In Ethiopia, Protestant churches are the next largest to Orthodox churches. Protestant Christianity is often associated with western mission aids because the people who introduced Protestant Christianity were from the western countries. Although there are some churches in Ethiopia who have partner churches in the west who support their urban and rural integrated ministries, the majority of protestant churches are indigenous and support themselves. The holistic ministry approach is not common among the majority of Evangelical and Protestant churches in Ethiopia but salvation is the majority\u2019s primary mission focus. Thus believing communities are good at looking after their fellow believer\u2019s physical and social needs but often less involved in the lives of others outside their Christian community. In addition, protestant churches often face rejection and physical abuse by Muslims and Orthodox Christians when sharing their faith, which makes feel other-worldly. As a country under dictatorial regime, we are also very much divided socially and politically, which also affects how we live and love our neighbors.<\/p>\n
It is with this cultural background I read Donald E. Miller\u2019s and Tetsunao Yamamori\u2019s book on Global Pentecostalism: The New Face of Christian Social Engagement<\/em>, which depicts compelling stories of God\u2019s work from churches in the developing counties that are involved in significant social ministry in their respective communities. Miller and Yamamori tell their readers that in their study they intentionally excluded Pentecostal and Charismatic churches who have aligned themselves with right-wing repressive governments, who exclusively focus on healing or \u201chealth and wealth\u201d and who emphasize conversion as their only mission to the community (pg. 2). Instead, their research focuses on churches that seek to balance between evangelism and social ministry, which the author call them Progressive Pentecostals<\/em>. Miller and Yamamori define Progressive Pentecostals as \u201cChristians who claim to be inspired by the Holy Spirit and the life of Jesus and see to holistically address the spiritual, physical, and social needs of people in their community\u201d (pg. 2).<\/p>\n Miller\u2019s and Yamamori\u2019s definition of Protestantism poses challenging thoughts to many churches in my country who emphasize conversion as their primary mandate from God. Many protestant churches in Ethiopia have no big difference in terms of their worship styles and how they practice spiritual gifts, but their biggest challenge is how they view their place in the society. Poverty and lack of solid discipleship created an opportunity for TV evangelists to propagate the \u201cProsperity Gospel of health and wealth.\u201d As a result churches \u201cToo frequently they put most of their energy into producing crusades, tent revivals, and healing meetings and have little time left for addressing the practical social needs of members of their local community\u201d (pg.31). How can we possibly bring about social change if we do not take time to listen and connect with the very people we are called to serve?<\/p>\n Miller and Yamamori share excellent examples of two prominent leaders in our time: Florence Muindi\u2019s work among poor village in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Maggie Gobran\u2019s remarkable program for impoverished children and youth in the slums of Cairo. Their stories are very remarkable. These two women left behind their affluent lifestyles to serve the poorest of poor. I was struck by Muindi\u2019s theologies when she says, \u201c\u2018 We are the hands of Jesus Chris.\u2019\u201d(pg.40). In the same ways, Maggie \u201cunderstood that the way to touch Jesus is by ministering to the poor\u201d (p.57). In the faith tradition I come from, people go to church on Sundays to be touched through worship and prayer which is a good thing, but they often leave the church unprepared how to encounter Jesus in everyday life for the rest of their week. Christianity becomes simply a part of their lives\u2019 routine, they come to church and dance in worship and go home. The prayers, songs and preaching is mostly all about us, we hardly pray eyes to see and ears to hear. So, I continue to think deeper about what it takes churches in my community to learn how to balance evangelism and serving the poor. What is that motivates believes\u2019 in my church for services? We need to remember Jesus\u2019 simply and straightforward command\u2014Love your God with all your heart, soul and strength and love your neighbors as yourselves .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In Ethiopia, Protestant churches are the next largest to Orthodox churches. Protestant Christianity is often associated with western mission aids because the people who introduced Protestant Christianity were from the western countries. Although there are some churches in Ethiopia who have partner churches in the west who support their urban and rural integrated ministries, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[531],"class_list":["post-2652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-milleryamamori","cohort-lgp4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2652"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2654,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2652\/revisions\/2654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}