{"id":179,"date":"2014-01-31T10:27:36","date_gmt":"2014-01-31T18:27:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/kirk-rogers\/?p=179"},"modified":"2014-02-14T10:07:44","modified_gmt":"2014-02-14T18:07:44","slug":"church-building-for-the-landuma-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/kirk-rogers\/2014\/01\/31\/church-building-for-the-landuma-church\/","title":{"rendered":"CHURCH BUILDING FOR THE LANDUMA CHURCH"},"content":{"rendered":"

History<\/span><\/h4>\n

Over the history of the Landuma church, Sunday worship meetings have been held in various places. At first, we met with the 2 initial believers in a missionary\u2019s yard, office, or porch. The village leadership had made it clear that they had loaned us the land for us to live on, and that is where our missionary work was to take place, including worship meetings. \u201cThe village is for our religion. You can practice yours on your land,\u201d the chief told us.<\/p>\n

A foreigners\u2019 religion<\/span><\/h4>\n

The general attitude in our region of Guinea is that Christianity is the foreigners\u2019 religion, while Is-m is the religion of the Africans. But we know that the Gospel of salvation in Jesus is for all people everywhere, regardless of their racial, ethnic or religious background. Confining our Christian worship to the land where the foreigners live is likely to reinforce the incorrect stereotype. So we were eager to get the worship meetings into the village whenever possible.<\/p>\n

Changing attitudes<\/span><\/h4>\n

In time the old chief died, and a new one was serving in his place, who happened to be the brother of one of the believers. We decided to try meeting in the village for Sunday worship. We did that a few times, either in the yard of one of the believers, or in the literacy classroom building, which was next to the house of the other believer.<\/p>\n

But it was not to last. Before long the chief told his brother that he would like us to resume meeting at the missionaries\u2019 place. He said he personally didn\u2019t mind us worshiping in the village, but he was getting a lot of pressure from folks. They were saying things like, \u201cThe former chief was a bad dude in many ways. But he never let the foreigners\u2019 religion into the village like you are doing!\u201d<\/p>\n

So we resumed hold our worship meetings on the missionaries\u2019 land.<\/p>\n

A few years later, seemingly out of the blue, the chief asked his brother, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you Christians worship here in the village? You could use the literacy building.\u201d Oh, yeah, right! Why didn’t we think of that?<\/p>\n

The chief even made a rule that the village was not to disturb us while we were having our worship meeting on Sunday mornings. Wow. A very welcome change of attitude!<\/p>\n

A change of venue needed<\/span><\/h4>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Sunday worship in the worn out literacy building<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, the very simple, rustic literacy building is deteriorating, and the chickens and goats wander in and out freely, leaving their \u201cpresents\u201d by their presence, and rendering the place less than suitable for worship.
\nJust about the time we missionaries began discussing the problem among ourselves, and what, if anything, should be done, the believers told us they were unhappy about worshiping there, and wanted to discuss what we should do.<\/p>\n

After much deliberation and prayer for guidance, the decision was made to build a church building. The church has purchased a bunch of locally made bricks, and, with the help of the village leaders, selected a spot of land.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Masalu and helpers load church building bricks onto trailer for hauling to village<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Red tape<\/span><\/h4>\n

This is the first church building in our administrative district, so everyone wants to be sure everything is done as it should be. Land disputes are common in Guinea, so getting the right paperwork signed by the right people is critical. But this takes a lot of time and a lot of effort. Currently the believers are busy getting the proper permissions from the powers that be.<\/p>\n

No \u201cchurches\u201d found in the Bible<\/span><\/h4>\n

We don\u2019t find \u201cchurch buildings\u201d per se in the New Testament, and we know they are not necessary to the process of church planting in some contexts. However, in many situations a church building gives a measure of legitimacy to the church, reducing barriers to the Gospel, causing unbelievers to take more notice of the fact that there are Jesus people among them.<\/p>\n

Also, though the believers know that bricks are just bricks, and they don\u2019t need a building to be a church, having a nice place to worship is encouraging to them. It provides tangible, visible evidence that they are really a part of something significant and lasting.<\/p>\n

    \n
  • PRAISE THE LORD<\/span> that the Landuma church has made it this far toward acceptance as a legitimate religious presence in the village.<\/li>\n
  • PRAY<\/span> that God would help Masalu and Abulay to get all the required paperwork done soon so the Landuma church in our village will be able to move forward in the building of a place of worship.<\/li>\n
  • PRAY<\/span> that construction would begin soon and the building completed quickly.<\/li>\n
  • PRAY<\/span> that the new place of worship would be used by God to encourage the believers, and that the believers will use the facility to build bridges to reach the unsaved and reduce their reluctance to consider the message of the Gospel.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    History Over the history of the Landuma church, Sunday worship meetings have been held in various places. At first, we met with the 2 initial believers in a missionary\u2019s yard, office, or porch. The village leadership had made it clear that they had loaned us the land for us to live on, and that is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[5949],"class_list":{"0":"post-179","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ministry","7":"tag-landuma-church-building","8":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/kirk-rogers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/kirk-rogers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/kirk-rogers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/kirk-rogers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/118"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/kirk-rogers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/kirk-rogers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/kirk-rogers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/kirk-rogers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/kirk-rogers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}