‘Does God’s Spirit tell us who caused a person to die?’ the pastor asked. Another wondered: ‘if we fast and pray will God show us why a person got sick?’ Such questions dominated the Q&A session among a group of evangelical pastors in PNG in May and illustrate the confusion in the churches.
Before Christianity came to the Western Province of PNG in the 1950s, families and tribes were often in bitter disputes, blaming each other for causing death and disease, taking revenge and eating their dead enemies. Though the gospel radically changed things, there is huge slip in the churches back into a culture of blame and revenge.
Christianised animism
After someone dies, a family will gather to decide who is to blame. Just before I arrived in PNG, at the end of April, a senior pastor had taken part in such a discussion with his family following the passing of his elderly believing mother – though he later repented. To add to the confusion much of the animistic thinking has been ‘Christianised’. ‘Prayer warriors’ will go into the bush to fast and pray and, for a fee, tell families who the Holy Spirit says is guilty of causing a person to be sick or to die.
Another factor in the state of the church in PNG is the impact of false teaching. It was sobering to hear of an evangelical pastor who has become a false teacher and, like others before him, drawn many members away from the truth to a prosperity gospel which combines Old Testament ritual practice, the spirits of the dead and the name of Jesus!
At the heart of the problem is a lack of clear Bible teaching in the churches. As a result of the partnership between Cuckfield Baptist Church and Rosie Crowter, who serves in PNG with UFM worldwide, I had been asked to lead a preaching workshop for pastors and Bible teachers from across the North Fly district. Over 170 attended and many had walked 80km to be there. It was also encouraging to see some who attended the previous workshop I led in 2013.
Common language
We worked slowly through the Pray Prepare Preach (PPP) method of looking at different passages in Mark’s Gospel to see how the book unfolds as well as seeing how to preach different parts such as parables and miracles. This method has been developed for exactly this kind of situation and it was really exciting to see how well it connected with them and that they felt able to use it. The PPP series now contains eight titles, the Bible including Teaching and Teaching Acts, both published this summer, and many titles have been translated into other languages. Across PNG over 800 different languages are spoken and so the workshop was in English, the only common language among the 16 different languages spoken by those who attended!
Many admitted that they were not used to studying a passage before preaching and indeed, with little education, basic comprehension skills were limited. Sometimes walking through the story with a basic drama helped to communicate the story and open the way for better understanding of the point of the passage. The workshop lasted for five and a half days and, despite the long hot days, attention was remarkably high. It was good to hear pastors talk about new skills they had learned which they would be employing. Each person who attended was given a copy of Preaching Mark by Phil Crowter (the first book written in the PPP series) and they were encouraged to meet in local Preaching Groups.
Too comfortable?
Many were challenged through their exposure to the Bible during the week to see areas of sin, or false teaching – particularly in respect to the person and work of the Holy Spirit.
The need in PNG is great. Many want to learn and be mentored in biblical patterns of living and teaching, but who will go?
Coming back to the UK, I was not only burdened by the needs in PNG but challenged about our blind spots. Evangelical churches in the UK may not be openly mixing the gospel with magic or prosperity teaching, but living for two weeks in the rain forest makes you realise how driven we are by comfort, possessions and money. Is that why so few offer to go to the other side of the world for Jesus?
