I’m sorry this report is late.  I began the trip with an emergency room visit – chest pains.  I knew the pains were not heart related, but the pain was severe enough to get it checked out before I left the country.  It turned out I had an infection of the chest wall, commonly called pleurisy.  The doctors did not ground me, so I left that afternoon for Africa.  I was not feeling well, and did not feel well the whole trip, but too many people were depending on me.  I just couldn’t bring myself to cancel the trip.
 
I arrived in Zambia and had a couple of days to rest.  This is unusual, but I could not get a seat on any later flights.  60 men and women from 10 African countries attended the five-day training event – most of these leaders were experienced church planters and in many cases were heads of church planting organizations.  In these settings I usually have to do a lot of church deconstruction to get people to see that what they have always been doing may not be Biblical.  This does not mean it is wrong, just that it will not work for church planting.  If one does what one has always done, one will get what one has always gotten.  If you want to see different results you have to do something different.  This is a hard lesson for religious people.  They feel they are right and therefore should not change.  This is a difficult attitude to address, and is a difficult attitude for most of us to change.  If what I am doing is right, then why should I change what I am doing?  Deconstructing a century of how groups have done church is not easy, and is not quickly done.  Many people get very angry in this phase of the training.  But, once they see there is a different way, a Biblical way that may work, they often embrace the rest of the training with ease.  By the end of the training most attendees are ready to get back to the field and try out the new ideas.
 
From Zambia I made my way to Cape Town, South Africa.  This training event was for those who had taken my introductory church planting training and practiced it at some level.  The purpose of this training is to help them take the lessons they have learned from experience and pass these lessons on to others – to become the Trainers of Trainers.  We also added a Developing a City Strategy element to this training.  I think most of the participants were surprised at the complexity of developing a strategy to reach a city.

My final day in South Africa found me in Johannesburg addressing 120 Christian leaders in a one-day seminar on church planting.  The concepts we practice on a daily basis around the globe are still new for most.  Simple obedience to the Word and living consistent obedient lives before our communities should be a normal part of a Christian’s life, yet many find it an extreme challenge.  To examine one’s belief system and ask the question, “Is this Biblical or is it just tradition?” is a test some are unwilling to face.  It soon becomes apparent that much of what we do as Believers, especially in our churches, has much to do with tradition, and often little to do with obedience to Scripture.
 
Making church planting simple is about stripping away the tradition and getting back to obedience to the Word.  Sometimes our traditions are so strong and so old we feel like they are Scriptural, and to put them aside feels like disobedience to the will of God.  Getting back to simple church and simple obedience to what the Bible has to say is not so simple.
 
 
 
Blessings!
 
 
 
David Watson
From Jakarta, Indonesia.
 

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