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Passion for Christian General Education
by Ben Hegeman
1 March 2006
Draw a circle in your mind with a horizontal line through it. Let this sphere represent the total population of any developing nation in Africa. Now guess what the midpoint age is that you would place on that line. It ought to be between 14 and 16. Think of it: half of the population of such a nation is less than 15. Now draw a vertical line from top to bottom: left is male, right is female. Two of the four quarters constitute the youth of any nation who happened to be the least indoctrinated, the most open, the least discipled and the most promising for the future. Educators repeat like a mantra: ‘the classroom of today rules the future of tomorrow’. To grasp that, you must think for the next 40 years. Who will train them so that when they reach their 50s, they will be parents of teens, elders in the community, and leaders in their profession? Answer: the government system of course. Case closed? In hasteForget it! Why is it that when children are the most receptive of all the ‘citizens’ in any nation, the strength of our missiological strategies to the nation is focused on older teens and adults--often with very hard-earned results? Jesus told us to go to a man of peace in each village; and honestly, the lads kicking a dusty football are possibly the most peaceful and receptive citizens to be found. Frankly, I do understand why we focus on older people. Our majority emphasis in missions has the invisible word ‘hurry’ written over it. Everything the West does is compelled by haste and the global mantra of ‘change.’ Who do you know who is missiologically planning ahead 40 years? In fact, which missionary do you know who is still faithfully doing the same thing today that he or she did in 1995 or in 1985? Observing evangelical missionaries, you would think the Holy Spirit’s middle name is ‘change’, or ‘post-something.’ Now ask: How does this affect reaching children? The back doorGo back to your demographic circle with four quarters (men, women, boys and girls) and lay it flat like a floor plan for an enormous round house. Where would the culture’s front doors be? The men. The side doors would be the women and the back door would be the 50% youth. The door which we should prefer as missionaries is largely determined by where we discern we will receive the best welcome. What does a man’s front door welcome to ‘foreign missionaries’ imply, if not the transactions that most men and leaders prefer, namely some kind of business cause, be it church, para-church, NGO or otherwise? And the welcome at the door of women is what? Medical care, developmental help and social counselling ministries? Yet the greatest welcome lies at the back door. Children and their parents are desperate for quality education and training of their children. Call it, in fact, the back door of any global belief, but children of all nations are the most promising field-–if (and this is the rub) if we have a long term outlook. Few of us do. Go to any mission field in Africa and easily 50% of those presently there will be gone in four years. How do you build long term with that? Even children’s programs ministries commonly last five years, maximum 10. In fact, even the ‘lifetime Bible translators’ are now accelerating to get it all done in a window of a dozen years. It is all about ‘Gospel haste,’ and it ranks amongst the most vulnerable weaknesses in western evangelical missiology. The irony is not lost on the churches in Africa. Which national denomination has not pled with their mission boards to open mission schools, only to be stonewalled? They know few missionaries still believe in opening Christian schools again and actually for good reasons: The African leaders expect—if not demand—that the missionaries carry the entire institution financially, as in the good ol’ colonial mission days. Those days when missionaries did everything from start to finish are long gone, or should be. Add to that the litany of alleged missionary failures in mission schooling and the missiological answer is to sigh and say, masada ‘never again’! One answerOnly one answer makes sense: that the churches must start the fledgling Christian schools almost ex nihilo ‘out of nothing’ and then (ideally) missionaries come along to lift their hands as they are doing so. (Here we reappear on the mission drama play.) The most critical asset in any school is not the buildings, but the staff, especially the principal. So, yes, it makes total sense to invest in them above all other ‘needs.’ This is what Canadian Jim Vreugdenhil (teacher educator) and Swiss Birgit Pini (kindergarten teacher) and I (missiologist) were doing: training over 40 Nigerien primary school teachers who are labouring in either private Christian or government schools in a nation boasting 98% Islam. It was an outstanding success—even if Jim, Brigit, and I were all wretchedly ill when it was over. The back doorSick or not, we must believe 1000% in what teacher-educator Jim Vreugdenhil is doing, even if few of us have his expertise, a teaching degree or a calling to ‘love those kiddies.’ How did I as missiologist end up here? Answer: through research in studying the most fruitful historical approaches in the Sahel of Africa, and second, my vision to make disciples through schooling. Both visions belong to each other. We were that good!Few things are more highly esteemed by older Africans than our historic success in Christian mission schooling. (Christian hospitals continue to rank equally high.) Indeed, what an irony that non-Christians recall our Christian success in education better than even the present missionary community. Picture this: Most sub-Saharan professionals would rather send their children to a dedicated Christian school over a government school. Wouldn’t you? They understand better than most Westerners that schooling is about two things: getting the best future job and ethical discipleship. In this respect, the Roman Catholics in Africa have a stellar historic reputation—unlike their present boarding school indictments in North America. In marketing language, Christian schooling is a hot item of investment to anyone but missionaries. So who disciples them?While speaking in the interior of Niger in the ancient capital of Zinder, I made the following point to an educational gathering. “There is no such thing as neutral education. Education is about careers and making disciples. Now Muslim schools are clear. They disciple children for good jobs as good Muslims. And French government schools are clear; they are the secular pagan kafir who will disciple your children to work like modern pagans. If you doubt this, look at what they believe on French TV and films! And the Lord commanded you to make disciples of your children. Do you trust either of these schools to do so? If not, should you not believe in Christian-worldview schooling?” Of greatest valueSomething of even greater value to missiologists must be recognised here. The hardest villages or quarters to reach are firmly closed to most other Christian workers: pastors, missionaries, JESUS films, gospel music drama clubs, you name them, and they have no welcome mat. Even Christian medical or development workers are invited for as long as an emergency is upon them; but not so with the teachers. Elementary school teachers are welcome long term—even desperately so! Now picture the impact of Christian evangelists ‘diplomatically training’ as school teachers by both the government and then by Christian education and then finally accepting to be posted in the most resistant communities. Helping teachers lift their basinGovernment primary teachers trained in a solid Christian worldview have the most receptive citizens at their feet, they have the parental appreciation for their arrival in their forsaken community, and they have Caesar to pick up the ‘support’-–that is, if and when the Ministry of Education pays. This is missiology at its best and for this cause I so strongly encourage ‘Christian-worldview teacher training’ in the regions of African nations. In West Africa they say, ‘if a kneeling woman lifts a large basin of water to her knees, another person will help her lift it to her head to carry.’ That is beautiful missiology: they lift, we help, and then they carry home the benefit from the water. Can we also trust on your prayer support that will be greater than the opposition that is sure to arise from this approach? As William Carey and his colleagues said; ‘We’ll go down the mines as long as you hold the ropes.’ 
 
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