Since Grassroots has been serving in East Africa for almost 10 years, we have had to develop a way of assessing which things are our priorities. This now takes the form of a the philosophy of good practise and bad practise in Africa. This was first formed around the friendships and partnerships in our work in Tanzania, but is now being applied in Kenya & Sudan.

Background
On our first trips to Tanzania we were put under quite a bit of pressure to bring a team to do "crusades" (weeks of evangelistic preaching in a local stadium) or large pastors' conferences (where we paid for a large venue, all the expenses of the delegates and a gift of books for all those attending). We were not able (because of our level of financial support from the UK) to do these events even if we had wished. A couple of years later (after we had established our partnership with local churches in the business of serving the poorest children in their communities) we had the strange experience of having the same people (who had asked us to do crusades & conferences) come to us and tell us that they knew we were authentic Christian ministers because we were not interested in doing the events. They told us that those who went down that route were only trying to be big in their own eyes, but that as locals they had to go along with it in order to see the church built up.

In the last few months we have begun developing Grassroots' ministry into new areas and have found similar pressures. We have therefore decided to publish (here) our philosophy of ministry, so that those visiting this site can see what we are trying to do.

Briefly outlined below are a few statements of Bad & Good practise as we see them.

Bad Practise includes:

1. Funding Crusades : this is a way to self fulfil a longing to be an international evangelist. Any self respecting entrepreneur will happily help you do this. You don’t need to be any good as a preacher. Even good Christians in places like will encourage you to do it, because it can help fund their conferences/events. The real problem is that research has now discovered that these events do not increase the number of Christians in a country, not do they seem to encourage holy best practise among pastors.

2. Funding conferences : as above for Bible teachers or business trainers.

3. Allowing yourself to be obligated into doing anything in the context of the normal misunderstandings between different cultures and expectations. Often a UK agency will end up suggesting something and it will be misunderstood by indigenous leaders as meaning something else. (For example: an UK minister could suggest a mission to the rural area. This could be interpreted as the UK minister wanting to fund a pastors' conference in that rural area. In fact what was being suggested was taking a small team to bring relief supplies and share the Gospel in the outlying villages). In this context we would not go ahead with a pastors' conference, but sit down and explain the misunderstanding.

4. Funding church buildings/land in nations where the needs are massive but the already have thousands of redundant church buildings.

5. Getting involved in something where the travel costs are so high that they are disproportionate to any possible difference you could make in the country. This is called tourism. Possibly valid if it helps fund some important work, but not as the general rule.

 

Good Practise includes:

* Following the stream of the Holy Spirit to see if there is something he is calling you to do. This should be started with assessment trips where you do not offer funding for anything (except your own expenses – including a guide/interpreter etc) but rather go to see the situation as it normally is.

* In this case it would be fine to speak at a conference/event that is an indigenous initiative and therefore self funding. However the normal thing would be to go and meet people in their normal circumstances, to visit churches and community projects.

* In this situation we should then keep our eyes open for specific projects that the Lord lays on our hearts. These will normally be very local, highly focussed and where a small amount of UK funding can make a big difference to people’s lives (like our work in Tanzania or the Watu Wa Maana Street Children's Centre in Kenya). We would then tentatively put a bit of seed funding to see how they respond and develop slowly. Even if this development does not provide the situation with all that they need – ie the volunteers involved should still feel they need to be volunteers and that their tithes are necessary. External funding should just get them those things that are impossible in their own circumstances.

* Mission/Evangelism trips. For example a small team (including mostly local people & only a few foreigners) going into rural areas or a neighbouring country and sharing the gospel in words, works and wonders. The team should be mostly self funding and goes to places where the people are not believers to provide practical support and tells people about Jesus.