Ministry in the Animist Worldview

1. Ministry in the Animist Worldview REAP Training Dr. David Sills dsills@sbts.edu www.davidsills.org

2. 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!

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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

9. General Cosmology Remote High God Living Dead Spirits (Personalized Dead) (Impersonalized Dead) Created Spirits The spirit world’s powers intervene in humanity’s normal experiences. People must appease these forces to sustain life. Intermediaries Realm of humanity and things Keith Eitel, Missiology

10. Handling Cultural Conception of Sins • Contrast moral behavior with missionary’s, noting culture’s definitions of sin • Learn rationale for culture’s moral behavior • Relate the cultural rationale to the Bible • Work with national church to see God’s def. of sin as compared with cultural definitions. • NB! Sin is not relative. God’s Word is always absolute and authoritative in every culture. From Dr. Gailyn Van Rheenen

11. 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