missed some parts. The two children who attended also had a chance to tell the story which was exciting. After several of them had told the story both in Swahili and French, he then went ahead and asked them to discuss in groups the three questions that he had. After discussions they came back and reported.He concluded the day with summarizing what they had done.
He then told another story from Mark 4:35-41 where Jesus Calms the storm. After telling it three times, he asked volunteers to tell it and they did it. The excitement of the participants at this time went up and there were many discussions that followed about the story and what it meant. The day was concluded with the summary of what was done on this day.
A meeting was held with the Oral Learners International team to discuss how to move forward. They were also challenged to choose someone to be the National Coordinator for DRC and report to us the following day.
Day 3
The story of Jesus in Mark 5: 1-20 was the focus of this day. This is the story of where Jesus met the demon possessed man and delivered him. The same storying was done and the team followed the same process. It was clear that there was good understanding of the story.
After a lot of practice and discussion on the story, Pastor Collins concluded the session.
He, however, gave the participants an opportunity to develop a plan of what they were going to do after the workshop and then present it to Bertin, the leader of Oral Learners International. They were all challenged to write their first report by the end of September and to outline what they would have done by that time.
Some discussion on the issue of “Water and the Word” that Living Water does was also discussed briefly with leaders and responses were given.
Several sessions of thanksgiving and prayer were held, and the consultation was closed.
Comments
- This was the first time we did a consultation in a different language and therefore all was interpreted, which took more time but was still fine. To cover all participants, the interpretation was done in Swahili since there were participants who were not comfortable in French.
- We thank God because of the interest, enthusiasm and passion that the participants had and it is clear that the impact of what we did will be greater than we thought originally.
- The participants wanted to know much on the membership issue. We told them that all will be finalized at the South Africa Consultation and that membership will be launched there; therefore there was need to wait till that time.
- Participants wanted the team to go there again and the team promised that someone would go there next year in August, and instead of ION Africa being the facilitator, there will be some of these guys facilitating as well.
Conclusion
Introducing ION to DRC was a great investment, and surely God will use the participants to reach out to oral learners in a big way. Since the population is high, we are sure that the Church will grow in the number of people who have decided to follow Jesus as their personal savior.
Thank you all for praying for us.
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