By sensitively and carefully relating to local authorities, including non-Christian religious figures, workers gain respect and good standing in their host community. Those who are intentional about choosing their relationships with local leaders are more likely to be fruitful.
Christian workers often give little thought to how they, or the new group of believers they hope to start, will relate to existing authority structures. For this reason, local churches can find themselves in unintentional competition with key people in their community. However, many of the fruitful workers involved in our study consciously sought to respectfully engage local leaders. One way was to invite local leaders to participate in their projects:
One of the elders of the community works in the literacy [section of our NGO], and he’s learned to read. And he’s been working there for many years. He’s been watching the lives of the believers who are working there (GTFP, Interview 72, 2007).
The result of this attempt to respect local authority is a wonderful snapshot of the way that fruitful practices are usually experienced—in combination. In this case we see two fruitful practices, relating to local leaders and prayer, working together:
One of the things the workers at our NGO do every morning, at the beginning of their morning, is the whole team prays together. And they have a flip chart, a paper flip chart on which they write down the prayer requests. And every morning, they pray for those requests, and they add any new ones and strike through any that have been answered. … this is of course, totally outside the experience of this … Muslim gentleman. This idea of really praying for things and really expecting God to intervene in at least some cases. It was then he considered, began looking at all the flipped pages, looking over all of the prayer requests that had been answered, he realized, “These people… these are the ones God is listening to. It’s their prayers in Christ’s name that are being answered. Our people’s prayers are rarely answered. The truth is with Jesus” (ibid).
The village elder in the story went on to lead his whole family to Christ and help start several groups of Muslim background believers in the area.
Another way that workers fruitfully reach out to local holders of power is by intentionally engaging them in their religious context. One team, a mixture of local MBBs and foreign expatriates, held Bible discussions at the neighbourhood mosque, under the authority of the local shaykh. Later, when the potential for trouble arose:
The shaykh himself stood up and said, “No, if these people were trying to [destroy Islam], I would have stopped them.” And so he was actually was defending and promoting what was going on there. [Because of this,] the local people have been released to express following Christ entirely in their own way as long as it lines up with Scripture (GTFP, Interview 52, 2007).
Our research clearly showed that when workers intentionally engage local authorities in different ways—sometimes personally, sometimes through their work, sometimes religiously—it bears lasting spiritual fruit.
All the Fruitful Practices related to Society:
Society 1: Fruitful workers communicate respect by behaving in culturally appropriate ways.
A worker’s attitude toward the host culture sends powerful messages. Fruitful workers behave in culturally appropriate ways in major cultural domains such as clothing and food, and especially in regards to hospitality. The key is sensitivity to the local setting, not necessarily whole-hearted adoption of local practice.
Good deeds often help workers gain a good reputation in the host community. Fruitful workers make clear that their good deeds are an expression of the gospel; otherwise, local people may assume that the worker is simply a good person or is trying to earn religious merit.
Society 3: Fruitful workers relate to people in ways that respect gender roles in the local culture.
Gender roles, and the taboos associated with them, are potent issues in the Muslim world. While maintaining a biblical perspective on these issues, fruitful workers strive to understand gender roles in their local context and demonstrate respect for these social norms.
Society 4: Fruitful workers mobilize extensive, intentional, and focused prayer.
Fruitful workers invite others to join them through committed intercession for themselves and the people they are engaging. They recognize that this can be as important as inviting people to join the team that lives in the host culture.
Society 5: Fruitful workers pursue language proficiency
Workers who are able to freely and clearly communicate in their host language(s) are much more likely to be fruitful. Fruitful workers carefully consider questions concerning language choice, such as whether to use heart or trade language, sacred or secular language. By learning language, they also gain a deeper understanding of culture, making language proficiency fruitful across a number of different dimensions.
Fruitful ministry is shaped by many different streams of information, including ethnography, linguistics, and history. Workers who conduct research or actively reflect on the research of others are more fruitful than those who base their ministries on preconceived ideas or the patterns of ministry in their sending countries.
Society 7: Fruitful workers build positive relationships with local leaders
By sensitively and carefully relating to local authorities, including non-Christian religious figures, workers gain respect and good standing in their host community. Those who are intentional about choosing their relationships with local leaders are more likely to be fruitful.