Crossing the "Red Line"

I never thought that Obama’s “red line” in the current Syria crisis would be a dramatic object lesson for a board governance seminar!

I was wrapping up a day-long workshop with the Board of Directors of the Nigeria Bible Translation Trust and trying to impress upon them the difference between what a board is supposed to deal with and what management should be handling. As with so many African boards (and US ones, too, for that matter) it is easy for boards to step across into management details start micro-managing operational issues ultimately reducing the effectiveness of the organization. When I explained this in a graphic PowerPoint slide, the lights came on for the board chairman when he said, “So this is like the Obama ‘red line.’ If we cross it, we can get in trouble!”

It was even more rewarding two days later, to hear another board member tell the manager of public relations that the board was no longer going to be involved in choosing new logo colors. “Now we understand that sort of decision would be crossing the line and taking on something your department is supposed to do."

It may seem like a little thing, but it’s just one example of how the subject matter of these workshops I’ve been offering have had practical application for day-to-day operations of these national ministries. Every little bit of increased efficiency is hopefully leading to greater effectiveness for the ministry  result of  these organizations.

Another good example of this was during a workshop I led a few days ago for managers and their secretaries on how to improve office work-flow. “We have so many interruptions,” one manager said. “People simply knock on our office door and then come right in regardless of what we’re doing. It’s the African way.” After discussing this a bit, we concluded that one solution was to re-position the secretaries’ desks so that they blocked easy access to the manager’s office and allowed for more chance of scheduling up future appointments for office visits.

Whether from greater efficiency or greater leadership vision, it’s exciting to hear that NBTT has started 22 new translation projects just since the beginning of the year. Considering there are over 350 languages in Nigeria with no Bible (100 of them being a priority) this signifies a significant step forward. It has been very fulfilling this past week playing a small part in these ministry results by 

leading four different management development workshops.

The Nigerians Are Coming!

Have any idea what the fifth largest missionary-sending country of the world might be?

Nigeria.

There are now more than 6,600 Nigerians serving as expat mission workers somewhere in the world. And if what I heard the past few days here in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city, is going to be true, that number will explode several times over in the next few years.

I’ve been attending and participating in a conference called “Blow The Trumpet--The World Mission Mobilization Leadership Summit.” Invited to be one of the ten speakers at the event, I’ve enjoyed getting a brand new feel for the passion and potential of Nigerians as a force in global missions. You can hardly help it when some three hundred and fifty brothers and sisters all around you surge with palpable emotion every time there is a challenge from the platform for recommitment in reaching the remaining unreached of the world.

About half the attendees are pastors of churches. The other half are mission agency leaders. Interestingly, there has been a growing gap between these two groups in recent years as mission endeavor becomes more fragmented and compartmentalized. One of the important objectives of this conference has been to bring the two back together. From the way the concluding sessions have played out with groups of leaders down on their knees at the altar in visible repentance surrounded by others laying hands on them, I believe this objective was definitely achieved.

These are the two talks I was asked to give:

The New Game-Changers in World Mission--Understanding the new dynamics changing the face of world missions and what challenges Global South leaders from Africa must face in order to engage successfully in global ministry.    

Mobilizing African Churches for Global Mission Relevance—Understanding what leads to greatest relevance in today’s global mission outreach and how African churches can effectively mobilize their members to achieve powerful mission impact.

Using my best PowerPoint skills, I tried to lay out just what it will take for the next generation of African mission workers to successfully build God’s Kingdom around the world. From the number of folks lining up afterwards for copies of my presentations, I must have been fairly successful.

Young Nigerians committing themselves to become mission
mobilizers

I also got to lead two break-out sessions on resource development for missions. These were particularly meaningful to me as I offered ideas for practical solutions on raising local support for their ministry endeavors. It even appears that several significant missions may be inviting me back again to run a two day seminar for them just on this topic.

During the three days of this “Blow the Trumpet” conference, I actually did not hear a single trumpet blown. But I’ve certainly sensed the equivalent results of people stirred to a new level of readiness for action and engagement in global missions.

So, better watch out… because the Nigerians are coming!

Reason to be Excited

Adam during a recent tech training trip to Madagascar

It’s not just because he’s my son that I’m excited.  But what is happening through the Technology Advance team of Wycliffe Associate—which now does includes my son, Adam—has got to be one of the cutting-edge, history-making stories in world missions today.

For years, Bible translation has been the passion of people we called “Wycliffe missionaries.” These faithful linguists labored away, sometime for 30 or 40 years, in some of the most difficult circumstances imaginable to transform God’s Word into a new language.

Today, however, “Wycliffe” is the label for a whole family of global organizations dedicated to translation work. One of those is Wycliffe Associates. Known for years as the agency that mobilizes volunteers to assist others doing translation work, WA now is dedicated to accelerating Bible translation using people in all sorts of new and creative ways. The Technology Advance division is the newest thrust in doing just that. Let me give a few examples:

·         In the past two years, the WA Tech Advance guys have installed more than 70 remote satellite transmitters and countless cell-phone repeater units in remote geographic areas connecting tribal villages with language consultant resources continents away.

·         Tech Advance staff, including Adam, are being deployed to equip and train “mother-tongue” translators with laptop computers and then provide training on how to use translation software such as ParaText.  Without question, the computer is the single most effective technology tool speeding the translation process, yet many grass-roots workers have never even touched one before and need patient, caring help to get started.

·         Looking for creative ways to break dependency on U.S. funds and resources, WA’s Tech Advance group has spearheaded the formation of small, profit-making companies that will help sustain local communication and language experts in the future allowing them to complete translation projects in their own country without needing outside subsidy. Eight such companies have already been started and more are on the way.

·         Currently, the Tech Advance team is in discussion with creators of proprietary commercial software that has powerful new capability to provide computer-based translation for such things as websites and textbooks. If the partnership is successful, it could revolutionize the speed at which Bible translation could get done for the remaining languages of the world that need it.      

     Every time I get to hang out with some of the WA Tech Advance guys, I learn about something new they are working on to further accelerate Bible translation. For example, Adam is currently deploying some cool new solar panel units that are more powerful, stronger, and much more portable than anything before.

     So, I want to strongly encourage you to click on this link to Adam’s own personal blog and learn more about his work with Wycliffe Associates: 

      http://keepintouchadamsblog.blogspot.com/2013/08/friends_21.html

d    And, while you’re at it… please consider joining his personal support team. There are few ministry investment opportunities out there with more multiplicative power to accelerate Bible translation than the sort of thing Adam and the WA Tech Advance Team are doing today.

Another Tech Advance staff member providing training in Nigeria

The Gray and the Black

The Gray and the Black--that’s what I decided to call the session when it was about to begin. Why? Because both of us guests—Brent Ropp and myself—were clearly the only ones in the room with silver-gray hair while the other thirty people there had jet-black hair, primarily because they were a group of young leaders who were all native Nigerians.

Meeting with Prosper Isichei, MANI's Director for the
Emerging Leaders Networki

When my friend, Prosper Isichei learned that I might have a free 12 hours in the capital city of Abuja before departing on an evening flight, he asked permission to recruit a group of his young “emerging leader” friends to gather for an informal time of learning exchange. “We would simply like to sit at your feet and learn anything from your years of leadership experience,” he claimed. Not really knowing what I was getting into, but feeling intrigued by such an open-ended request, I accepted.

What followed was about four hours of some of the most meaningful time I’ve spent in my years of ministry in Africa. With such freedom on presentation content, I prepared a PowerPoint covering eight “Life Lesson” that included such things as how to write a personal missions statement, developing a model of balanced personal growth, ministry and marriage, and the difference between being a leader and knowing how to lead. I felt that I was addressing a room full of thirsty sponges. Rarely have I experienced an interaction with 20 and 30-year olds where they hung on to every word I shared and followed up with deep, penetrating questions for personal application.

My guess is there are two reasons for such a positive reaction. One is that younger African generations tend to be regarded more as a threat by the established older leaders preventing healthy mentoring relationships from happening. A second reason is that what is often presented as leadership training tends to either be a highly academic lecture, a Bible Study sermon or some other top-down experience with little chance for interaction. Instead I paused at the end of each point to allow for plenty of personal application questions plus further insight to be shared by my colleague, Brent Ropp.

 At the end of the day, I asked for feedback about which topics were most relevant. It seemed to be a tie between balancing ministry and marriage and that of being a leader but not really knowing how to lead. The later was shared via a TED Talk video clip which was the first time any had seen such a thing. As a result, we brainstormed a bit about creating a similar TED-Talk-type ministry designed to share worthy ideas for the global mission world, something my son, Nathaniel is thinking seriously about doing. They were enthusastic about it. And, at the suggestion of returning to Nigeria with a prepared weekend seminar on balancing ministry and marriage, not only did every hand in the room go up but several seriously wanted to put their names on an advance sign-up list.

There was something amazingly refreshing for me about this one day interaction with these young men and women. It is even more fulfilling to think that some of the Life Lessons I’ve passed on to them seem to be worthy topics and truths that can help them become a generation with the capability to significantly advance God's Kingdom in their own continent and around the world.

A Retreat to Advance

Twenty-two have complete Bibles (green), fifty-three New Testaments (yellow) and forty-seven some portion of Scripture (orange.)  But the rest of the 350 languages of Nigeria do not have a single word of God’s Good News translated into their own language (red.)

 That’s why the challenge of the Nigerian Bible Translation Trust  (NBTT), the principal national translation entity in the country, is so daunting. Eclipsing the number of all other African countries in language translation needs, Nigeria actually is second in the world in terms of remaining languages that still need a Bible translation project initiated.

Since last January, NBTT has been led by a new executive director, Yakubu La’ah, a man short in height, but certainly not in vision.  Soon after stepping into his role, Yakubu contacted me asking if I could lead his new management team through another organizational development seminar similar to one I gave last year. But, this time, he decided to do something different—invite all 34 of his national staff to the first part of the workshop for purposes of restoring a new sense of excitement and commitment in their ministry task.

When I arrived in Jos, Nigeria, where NBTT is located, I learned that Yakubu had decided to move the workshop an hour out of town to a beautiful retreat center on the grounds of an MK school built by SIM missionaries back the early 1900’s. As the staff arrived, I learned that this was the first time in over twenty years that NBTT had offered such a retreat. That made it a double privilege for me to be the facilitator of the event and lead them in an animated review of their vision, mission and values.

The second part of the weekend involved a focused time with the new five-man NBTT management team going over basic leadership principles of strategic planning, organizing, teambuilding and accountability. Because this was the first time for several of them to be managers, they were intently interested to know exactly how to apply each of the topics discussed. It was particularly exciting for me to see that part of the motivation they had for ramping up their leadership efforts was a new commitment to advance Vision 2025--an attempt to initiate a translation project for all the remaining language of the world that need it. 

One evening, I decided to show the classic movie, Apollo 13, as an example of how to lead in a crisis situation.  It was so cool seeing how the team really connected the dots from our workshop and pulled out so many great lessons from the film.

If somehow affirmation is proportional to the brightness of the appreciation gift, the orange caftan I received at the end of the workshop has certainly made me feel that my weekend contribution toward helping NBTT accelerate Bible translation in Nigeria has definitely been worth it!

Madagascar's Explosive Growth

Church Planters equipped with GPS units

One of the more fascinating reports I heard at the recent MANI conference I attended in Nairobi was on mission outreach currently happening in Madagascar.  Off the coast of southeastern Africa, Madagascar is the fourth largest island of the world, about the size of the state of Texas.  It’s also one of the more unreached areas of the continent, especially in the rain forest area which dominates the entire eastern seaboard of the island.

Villages in the Madagascan rain forest now identified
for church-planting outreach

Sharing all this with me at the conference was Dinah Ratsimbajona, Director of the Islands Mission and also MANI Regional Coordinator for the Island countries of the Indian Ocean. He claims his mission has seen explosive growth in new churches thanks to an aggressive strategy called CPM (Church Planting Movements.)  Three generations of trained national workers, 480 in all, have been deployed with GPS satellite receivers to map out where unchurched villages are located in the forest. Then, using the CPM strategy to seek out the “man of peace” in each village and initiate a Discovery Bible Study in his home, the workers have successfully started over 2000 churches in just 20 years!

Twelve-year old boy already a veteran church-planter

One of the amazing stories Dinah shared is that his third generation of church planters includes a young boy only 12 years old.  This lad has actually been the key to getting three different Bible study groups initiated, all which are on their way to becoming house-churches.

There are most likely over 15,000 villages in the rain forest, most of which are not even known to the government. “The GPS information our church planters have gathered on the villages have actually given us better data than any of the authorities have to date,” Dinah said. “Now, our plan is to expand to both northern and southern regions of the rain forest where there is still much work to be done.

Island Mission has benefited extensively from the help of both Mission Aviation Fellowship and Hellimission, a Swiss helicopter mission, that have tranported church planters from the capital of Antananarivo to remote areas in the rain forest.

What an encouragement it is to learn about an indigenous ministry like this one that is making significant progress in advancing God’s Kingdom in the mission fields found right in its

own country.

On-going Movement

During the closing days of the of the AD2000 & Beyond Movement in 1999, veteran New Zealand missionary, Ross Campbell, gathered a cross-continental team of aspiring African leaders and together committed themselves to continue encouraging African mission outreach.  That commitment became a new movement by the name of MANI. Now, fourteen years later, MANI is a mature, proven network of outstanding contemporary African leaders honing their strategy to catalyze a new generation of African mission endeavor.

Why all this interest in MANI? Because I’ve been invited to participate in MANI’s three day leadership forum held here in Nairobi, Kenya. Using the facilities of a Catholic guest house in a quiet, wooded area outside of town, our team of 30-some folks are engaged in back-to-back meetings from 7:00 AM till 9:00 PM at night. Reuben Ezemadu, a key Nigerian mission statesman and long-time friend, is the continental coordinator leading our sessions. He has each day focused on a different theme: 1) leadership transitions,    2) ministry focus and 3) strengthening partnerships.

As I listened to the first full day of regional reports, I was given a strong reminder that Africa’s demographics is a lot more diverse than I usually think. Leaders from West, Central and East Africa may look alike because of similar Bantu heritage, but when you add in an Ethiopian from the upper Nile, a Dutch Afrikaner for South Africa, an islander from Madagascar and even a Chinese-background citizen of Mauritius, I have to remember that all these folk have equal right to call Africa their home continent.

With this richness of perspective, I am anxious to see how these three days will unfold and look forward to learning how this team of men and women are helping to promote MANI’s three key objectives: 

1. To Catalyze an African Mission’s Movement
2. To Redefine the African Mission Field
3. To Mobilize an African Mission Force.

Stay tuned for some follow-up reports. I’m sure there will be some neat things to pass along about what God is doing through this important network called MANI.