Idols.
John Williams saw thousands of these kinds of idols in the Society Islands as he took the gospel to the Polynesians in the early 19th century.
The worldview of the Polynesian people was based on keeping the gods from getting angry. Appease them. Appeasement often meant taking your newborn to the marae (temple) and sacrificing it. Worship was quite a messy business.
The idols played a significant role too. They ostensibly brought power.
How did a missional thinker like John Williams approach kingdom work in the idol infested Society Islands of the Pacific?
First, he learned language of the culture. Williams humbled himself and began to learn the language of the Tahitians by imitating their words. He engaged everyone around him, especially children. He would point to things, they would say the Tahitian word, and Williams would try to imitate them. Usually he would botch the pronunciation and the locals would laugh at him. But he learned. And quickly. He learned much faster than the other missionaries of his day who used a much more methodical, systematic approach.
Second, Williams did more than just preach. He preached plenty, but he also built ships, taught the locals how to build structures, taught them how to read, and how to grow crops. He helped them set up laws that were just and protected the weak. His ministry was holistic.
Third, Williams saw where God was at work and followed. Early in his ministry, he volunteered to go to the unevangelized island of Raiatea. The senior missionaries counseled against it. The move was risky. His wife was pregnant at the time. It would have been safer and easier to stay on the island of Moorea where a missions work was already established. However, Chief Tamatoa, the leader of Raiatean people [a warrior people], came over to the island asking for knowledge of this new God. Williams saw the hand of God at work and immediately followed. William's ministry among the Raiateans was a crucial component of his work in the Pacific. The Raiateans became amazing missionaries themselves.
Fourth, Williams quickly realized that he had to use local missionaries. In other words, he knew that it would be ten times more effective to have Polynesian missionaries taking the gospel to other Polynesians, than it would be for a white skinned Westerner. Plus, there were simply too many islands and too many tribes who needed to hear the gospel. Williams had to multiply himself. He focused on training and more importantly, mentoring Polynesian missionaries. The results were astounding.
All of these are powerful lessons in missional thinking. These lessons can apply to me in Roanoke and you in your context. We don't need to be overseas and working as "professional" missionaries to missional thinkers.
How are you engaging those in the culture around you? Are you learning their language?
Are you bringing about shalom in your community through your life and actions, or are you just a person of words?
Are you attentive to where God is already at work in your area? Or are you heads down and following your own program and agenda?
Are you investing yourself in training and mentoring others who may have a more effective reach into an increasingly postmodern, post-Christian culture than you?
You know, as I reflect upon the life and adventures of John Williams in the Pacific, it strikes me that Western society is not so different than the society of the 19th century Pacific islands.
Our culture has its own idols and gods that it seeks to appease. Some bow down to the idol of personal comfort and affluence. Others bow down to the idol of acceptance and popularity. Some worship the idol of scientific enlightenment. Others sacrifice their children on the altar of careers and professional success. Idols are things we worship in hopes that they will do something for us. They may not be wooden carvings any more, but they are still idols.
Do you know what the Polynesian missionaries would do? As they traveled to an island, they would carry along all of their old discarded idols with them. As they disembarked upon a new shore, they would tell the natives that idols had no power after all. They would proceed to show the natives all of their old wooden idols, and explain that they were nothing but wood and could do nothing for them. The natives would look on in astonishment to see these other Polynesians who had cast away their idols, and not been punished by the gods for it. As they recognized that their idol based worldview was false, they began to inquire about the one true God.
Reflect on that for a moment. There is another powerful lesson for those with missional eyes to see.
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