DAWN Fridayfax 1997 #28

DAWN News from USA and Global Conference on World Evangelism (GCOWE 97), South Africa

USA: An incredible book

Do you want to start spiritual conversations everywhere you go? You just have to carry "God's Outrageous Claims", a new book by Lee Strobel, one of the leaders of the Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago. One woman was recently flying to West Palm Beach: a Jewish couple at the airport noticed the not-yet-read book in the woman's hands and asked if they could see it. This opened up a long spiritual discussion; then, when the woman got on the airplane she sat down and was just about to begin reading the book when a stewardess asked if she could see it. This opened up another discussion, and the woman was able to share the gospel with the stewardess. Finally, when the woman arrived in West Palm Beach, she took the book with her to the poolside, hoping to finally get a chance to read it. Sure enough, several people approached her to ask her about the book. Incredible! There's no word yet on whether she actually got to read the book herself!
Source: Willow Creek Association's June newsletter, P.O. Box 3188, Barrington, IL 60011-3188, USA

GCOWE 97: Turnaround in South Africa

Pastor Ed Roebert, Senior Pastor at the Hatfield Christian Church where the Global Conference on World Evangelism (GCOWE 97) was held until 5. July, remarked how significant it is that such a strategy meeting could take place in Pretoria, which until recently had "the worst reputation in the world". "God has turned things around and will use Africa, including South Africa, as part of the missionary movement to reach the world with the gospel." Roebert, one of South Africa's best known Christian leaders, collapsed and died during the March for Jesus closing the conference on 5 July.

Great interest in national church-planting strategies

The conference was attended by around 3,800 delegates - most of them African - from 130 nations. The conference was divided into 11 tracks dealing with various topics, but the most popular by far was "National Initiatives", with 1,200 participants. According to Bob Waymire, one of the speakers, the track was aimed at helping national leaders to develop a long-term plan of cooperation based on the DAWN strategy to saturate a whole nation with active churches.

Africa: 338 million born-again Christians

Luis Bush, one of the leading figures in the AD2000 Movement, pointed out that the number of missionaries being sent out from Africa doubled between 1991 and 1995. The number doubled again in 1996. "Africa," said Bush, "is a missionary movement for the world to reckon with." At the beginning of this century, only 2% of the world's Christians were in Africa. Now, according to Bush's estimates, 338 million Africans are reborn Christians, 17% of worldwide Christianity.

The 4/14 Window

"Jesus put children in the centre, we put them in the cellar," said Johan du Preez during one of the tracks at GCOWE 97 concentrating on the evangelism of children. "How legitimate is it to concentrate on the 4/14 Window inside the 10/40 Window?" he asked. Children are important to God; they are mentioned 1,957 times in the Bible, and form one of the world's largest forgotten people groups: they number 1.8 billion, around one third of the world's population. They are also very open for the gospel: between 60% and 85% turn to Christ between the ages of 4 and 14, hence the "4/14 Window".

Benin's President invites Christian businesspeople

M. Kerekou, the president of Benin in Western Africa, invited Christian businesspeople at GCOWE 97 to get involved in creating an acceptable standard of living for Benin's population, including sensible jobs, in order to create a model which could be applied in other countries. "Even though Benin is a small country, we have the potential to influence not only our African neighbours but also the whole world for the Kingdom of God," said President Kerekou. 35 people have already accepted the invitation to travel to Benin in August to make first contact.

Music of the heart

The growth of Christian churches is strangely slow in some cultures, according to Frances van den Berg in a seminar about art in missions during GCOWE 97. "But if people are encouraged to find their own forms of musical expression instead of copying foreign concepts, the growth is often like an explosion," said Paul Neeley, a musical ethnologist. Neeley's aim is to find a people group's "music of the heart" in order to effectively win them for the gospel. The 'music of the heart', says Neeley, is normally a people group's traditional music form - music which they heard from their childhood, and instinctively even before their birth, and which thus can touch their inmost feelings. One example of this is the Akyode tribe in Eastern Ghana, which has an active tribal religion; even though there had been Christian churches and schools in the region for 50 years, only around 3% of the population attended services regularly. However, when a cassette with Bible texts and biblical songs in the traditional Akyode style was created, the reaction was phenomenal. The songs spread like wildfire. Even priests of the tribal religion, for whom it was tabu to even hear a Christian sermon, bought the cassettes themselves and played them to their colleagues. Women stayed awake late into the night to listen to the songs, and children sang the songs to accompany their song and dance games.
Source: AD2000

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