A survey of near-culture church planters
Fruitful Near-Culture Workers Use a Variety of Ministry Methods
The near-culture workers we interviewed personified one of our Fruitful Practice statements in the area of communication methods: “Fruitful workers use a variety of approaches in sharing the gospel.”
All of those we interviewed were skilled at selecting which of various approaches would be best for each situation. Also, we found it interesting that none of the interviews specifically mentioned any of the methods which are making the rounds among Western agencies for sharing Jesus with Muslims (e.g., Camel method, T4T, Any3, Discovery Bible Studies, Simply the Story, etc.).
It is likely that at least some of them were using one or more of those methods or were aware of these methods, but none felt any of these important enough to mention by name. And while some interviews mentioned activities that sounded similar to these well-known methodologies, we cannot be sure whether they had been taught the methods mentioned here or simply discovered them on their own.
What was clear, however, was that these workers did not feel it necessary, or even beneficial, to use only one method when sharing the gospel. No one directly said, “I use different methods at different times.” Instead, they described their ministry in terms like this: “No I don’t have really a plan how to preach the gospel. It depends on the circumstances and the people, and the place, and what he knows about his religion.” Another person said, “And also how to reach people through the Qur’an as well, which is one of the methods that we focus on here. It’s one of the methods, it’s not the method.”
The workers clearly felt the need to be …
