The primary purpose of this trip was to document the Baptist Medical Centre‘s 50th anniversary celebration. However, since I was traveling with Emily Peters and going through Tamale we stopped to go with missionaries Pat and Peggy Ozment on a village outreach trip. Emily is writing a story about the new work the Ozments are doing – teaching by example. I took photos to accompany the piece that will be featured in an upcoming Go West Africa magazine.
Pat Ozment has been teaching a Missiology course at the Theological Seminary in Tamale. The ideas of missions have changed drastically over the years. In the past, a white missionary would visit a village chief, ask for land, build a church on it, and preach. Now the focus is on using local church leaders to start churches in villages that don’t depend on a physical building or an officially “ordained” pastor.
Just like in the New Testament, leaders in the church are sent out to tell the story of Christ to unreached communities. They share the story with anyone who will listen and start small groups that worship and study the Scripture together in homes, under mango trees, or anywhere they can gather. Then the people in those groups (churches) share the Bible stories in their respective social circles. Eventually the leaders in those churches go to other nearby villages and continue the process.
If you look back at the New Testament this is how Christianity was spread. Paul, Barnabas, Timothy, and the gang traveled from town to town, sharing Christ’s story with whomever would listen and start house churches in those communities.
Pat has been teaching his seminary students this Biblical concept by going to villages with established churches (whether in a physical building or not) and teaching the members Bible stories which they in turn share with their unbeliever friends and families.
On Saturday, Pat had an audience of 62 believers at Shalom Baptist Church voluntarily show up to learn storying. The church has no building and meets in a school yard in Tarikpaa, a village northwest of Tamale, Ghana. He spent the morning telling them the stories of the demon possessed man that Christ freed, Phillip and the Ethiopian, and Creation to Christ – a story that summarizes the major Old Testament events that point to and lead up to Christ’s act of redemption.
It was amazing to see how enraptured the church members were with Pat’s story telling and how quickly they in turn memorized the stories. After a day of having them practice the stories and tell them to each other he left them with a “homework assignment”: go tell one of the stories to at least one person and then invite that person to church the following day.
Today, Sunday, was a rainy day; I didn’t expect many in attendance. Boy was I wrong! Shalom Baptist was there in great numbers and had brought several guests. When they were asked who actually shared a story last night, dozens of hands went up. A man and woman were randomly picked to share a testimony of their story telling experience. Both had not only shared the story but brought their listener friends to church.
Pat taught them another story during the church service. The story of the prodigal son, probably my favorite redemption story in Scripture. It is such a simple parable on the surface but when you start to analyze it you see how deep its Truth is on so many levels.
Events like this always make me take a hard look at my willingness to share Christ’s story. All Christ asks me to do is simply share the story – I don’t have to persuade listeners to accept its truth or drag them to church. Christ sent the Holy Spirit to convict them. In fact, the Holy Ghost will even help me tell the story if I’m just willing to go, greet a stranger, and open my mouth. He couldn’t have made it much easier than that.
