Ministry in the Animist Worldview

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Ministry in the Animist Worldview

• REAP Training
• Dr. David Sills
• dsills_at_sbts.edu
• www.davidsills.org

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Learn the Worldview

• While a group may be observed to be animistic,
  take care to learn their specific and particular
  manifestation of it.
• Worldviews must be found out since members are
  ignorant of their peculiarities. They think
  everyone sees life their way.
• Worldviews are best seen during times of crisis
  transition, thru proverbs myths, by contrasting
  their way with your own, and by analyzing how
  language is organized. Enter as a Learner!

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Receptivity

• Animists remain one of the most open of all
  worldviews to Evangelical Christianity
• They live in fear of magic, witchcraft,
  ancestors, and spirits
• They fear societal disharmony
• Tribal worldviews are inadequate to explain the
  modern technological world
• Animism is typically amoral. The spirits and
  powers are morally ambivalent.
• Dr. Gailyn Van Rheenen

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Bridges

• Stress the sovereignty of God over the spirit
  world -- and all creation.
• A power encounter is a spiritual encounter that
  exposes and calls to account the powers of
  darkness in their varied forms by the power of
  God for the purpose of revealing the identity of
  the one True God resulting in an acknowledgment
  of and/or allegiance to His lordship by those
  present. Timothy Kamps

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Change in Animistic Societies

• Takes place during a time of tension and cultural
  disequilibrium
• Is complex and takes place on different levels
• The issue of sovereignty and allegiance is at the
  core of cultural change
• Is a process that is continuous
• Christian missionaries are most effective when
  they can see cultures from a metacultural
  perspective.

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Caution!

• Take care to avoid syncretism by learning the
  local religions and their significance.
• Beware of accommodation practices.
• Know the culture well enough to recognize what is
  cultural and what is a remnant.
• Present Christ and Christianity in culturally
  appropriate ways or you will be adding offense to
  the gospel and making it appear to be the
  foreigners religion.

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Conversion

• Animists live oral-based lives in community of
  relational groups.
• Individualistic thought forms and personal,
  private decisions are diametrically opposite.
• Everyone, including the powers that be, are
  interconnected with the universal harmony.
• Group decisions and conversions are most common
  in animistic cultures.

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Common Characteristics of Traditional Religions

• General Cosmology
• Concept of Time
• High God Concept
• The Spirit World
• Specific intermediaries within the culture to
  broker between the unseen world and visible
  realities

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General Cosmology
Remote High God
Living Dead Spirits (Personalized
Dead) (Impersonalized Dead) Created Spirits
The spirit worlds powers intervene in humanitys
normal experiences. People must appease these
forces to sustain life.
Intermediaries
Realm of humanity and things
Keith Eitel, Missiology
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Handling Cultural Conception of Sins

• Contrast moral behavior with missionarys, noting
  cultures definitions of sin
• Learn rationale for cultures moral behavior
• Relate the cultural rationale to the Bible
• Work with national church to see Gods def. of
  sin as compared with cultural definitions.
• NB! Sin is not relative. Gods Word is always
  absolute and authoritative in every culture.
• From Dr. Gailyn Van Rheenen

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Principles for Evangelism

• Know what you believe
• Start where the hearer is
• Cover with prayer
• Have a spirit of humility
• Be willing to listen
• Be prepared for the evil one to fight back