10 - Summary: A Window of Opportunity
2022 No 10
Now it came about after the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, that the LORD spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ servant, saying, “Moses My servant is dead; now therefore arise, cross this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, to the sons of Israel. --Joshua 1:1-2
In 2012, my wife and I were in a wonderful church in Denver, Colorado. The Lord was blessing the fellowship richly, and we were both thrilled and honored to serve as pastor and wife. As a minister in an urban context, we had always been surrounded by moving peoples. On any given Sunday, one could hear multiple languages in the hallways of our church. We had been involved in planting nearly a dozen churches, half of which were in ethnic communities. Little did we know that God was preparing us for a journey of incredible importance.
When missional leaders first approached us to do a formal study on migration, we had to take a serious pause and pray. Pastoral ministry was a full-time effort and had been for the past 30 years. Any significant academic research would undoubtedly become a distraction. If we were to take such a bold step, we needed to know it was God’s hand and that the labor could yield significant results. For us, it was a big question. But, as you can already discern, such was precisely the Lord’s plan. In the end, it is our prayer that what we are discovering holds great value for the kingdom, particularly for the transmission of the gospel.
One of the first things that became evident in this journey is that one’s perspective will most certainly direct one’s efforts. This observation is especially true when it comes to migration. If one looks through Europeans’ eyes, the masses seeking to arrive may appear to many as invaders. On the other hand, if one looks through the eyes of Africans, Europe can appear to be one’s only hope for survival. Our responsibility, however, is to see through the eyes of Christ.
As believers, we are to view things with the eyes of compassion. From a Christian perspective, every suffering soul tugs on our hearts to do everything within our power to meet their physical and spiritual needs. The challenge is that if we are not careful, we can spend all our time, effort, and resource on those with the greatest and most pressing needs. And when the day is done, very little will have been accomplished by way of gospel transmission.
We must never forget that our primary task is the transmission of the gospel. Without Christ, a wealthy man will still spend eternity separated from God. But with Christ, even those who suffer the most will have hope for eternity. (Luke 16:19-31) And here is the incredible thing… compassion ministry and gospel transmission always go together. We have historically assumed that migration opened the doors for the gospel. Today, we are beginning to understand why. And with that understanding, we can now develop strategies that focus on particular groups at particular points along their migration pathway.
Sound exciting? It is! But to go any further, I need to digress into a bit of mission history and communication theory.
Gospel Receptivity: Cognitive Shifts
Back in the late 1960s and into the early 1970s, radio ministry was a primary means of sharing the gospel in closed countries. Messages were being broadcast and often recorded on cassette tapes for clandestine distribution. Such was not an easy task! A missionary named Viggo Søgaard was a pioneer in this area and began to study how to connect the message with the intended audience. Along with communication theorist James Engel, he developed a progressive scale that helped migration strategists understand where people were on their spiritual journey.1 More than anything, it helped identify where their listeners might be on the road to salvation. Missionaries, armed with such knowledge, could better craft the gospel message.
In its day, the Engel Scale was revolutionary. It allowed missiologists to employ a means to categorize the cognitive aspects of the gospel and to begin to think about how to move people forward towards salvation.² That value is not lost today in migration studies. Points of origin, i.e., your home culture, can play a crucial role in locating a migrant on the cognitive scale. Many come from regions where information about Christianity is limited, and contact with a Christ-follower may be non-existent. Those coming from closed areas would not have the opportunity to “know” anything of Christ had they not met believers along the way or moved into places where the church has been established.
Gospel Receptivity: Affective Shifts
However, even for Søgaard and Engel, this new approach was limited.3 It was one-dimensional in that it only spoke to the cognitive aspect of receiving the gospel. The affective element was also evident and was essential for missional strategists. As one might imagine, people were in different places regarding how they “felt” about followers of Christ. Some began their journey from a position of hostility, others came from neutral contexts, and still others came from places where Christianity was widely accepted. A tool to visualize this process was necessary, and soon one of their students, Frank Gray, was able to articulate the process.
Frank Gray was a Christian communications specialist in Laos when he was first exposed to the work of Søgaard and Engel. He would later move to the United States and study under Engel at Wheaton College in 1977. There, Gray created a two-dimensional scale that examined both the cognitive and affective dimensions. His work was formally presented at a conference in Wheaton, Illinois, in 1983.4 Since then, he has continued to modify what became known as the “Gray Matrix” into a rather sophisticated model.5
In essence, one could imagine that any candidate for the gospel might be found in one of four quadrants. In quadrants one and two, they would not have enough knowledge (cognitive) to become a believer. In quadrants one and three, they would not have enough desire (affective) to follow Christ. Only by progression through both the cognitive and affective domains can they arrive in quadrant four. At that stage, they would then be in the best position to accept the gospel.
Here, we recognize that two very pragmatic things are happening among moving peoples. First, they are exposed to Christ, His church, and ultimately, His people. Who they are and what they do (God's people) as Christians often result in a positive change in how an observer (the migrant) may feel about Christ. This affective shift helps to create receptivity to the Word of God, with a consequential progression in their cognitive awareness of the gospel. And although such changes may have been possible before they left home, something about the migration journey accelerates the process.
Gospel Receptivity: Volitional Shifts
One could reasonably argue that the Gray Matrix created a revolutionary way to evaluate our missional strategy among migrants. But it still lacks a key element. That element is the dimension of volition. Knowing everything about the gospel does not equate to salvation. The demons believe, but are certainly not saved. (James 2:19) In the same way, one can have a great affection for God but not know Him personally. There is still another step that triggers the full process of redemption. (Romans 10:9-13) That is the actual choice to become a Christian.
Such became evident in Kenya as missionary Reinhold Straehler sought to reach Muslims with the gospel. When he evaluated his audience, he could clearly see that their cognition and affections were well settled in the fourth quadrant of Gray’s Matrix. The challenge was that they still had an uphill battle to make the volitional choice to follow Christ. Why? Because it would require extreme sacrifice! He observed that God had to move in their lives, often through close personal relationships with believers, before this final decision could be made.6 Consequently, Straehler developed yet a third scale to help visualize this volitional shift.
As Paul strategically and systematically shared the gospel with King Agrippa, there came the point where it is evident to both men that the cognitive and affective barriers had been crossed. (Acts 26:28) The one thing left was the element of persuasion. That would only be possible with time and perhaps a trusting relationship with other believers. We have no record of Agrippa ever coming to faith. But we do know that his primary obstacle was that of volition.
Gospel Transmission Among Moving Peoples
One may ask why we left a great church, in a great city, being incredibly blessed by the Lord? Why would we step from the many comforts of Western life to live in a distant place like Africa? And given current events, why don’t we now narrow what we are doing and focus on the migrants with the greatest needs in our world, the refugees?
Simply put, it is because the Lord has placed a window of opportunity before the church to engage over a billion moving people. One in seven are migrants of one nature or the other. They are students, commerçants, laborers, refugees, and often victims of trafficking. Despite what you might hear in the press, the majority are legal, employed, and profitable. While a minority, millions have been forcibly displaced or have become trapped in all the wrong places. Many are suffering greatly. And yet almost all of them are more receptive to the gospel than before they left home. If we can understand this reality, then perhaps the church can become more strategic and, as a result, more effective at her assigned task.
To that end, allow me to suggest three ways that the church can engage moving peoples today:
Affectively: Affective change can occur with the smallest of events. I have heard the testimony of many who tell of simply a Christian giving them some food or a bottle of water. Often it is found in acts of compassion, such as care provided during a crisis. In the early days of displacement, refugees struggle to comprehend our message. And yet, in those times, acts of compassion could significantly change their perception of Christianity. This is why compassion ministry and short-term mission trips can be so effective. Volunteers may not understand the language or the culture, but such is not necessary to express the love of Christ. The fact that they are “there” communicates much.
Cognitively: Cognitive change often follows affective change. As individuals recognize that Christians and their “book” are not “bad,” they begin to ask questions that the Word of God can only answer. It is here that the local church can play a vital role. When a fellowship makes an intentional effort to engage her community and respond to those questions, either as a function of the church or in their personal interactions, much progress is often attained. Whereas almost anyone can engage in affective strategies at almost any time, cognitive strategies require more relationships and certainly more contextual capacities.
Volitionaly: Volitional change often takes much more time. Obviously, the Holy Spirit guides all three dimensions, but it is here where His presence is most evident. For many, a decision to follow Christ will come at a great cost within their culture. As such, trusted relationships with other believers becomes critical at this stage. It is out of those relationships that the deepest obstacles to the gospel can be overcome. It is here that cultural and near culture believers become so important. Once the decision to trust Christ has taken place, then these trusted friends serve to incorporate the new believer into the fellowship.
Our goal will be to understand and explain migration from a sub-Saharan perspective in the posts that follow. If it is true that every form of migration can be found on the African continent, then perhaps what we learn can be applied to the larger field of global migration. In every post, I seek to envision the pastor, church member, or missionary prayerfully looking across their community. I want to give them something that will help them to understand their neighbors better and equip them to share the love of Christ and the hope of the gospel in a meaningful way. We will begin in the next post with a search for the principles that underly all migration.
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1 Frank Preston, "Media Strategy to Reach the Muslims in Southeast Asia" https://www.mediatomovements.org/articles/media-strategy-to-reach-the-muslims-in-southeast-asia (accessed March 14, 2022). See also Viggo Søgaard, Everything You Need to Know for a Cassette Ministry (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1975). And James F. Engel and Hugo Wilbert Norton, What's Gone Wrong with the Harvest? A Communication Strategy for the Church and World Evangelism, Contemporary Evangelical Perspectives (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Pub. House, 1975).
2 David Allen Frasier, "An “Engel Scale” for Muslim Work”," in The Gospel and Islam: A 1978 Compendium, ed. Don M McCurry (Monrovia: Missions Advanced Research and Communication Center, 1979), 164-179.
3 Viggo Søgaard, Media in Church and Mission: Communicating the Gospel (PASADENA: William Carey Library, 1993), 65. See also Vigo Søgaard, Research in Church and Mission (Pasadena: Willam Carey Library, 1996), 59.
4 The Consultation on the Church in Response to Human Need met in Wheaton, Illinois in June 1983 as the third track of a larger conference sponsored by the World Evangelical Fellowship.
5 Frank Gray, "The Gray Matrix" https://thegraymatrix.org/ (accessed March 14, 2022).
6 Reinhold Straehler, “Coming to Faith in Christ: Case Studies of Muslims in Kenya” (University of South Africa, 2009).